This research will help avoid catastrophic ?disconnects? in virtual organizations, promote valuable ?connects? among the stakeholders, and advance integrative theory in the emerging field of virtual socio-technical systems. Many complex socio-technical systems are virtual ?meta organizations? comprised of multiple stakeholders. The central challenge facing these systems is the alignment of stakeholders sufficient to enable regular operations and support periodic transformation. Stakeholder misalignment causes these systems to fall short of their potential and may result in catastrophic failures such as the response to Hurricane Katrina.
This research develops tools and methods which will be used to advance ?lateral alignment? of stakeholders theory by enabling transparent data collection. These tools and methods will also be of practical value in fostering stakeholder alignment. Web-based tools and methods for identifying behavioral, structural and cultural alignment or misalignment among stakeholders will be developed, allowing stakeholders to visualize their interrelationships and to anticipate and address threats and opportunities. The efficacy of these tools and methods and the value of lateral alignment of stakeholders theory will be tested on four pilot cases, representing a range of research, educational, and industry partnerships.
Every day we rely upon complex socio-technical systems such as the air, water and ground transportation systems, the power grid, and health care delivery systems. Many of these require cooperation or partnerships among several different organizations and agencies. These partnerships depend on stakeholder alignment to operate effectively. Providing tools to identify and address stakeholder misalignments could potentially transform the creation and management of these systems and help avoid future catastrophes.
Principal Investigator: Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld Date: August 30, 2012 In the 21st Century, socio-technical systems associated with energy, transportation, biomedicine, STEM innovation, and other domains are challenged in two central ways. First, the inherited 20th Century institutional arrangements among stakeholders fall short of their potential for mitigating catastrophic systems failures. Second, these institutional arrangements are also limited in identifying and pursuing mutual gains ("expanding the pie") at the level of the entire system. This project, focused on stakeholder alignment in socio-technical systems, has advanced core theory and field methods that will better enable stakeholders to work together in mitigating system-level risk and advancing both individual and collective interests. The broad aim is to facilitate the development of societal institutions that better map onto the socio-technical systems. The project has built on an earlier study of stakeholder alignment with respect to aircraft noise and emissions, which included the development of the following definition of stakeholder alignment in complex systems: The extent to which interdependent stakeholders orient and connect with one another to advance their separate and shared interests. This prior work also distinguished aspects of stakeholder alignment or misalignment that are behavioral (communications, trust, information sharing, decision making) from structural and strategic aspects of alignment or misalignment (forums, incentives, strategic intent) and cultural alignment or misalignment (core values and assumptions). Building on this foundation, this project featured the development of three case studies in three important domains (energy, biomedicine, and community STEM innovation), each of which represented a different configuration of stakeholders. These were as follows: Type 1: Emergent multi-stakeholder initiative Community Green Energy Initiative (50+ highly heterogeneous stakeholders) -- 36 stakeholders interviewed Type 2: Federation of affiliated stakeholders U.S. Network of Fab Labs (50+ relatively homogeneous stakeholders) -- 78 stakeholders interviewed Type 3: Formal public-private consortium FNIH Biomarkers Consortium (8 types of stakeholders; dozens of entities/organizations within each stakeholder type) 36 stakeholders interviewed New methods for identifying and representing stakeholder views on key interests were developed through this project, which have the potential to qualify for one or more U.S. patents – a provisional patent application has been filed by the University of Illinois. Additional outcomes from the project include: Generation of three case studies documenting stakeholder alignment in community green energy, biomedicine, and regional STEM innovation. Development and submission of a white paper to the NSF’s Directorate on Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) identifying the systems level of analysis as essential for the future of scholarship in this domain, with two additional scholarly papers in development and others anticipated. Fourteen public presentations to practitioner/policy maker and scholarly conferences and events, including application of the new methods in support of an NSF Clean Energy Education workshop and a summit on food and energy led by GE and the University of Illinois. An article that is under review with Nature Biotechnology. As case studies, this research has served to generate and, in some cases, test propositions and provide preliminary application examples of the new methods for representing stakeholder views. One doctoral dissertation is focused on the ways that stakeholders interact with and use stakeholder alignment data and other graduate students developed interview data collection skills. The three case studies are in the final stages of stakeholder review and input. It is anticipated that these studies and the associated theory development will be useful contributions to the scholarly literature and will serve as what are termed "boundary objects" that facilitate constructive stakeholder dialogue and action in each of these socio-technical systems. Additional scholarly articles are in development.