ION Research and Workshop

Project Overview:
When a group of organizations agrees to work collectively on a common goal or opportunity, they form an entity know by many names—coalition, collaborative, network, consortium, joint venture, or something similar. Here at Valley Vision, we call them Inter-organizational Networks, or IONs for short. Some IONs enjoy resounding successes, while others fail to accomplish their goals and objectives. What makes the difference? While some academic and business research has been conducted to answer this question, there are no clear-cut answers. Here at Valley Vision, we have direct experience in creating and managing successful IONs – about 10 to 12 per year. In a sense, we serve as a living laboratory, generating knowledge and positive strategies and techniques about what structures, skills, and systems are needed to ensure success. Our research team is conducting multiple case studies of both functional and dysfunctional IONs to understand the determinants of success and failure. The results of this research will be distributed in reports as well as a series of interactive and experiential workshops we’ve begun to call The Collab Lab.

Key Deliverables:

• Case study research that uncovers the success factors of productive IONs functioning in the Capital Region
• A research report the describes in detail the method and findings of the research study
• A series of articles that discuss the research and results
• A series of interactive workshops—the Collab Lab—that educate participants on the critical success factors of collaborative efforts, and how to build these into practicing IONs

Time Line :
Project Commences: March 2011
Research Completion: June 2012
Collab Lab Workshops: commence July 2012 and onducted as scheduled throughout the year
Research Report: published July 2012
Various Articles: published throughout the second half of 2012 and beyond

Sponsoring Organizations (alphabetical order):
The California Endowment
Sierra Health Foundation
Sutter Health Sacramento Sierra Region

Resources:
ION White Paper

Contact:
For information about this project please contact Dale Ainsworth.