Collaboration

Perhaps collaboration is the same as engagement.

• it is interchangeable with cooperation {Huxham, 1993} and means "something to do with working together". Huxham introduces the concept of "collaborative advantage" to solve problems together
  
• "strong collaborative relationships go hand in hand with good project performance" {NAO, 2006}

Shaffer {Schaffer, 2002: 55} indicates that under the traditional consulting paradigm, consultants do not agree to collaborate. That sounds like avoiding engagement, and engagement is the same as collaboration.

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HUXHAM, C. (1993) Pursuing Collaborative Advantage. The Journal of the Operational Research Society, 44, 599-611.
NAO (2006) Good governance: Measuring Success Through Collaborative Working Relationships. National Audit Office.
SCHAFFER, R. H. (2002) High Impact Consulting, Jossey-Bass.

Involvement

How does involvement differ from engagement?

• involvement often refers to user participation in a systems development process
  
• is distinguished from participation, being a separate construct that refers to a psychological state (Barki, 1989 : 53)
• is an intervening variable between user participation and system use (Hartwick, 1994) (which seems a bit like engagement being the intermediate variable between website drivers and consumer behaviour in Mollen's MRes dissertation)
• job involvement has to do with self image and how employees employ themselves in the performance of their job (Saks, 2006: 602)
• managers can be "a priori involved" or "inquiry involved" (Swanson, 1974) depending on whether they make queries about using a system or whether they initiate changes. Activities that make a change possible sound a bit like engagement to me.
• "working with others to get things done" {Axelrod, 2004 :xi} written after Axelrod's book on engagement makes it sound like Axelrod thinks engagement and involvement are the same.
  

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AXELROD, R. H., AXELROD, E., BEEDON, J. & JACOBS, C. D. (2004) You don't have to do it alone: how to involve others to get things done, San Francisco, Berrett-Koehler.
BARKI, H. & HARTWICK, J. (1989) Rethinking the Concept of User Involvement. MIS Quarterly, 13, 53-63.
HARTWICK, J. & BARKI, H. (1994) Explaining the Role of User Participation in Information System Use. Management Science, 40, 440-465.
SAKS, A. M. (2006) Antecedents and consequences of employee engagement. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 21, 600-619.
SWANSON, E. B. (1974) MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS: APPRECIATION AND INVOLVEMENT. Management Science, 21, 178-188.

Participation

I'm trying to distinguish between engagement and other concepts like participation.

• user participation for developing and testing IT projects
• dimensions of participation are: responsibility, hands-on activities, user-IS relationships (Barki and Hartwick, 1994 :423)
• "a set of behaviours or activities performed by users in the system development process" (Barki and Hartwick, 1989)
• increases bureaucracy {Axelrod, 2001}
  
• involves hearts and minds (Handley et al., 2007)
• leads to involvement (Hartwick and Barki, 1994)
• refers to a process of taking part and to the relationship with others that reflects the process, i.e. both action and connection, reserved for actors who are members of social communities (p56). It is not collaboration. It is a constituent of meaning so is broader than engagement. (Wenger, 1998)

Now that last point by Wenger, does sound important. Engagement is a sub-set of participation, whereas I'd been thinking of participation as something specialised, that meant users of systems had to participate (because management said so) but that management didn't do. Wenger's point concurs with Mike Hales findings that participation in design can work, but that strategic management has to do something too.

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AXELROD, R. H. (2001) Terms of engagement: changing the way we change organizations. Journal for Quality & Participation, 24, 22.
BARKI, H. & HARTWICK, J. (1989) Rethinking the Concept of User Involvement. MIS Quarterly, 13, 53-63.
BARKI, H. & HARTWICK, J. (1994) Measuring User Participation, User Involvement, and User Attitude. MIS Quarterly, 18, 59-82.
HALES, M. (1993) User participation in design - what it can deliver, what it can't and what this means for management. IN QUINTAS, P. (Ed.) Social dimensions of systems engineering: people, processes, policies and software development. Horwood.
HANDLEY, K., CLARK, T., FINCHAM, R. & STURDY, A. (2007) Researching Situated Learning. Management Learning, 38, 173-191.
HARTWICK, J. & BARKI, H. (1994) Explaining the Role of User Participation in Information System Use. Management Science, 40, 440-465.
WENGER, E. (1998) Communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Gravy and custard

This mix of people creates gravy; that mix creates custard. Despite similar ingredients (fat and flour) the slight differences (butter vs lard, marmite vs sugar) produces a different product at the end of the process.

So, if you have two teams of people what you create are two different products.

What happens when you put two teams together - the gravy makers and the custard makers? That's the situation when you put in a team of consultants on a project with a team of clients: two different cultures, different products normally produced. So how do such teams work together to make a meal?

The NAO says senior managers must engage with the consultants. How do senior managers do it?

Assumptions about knowledge

• Knowledge transfer is good
• Knowledge transfer happens when people engage
• Knowledge transfer is a requirement for an effective project, assuming that is is more than a one-off decision.
• Knowledge is an undefined form of intellectual capital. It could be a discrete focused subject (Czerniawska, 2002 p91) or one-off or needing updating, or something people will read: scope, type of communication, length of time required. See Czerniawska's figure: the 3 dimensions of access to intellectual capital
• Knowledge is an aspect of uncertainty along with power, but central to management and consultancy (Fincham, 2002)
• "notion of “knowledge transfer” represents the main prescriptive definition of consultancy." (Fincham, 2002: 70)
• asymmetrical between management and consultant
• constructed by some process
• embodied in some expertise
• disseminated somehow

So sometimes I'm assuming and sometimes I can find some academic (like Fincham) who's mentioned aspects of knowledge.

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Czerniawska, F. (2002) The intelligent client: managing your management consultant, Hodder & Stoughton.
FINCHAM, R. (2002) The Agent's Agent. International Studies of Management & Organization, 32, 67-86.

No hypotheses

I can't have hypotheses without knowing what my research question is. Perhaps if I can surface my hypotheses, then I'll be clearer about my research question. Or is it the other way round?

A thesis needs hypotheses - see the PhD comic on the plural of thesis.

Assumptions about engagement

I'm assuming that the unit of analysis is the project. Why is it the project, because if it's the project is there a problem with the project? Is there a problem with IT projects in the public sector? And if there is a problem why does engagement have anything to do with the problem?

• The NAO report (NAO, 2006) assumes that engagement is a good thing.
• I'm assuming engagement is a process.
• I'm assuming engagement is not a widely recognised management construct.
• I am assuming one kind of engagement exists. Or does it vary depending on something? What? Perhaps it's its quality that varies. I note that the quality of engagement requires: reciprocity, shared decision making, a high level of interest, and is action for something worth doing.

But some studies measure engagement, such as the IES. Though I don't have free access to its reports its summary defines engagement:

"a positive attitude held by the employee towards the organization and its values"

I'm not sure that the NAO writers meant the same thing. The IES survey used a diagnostic tool that ranged from training & development to job satisfaction, which to me sounds like motivation and motivating factors {Marcum, 1999}, so something other than engagment. And I don't think the NAO would measure its senior responsible owners engagement on the same characteristics as the IES uses.

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NAO (2006) Central Government's use of consultants: Building client and consultant commitment National Audit Office
Marcum, J. W. (1999) 'Out With Motivation, in With Engagement', National Productivity Review (Wiley), 18 (4), pp. 43-46.