Managing synergy in collaborative enterprises

Abstract The purpose of the paper is to better understand the reasons behind high failure rates in collaborative enterprises. This research follows a constructive research methodology. The explanation phase reviews the literature to develop an understanding of the reasons behind the high failure rates in collaborative enterprises. The construction phase develops the synergy model to assess readiness for collaboration. The testing phase validates the synergy model, through workshops with 11 companies. The description phase analyses the results and develops conclusions. It seems entirely possible to develop assessment frameworks to establish an organisation's readiness to collaborate. The results show the four perspectives of the synergy model to be valid, thus providing an initial step towards developing a better understanding of the factors we need to consider to create sustainable collaborative enterprises. The results are limited to data from 11 companies who were already engaged in a network. Further research is required with larger sample sizes, and with independent companies, to substantiate the conclusions. The synergy model provides an original and practical way of assessing an organisation's maturity towards collaboration as well as providing mechanism for facilitating a discussion between enterprises considering collaboration. Keywords: CollaborationSynergyAudit