Rethinking Community Collaboration Through a Dialogic Lens: Creativity, Democracy, and Diversity in Community Organizing

Abstract

Community collaboration has become an influential interorganizational phenomenon that provides innovative solutions for social problems. This critical case study uses dialogic theory to investigate how collaboration stakeholders negotiate creative and democratic outcomes. Findings demonstrate how a dialogic moment, although embedded in a homogenous partnership that facilitated discursive closure, constituted meaningful organizational change. The study empirically extends the theoretical claim that diversity resides in the communication situation and reveals that collaboration practices and stakeholder models are better understood when grounded in dialogic theory.

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Management Communication
DOI: 10.1177/0893318907306032
2007; 21; 145 Management Communication Quarterly
Renee Guarriello Heath Creativity, Democracy, and Diversity in Community Organizing
Rethinking Community Collaboration Through a Dialogic Lens:
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Rethinking Community
Collaboration Through a
Dialogic Lens
Creativity, Democracy, and Diversity
in Community Organizing
Renee Guarriello Heath
University of Portland
Community collaboration has become an influential interorganizational phe-
nomenon that provides innovative solutions for social problems. This critical
case study uses dialogic theory to investigate how collaboration stakeholders
negotiate creative and democratic outcomes. Findings demonstrate how a
dialogic moment, although embedded in a homogenous partnership that
facilitated discursive closure, constituted meaningful organizational change.
The study empirically extends the theoretical claim that diversity resides in
the communication situation and reveals that collaboration practices and
stakeholder models are better understood when grounded in dialogic theory.
Keywords: community collaboration; dialogue; democracy; creativity; diversity
Social, economic, and political conditions facilitate the formation of
interorganizational partnerships among stakeholders seeking to solve
community problems. In an increasingly pluralistic society, solutions to
social problems must satisfy diverse constituencies (Deetz, 1995). Innovative
approaches are frequently sought and found in local knowledge and resources
(Agranoff & McGuire, 1998; Gray, 1989), such as the interorganizational
partnership in Belleville, Illinois, that has collaborated to end homelessness
in 10 years (Bowen, 2007). Other partnerships find it economically advanta-
geous to pool their resources to resolve fiscal shortcomings, as is the case
Management
Communication Quarterly
Volume 21 Number 2
November 2007 145-171
© 2007 Sage Publications
10.1177/0893318907306032
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145
Author’s Note: The author wishes to thank Tim Kuhn, Stan Deetz, Sarah Dempsey, and the
reviewers for helpful comments on drafts of the essay. Correspondence concerning this
article should be addressed to the Department of Communication Studies, University of Portland,
Portland, OR 97203; e-mail: heathr@up.edu.
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with the national Water Partnership Council, in which 2,800 public–private
partnerships aim to solve water and wastewater issues in their communities
(Risch, 2007). Additionally, political conditions inspire innovative alterna-
tives to polarized disputes among public, private, and private nonprofit stake-
holders, as often seen in environmental collaborations (Gray, 1989; Moseley,
2001; Pasquero, 1991; Snow, 2001).
Collaborative partnerships are changing the landscape of community
organizing. They have a powerful and lasting effect on communities by fos-
tering new leaders (Chrislip & Larson, 1994; Innes & Booher, 1999), gen-
erating multiple collaborations as new heuristics for solving community
problems (Gray, 1989; Lawrence, Hardy, & Phillips, 2002; Zoller, 2000),
and shaping “new civic cultures” (Chrislip & Larson, 1994, p. 123).
Accordingly, this organizational phenomenon is relevant to managerial and
organizational communication scholarship provoking questions such as
how do communicative practices enable creative and innovative solutions
in collaborations? And how do interorganizational partners share power and
negotiate disparate agendas?
This case study draws on dialogic theory to investigate the possibilities
and the challenges associated with how collaborations reach innovative and
democratic solutions. Specifically, I identified a dialogic exemplar based on
the critical assumption that diversity resides in the speaker’s relation to the
subject matter, in which diverse perspectives facilitated creative and demo-
cratic outcomes. The exemplar demonstrates how temporally situated dia-
logic moments create meaningful organizational change. However, I also
discovered that organizing practices produced a homogenous stakeholder
model that did not facilitate dialogue. Accordingly, I argue that stakeholder
models of community collaboration are better rooted in dialogic theory.
I begin the literature review by providing an interdisciplinary perspec-
tive of public, private, and private nonprofit partnerships further developed
as community collaborations. I continue with a review of the contributions
of communication scholarship, arguing that communication scholars are
especially poised to contribute to an understanding of community collabo-
ration in which democratic processes help partners share power toward
innovative ends. Finally, I posit that well-established concepts in dialogic
theory advance our understanding of communication in community collab-
orations. The Findings section imposes the dialogic framework to, first,
deconstruct the microprocesses of a dialogic exemplar and, second, exam-
ine the organizing practices relevant to the social and historical context of
the exemplar.
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Community Collaboration
Gray (1989) focused scholarly attention on interorganizational partner-
ships in her foundational book Collaborating: Finding Common Ground
for Multiparty Problems. She laid the theoretical groundwork in organiza-
tional behavioral science for how stakeholders, citizens, and representa-
tives of organizations with a claim on a particular shared outcome pool
resources to solve problems grounded in their communities and industries.
In 1991, Journal of Applied Behavioral Science published two special edi-
tions dedicated to collaboration in which Gray and Wood (1991), the series
editors, argued for future studies to attend to the processes and outcomes
of collaboration.
Communication scholars furthered the development of collaboration liter-
ature by emphasizing communication and innovation (Keyton & Stallworth,
2003; Stohl & Walker, 2002). Advancing a community perspective, Heath
and Frey (2004) built on these contributions and defined community col-
laboration as “autonomous stakeholders with varying capabilities...
directed toward mutually accountable, typically innovative ends, producing
long-term social change at a local level in a cooperative, relatively non-
hierarchical relationship that is negotiated in an ongoing communicative
and principled process” (p. 194). Community offers a boundary for specific
types of partnerships that are concerned with social issues that affect the
organizations and citizens within those boundaries.1
Indeterminacy and interdependence are two characteristics embedded in
the assumptions of collaboration scholarship. First, the absence of a prede-
termined outcome distinguishes interorganizational collaboration from
coordination and cooperation. Collaboration describes a dynamic relation-
ship that leads to innovative outcomes via some level of indeterminacy in
decision making (McKinney, 2001; Moseley, 2001; Stohl & Walker, 2002).
Gray (1989) equated innovation to “new solutions... that no single party
could have envisioned or enacted” (p. 16). In contrast, coordination and
cooperation reflect static interorganizational relationships that execute a
predetermined decision, protocol, or solution (Gray, 1989).
A second distinguishing characteristic of community collaboration
embedded in extant literature is the interdependent, shared power among
stakeholders (Chrislip & Larson, 1994; Gray, 1989; Heath & Sias, 1999;
Lange, 2001; Logsdon, 1991). Collaborative stakeholders are not subject to
one another as superiors and subordinates might be (Mintzberg, Jorgensen,
Dougherty, & Westley, 1996; Stohl & Walker, 2002). They negotiate power
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from a position of mutual need and/or interest. Mintzberg et al. (1996)
attributed most failures of interorganizational collaborations to power dif-
ferentials among interdependent stakeholders. But in some case studies,
power moves, such as behind-the-scenes negotiating, are legitimized if they
serve an instrumental purpose (e.g., Huxham, 2003). Communication
scholarship has been particularly useful in developing knowledge about the
interdependent relationship of collaborative stakeholders by attending to
power and democracy.
Communication Scholarship and the
Role of Democracy in Collaboration
Communication scholarship has advanced collaboration studies by cen-
tralizing the role of democracy in creative community change (e.g., Lange,
2001; McKinney, 2001; Zoller, 2000). Scholarship on democracy in com-
munity collaboration toggles between foregrounding democracy as a
process (see Gray, 1989; McKinney, 2001; Moseley, 2001; Snow, 2001)
and foregrounding it as an outcome (see Chrislip & Larson, 1994; Lange,
2001; Zoller, 2000) of organizing. Not surprisingly, Cheney and Cloud
(2006) argued that democracy is a “contested term” that at times refers to
processes that are related to practice, voice, and decision making but is also
interpreted as an outcome that emphasizes equal access to resources and
representation (p. 512; see also Mansbridge, 1983). Throughout collabora-
tion literature, democracy mediates and is an outcome of collaboration,
albeit with varying emphasis.
The potential power of partnerships to create social programs and guide
social policies warrants further attention to the role of democracy in com-
munity collaboration. Chrislip and Larson (1994) and Innes and Booher
(1999) argued that over time, collaborations gain political influence in their
communities. Others contend that granting policy-making power to non-
elected stakeholder groups is unconstitutional (Coggins, 2001; Stahl,
2001), and many communication scholars have identified problematic com-
munication models that fall short of reaching democratic outcomes (e.g.,
Keyton & Stallworth, 2003; Lange, 2001; Medved et al., 2001; Zoller,
2000). Accordingly, I argue that community collaboration is better con-
ceived by grounding it in dialogic theories that emphasize creative out-
comes and democratic processes in the communication situation.
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Rethinking Community Collaboration
Through Dialogic Theories
Defining dialogue provides the very closure of a subject matter that dia-
logue resists; however, three dialogic themes contribute a priori constructs
that provide a vocabulary for which to examine communicative practices in
collaboration. Specifically, I discuss (a) dialogue as generative, (b) dialogue
as grounded in diversity, and (c) dialogue as critical of power.
Dialogue as generative. Dialogue generates new ideas, thoughts, and
outcomes. Organizational scholar Barrett (1995) claimed that dialogue is
generative of creativity in collaborative contexts. The link between dia-
logue and creativity is supported extensively by communication scholars
(Deetz, 1995; Deetz & Simpson, 2004; Hammond, Anderson, & Cissna,
2003; Heath et al., 2006; Zoller, 2000). McNamee and Shotter (2004)
argued, “Dialogue makes possible a special kind of first-time creativity, the
creation of ‘out of the blue’ of a way of acting in response to, or in relation
to, the unique character of one’s current surroundings” (p. 97). McNamee
and Shotter provide a communicative understanding of Gray’s (1989) artic-
ulation of innovation. Deetz (1995) furthers our understanding of the gen-
erative qualities of dialogue by distinguishing expression from constitutive
processes. Expression, described as having a say, reproduces meanings,
perceptions, and feelings that reside independently of the communication
situation. Having voice, on the other hand, goes beyond having a say by
creating new indeterminate understandings that cannot be known or under-
stood prior to the dialogic experience (Deetz & Simpson, 2004; see also
Pearce & Pearce, 2004, p. 54). Building on existing research that develops
how voice constitutes creative outcomes through dialogue (Deetz &
Simpson, 2004), I ask the following:
Research Question 1: What role does voice play to constitute creativity in
community collaboration?
Dialogue as grounded in diversity. Dialogic theory accounts for the role
diversity plays in achieving creativity and democracy in community col-
laboration. Hammond et al. (2003) argued that a multivocal perspective in
a community dialogue “set[s] in motion the conditions necessary for
change” (p. 132). Similarly, community collaborations frequently rest on
the assumption that diversity facilitates creativity (innovation; Chrislip &
Larson, 1994; Gray, 1989) and democracy (representative decisions; Lange,
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2001; Snow, 2001; Zoller, 2000). But few scholars have articulated how
collaborations might negotiate the differences elicited by diversity to
achieve creativity and democracy.
Dialogic scholarship locates diversity in the different perspectives of
actors in the communication situation, implying that diversity is intrinsi-
cally tied to the subject matter (Deetz, 1995; Deetz & Simpson, 2004). In
this conception, dialogue is a manifestation of diversity. Dialogue is the act
of learning from difference in which the other approaches the subject from
a social and historical position outside of one’s own (Arnett, 2004). The
centrality of diversity in dialogue is underscored in the title of the book by
Anderson, Baxter, and Cissna (2004b): Dialogue: Theorizing Difference in
Communication Studies. Building on the ideal speech situation (see Habermas,
1979), Deetz (1995) developed a constitutive understanding of diversity as
the endless negotiation and contestation of identity, social order, knowl-
edge, and policy (see also Hammond et al., 2003). Thus, collaborative
stakeholders encounter diversity at multiple levels as they negotiate their
roles (identity), relationships to one another and the community (social
orders), what they view as true (knowledge), and what they value when set-
ting social policy. Accordingly, I ask the following:
Research Question 2: What role does diversity play in achieving creativity
and democracy in community collaboration?
Dialogue as critique of power. Dialogic theory elucidates how power is
shared and negotiated in decision-making situations. Baxter (2004) argued
that one of the goals of dialogue is to “critique the dominant voices” (p. 123).
Habermas’s (1979) theory of communicative action facilitates the critique
of dominant voices in decision-making situations by providing the norma-
tive conditions for good communication. Good communication allows for
reciprocity and symmetry between participants. Reciprocity allows all
claims in the context of the speech situation. Symmetry ensures each par-
ticipant has equal ability to contest claims that are raised in the discourse.
Participants are committed to reaching understanding by leaving open the
possibility of contesting the claims each makes (see Deetz, 1992; Forester,
1993). Communicative action provides a dialogic model oriented toward
sharing power and critiquing dominant voices in collaborative decision-
making situations.
Dialogic scholarship also provides a vocabulary for that which impedes
the ability of collaborative stakeholders to share power. Jones and Bodtker
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(1998) suggested that contestation plays an important role in collaborative
problem solving. Hence, discursive closure, the inability to contest some-
thing (Deetz, 1990, 1992, 1995), presents a challenge to achieving dialogue
in community collaboration. Discursive closure manifests as the linguistic
mechanism for how systematic distortion—Habermas’s (1979, 1990) con-
cept of hidden power—occurs in communicative situations. Voices are
silenced and systematic distortion skews the decision-making process when
the conditions necessary to contest claims of truthfulness, rightness, and
truth are not met. For example, Deetz (1990) argued that “disqualification,”
a discursive closure technique, allows only “experts” to weigh in on a par-
ticular subject matter, implicitly disqualifying certain individuals from the
conversation (p. 236; see also Thackaberry, 2004). Hammond et al. (2003)
argued that the democratic task of dialogue is to elicit contributions from
“voices” that may not reflect “the right kinds of rationality” (p. 142).
Building on collaboration studies that link communicative micropractices
to shared power (Heath & Sias, 1999; Moseley, 2001; Zoller, 2000) and
using the concepts of Habermas (1979, 1990) and Deetz (1990, 1992,
1995), I pose two final research questions:
Research Question 3: How are reciprocity and symmetry negotiated among
stakeholders in community collaboration?
Research Question 4: How does discursive closure impede creativity and
democracy in community collaboration?
A Case Study of Community Collaboration
State-level gatekeepers at a department of education granted me access
to a self-proclaimed and government-sanctioned collaboration composed of
public, private nonprofit, and private organizational and citizen stakehold-
ers. I identified a site (described below) that had a diverse constituency,
tackled a relevant social problem, sought innovative solutions, and set
social policy. Most of the stakeholders were influential in the community
and decision makers in their organizations. The site was not predetermined
to be a successful model given the difficulty of identifying what criteria
determine success. (i.e., stakeholder perception or theoretical alignment).
Therefore, this site demonstrates a realistic, rather than idyllic, model of
community collaboration (for the importance of “counterfactual” versus
ideal models, see Habermas, 1988).
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The Site
Metro Collaboration,2located in the largest, most diverse metropolitan
city in a western state, was formed in the early 1990s to address the social
problem of inadequate early childhood education (ECE). Leaders in Urban
City’s ECE community founded Metro Collaboration to provide accessible,
affordable, comprehensive, quality services for children and their families.
Metro Collaboration aimed to bridge the gap between preschool and
kindergarten through collaborative innovation.3With an annual budget of
$1.3 million from various grants and legislated funding streams and a full-
time coordinator, Metro Collaboration funded services such as teacher
mentoring and training; curriculum development; and developing, testing,
and monitoring of assessment tools for preschools.
Metro Collaboration (or Metro) was also an influential civic group that
conducted longitudinal assessment of its programs and advised civic
leaders on social and political policy, solidifying its potential as a site for
democracy. The politically savvy stakeholders secured resources from the
superintendent of Urban City Public Schools and the mayor of Urban City,
reporting annually to both organizations. Thus stakeholders constructed a
relationship that allowed the mayor and the superintendent to sanction their
activities, lending weight to their stature in the community (local politicians
often campaigned at Metro-sponsored forums). Metro’s recommendations
were sometimes at the heart of issues of educational reform, such as deter-
mining at what age a child should start school.4
After 12 years of collaborating, Metro expanded its founding member-
ship of seven stakeholders. Twenty-three organizations and citizens were
invited to participate as voting members. Not all 23 invitees participated;
thus, membership fluctuated between 17 and 20 active stakeholders. Of the
23 organizations invited to participate, 15 were already involved in provid-
ing or funding ECE services (e.g., the school district). Only 2 of the 8 orga-
nizations that conducted business outside of the ECE community, a retail
business and the city’s workforce development office, regularly sent repre-
sentatives to meetings. The nonattending ECE outsiders included a parent,
a grandparent, and a newspaper, to name a few.
Consistent with theoretical models and relevant to democratic negotia-
tions, Metro stakeholders were the decision makers in their own organiza-
tions (Chrislip & Larson, 1994; Gray, 1989; Heath & Sias, 1999). Thirteen
of the active members held positions as vice president, executive director,
or equivalent-level title. Four participants (not including myself), 3 practi-
tioners and 1 full-time researcher, held doctorates in education or a related
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field. Of the active voting members, 5 were men. Five participants were
minorities, including 4 African Americans and 1 Hispanic. The same 2
female cochairs (a dynamic former civil rights activist and a quiet public
school administrator, both ECE insiders) had voluntarily led the collabora-
tion since its inception 12 years ago.
Method and Analysis
Data-gathering methods included 14 months of observation; 25 formal
interviews with stakeholder representatives ranging from 20 minutes to 1
hour in length; and artifact analysis of meeting minutes, agendas, and other
relevant texts. The primary focus of analysis included observation of more
than 35 hours of collaboration meetings and the subsequent analysis of the
field notes and transcribed excerpts of the meetings. Interview transcrip-
tions, artifacts, and a questionnaire supplemented the findings from the
observations.5
After commencement of the study, I accepted an invitation to serve the
collaboration as a paid process observer. In this role, I did not participate in
the substance of the meetings but observed the structures and practices that
supported the organizing process (see Harrington-Mackin, 1994). I pro-
vided three reports carefully recording the influence my analysis had on
their interactions. My findings as a process observer paralleled my theoret-
ical interests, which provided the opportunity to solicit member checks
regarding the plausibility of my analysis (Deetz, 1982).
My analysis was multiphased, guided by the principles of ethnography
(Lindlof & Taylor, 2002) and Deetz’s (2005) development of critical analy-
sis (see also Alvesson & Deetz, 2000). According to Deetz (2005), in the
initial phase of critical ethnographic analysis, the researcher employs care,
demonstrating a hermeneutic understanding of the emergent empirical find-
ings. The researcher seeks a reasonable and plausible social and historical
understanding of the interactions interpreted. Accordingly, this phase of
analysis led to the categorization of repetitive themes and patterns of com-
munication that provided the context that is integral for responsible critical
analysis (Deetz, Heath, & MacDonald, 2007).
In the critical phase of analysis, I applied the a priori constructs of com-
municative action and other articulations of dialogic theory to my empiri-
cal findings.6During this phase, which Deetz (2005) called thought,I
imposed theoretical categories throughout the entirety of my observational
data, coding for the discourse of contestation and techniques of discursive
closure. I deconstructed meanings in 13 episodes of conversation that were
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identified as interactive exchanges, in contrast to the more frequently
observed pattern of speeches (driven by a reporting-style agenda). Because
communication patterns repeated throughout the episodes, I chose one rich
exemplar to illustrate the findings relevant to the research questions
(Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 1995).
According to Deetz (2005), in the final stage of critical analysis, the
researcher employs good humor, noting apparent ironies. Findings are then
used to illuminate possibilities and opportunities for intervention. This
phase of analysis is found in the Discussion section of this article.
Findings
This section of the essay begins with the introduction and subsequent
deconstruction of a dialogic exemplar using the analytical framework of the
first three research questions. These findings demonstrate how voice, diver-
sity, symmetry, and reciprocity constituted new ideas (creativity) and
stronger accountability to Metro’s constituents (democracy). Next, I embed
the discursive exemplar in the larger social and historical context and
describe an evolution in which members developed a homogenous stake-
holder model. In the last section, I analyze the larger context and, address-
ing my final research question, argue that the homogenous stakeholder
model challenged the conditions needed for dialogue by facilitating discur-
sive closure.
An Exemplar of a Dialogic Moment
Metro’s 7-person public engagement subcommittee examined their
charge under the recently completed strategic plan. They spent most of the
2-hour meeting laughing and brainstorming in a lighthearted conversation
that centered on a children’s awareness doll campaign. Dick, the host and a
career-long children’s advocate, and Betty, a seasoned business executive
and mother of five, both new members, led the discussion. Betty was the only
stakeholder from the private business sector who participated in the collab-
oration. She referred to herself as “the token.” Dick, reading from the “Five
Year Plan,” questioned Betty about her vision for the public engagement
strategy. This action prompted a series of questions and contestations that on
analysis depict a dialogic moment—a temporal but nonetheless significant
example of dialogue7(Cissna & Anderson, 1998).
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Dick (D): So tell me Betty, with the 6.2.3.1, how do you see [community
forums] interfacing so closely with [site visits to inform policy makers]?
Betty (B): Well, I think that there’s one umbrella there. And what we need is a
vehicle, to hold all three of these things. So if we took the doll program, for
instance, and made it the vehicle, well, that would be a great. I mean we can
hold community forums, but I quite frankly have held community forums and
they’re usually attended by the people, you know, the choir.
Other members of the group actually said the choir at the same time as
Betty. With this encouragement from the group, Betty continued:
B: So the question is, how do we get those people there? So I think what you
need is not just branding but some kind of vehicle, that for even a limited
amount of time, for a campaign period, draws all those people to something
familiar, where they’re seeing it several different places. And then we get
some volunteers, and it would be really good if we were able to recruit some
volunteers that have not previously been exposed to the system, and worked
at almost like a grassroots political campaign, where we got those people
together under the umbrella of the doll. And we enlisted people, like the
Junior League, and different places within the community.
D: We used to do something like that statewide and it was called [Kid Watch].
And this was at the state level, but we got local communities and we did it in
Urban City and Bobbie used to be a master at it. And you would get a group,
you would have 10 parents, the director of Head Start, and we would have a
bus, and we would take legislators and we’d take four and five on the bus.
You don’t want to invite them all, but a handful of them. And you take them
around and you do two or three site visits. And you give them the education
and you show them what the need is, and what the unmet need is, and you
feed them lunch and they go away so damned excited!
B: And I think that’s Part A, that’s very important, but to be honest with you,
when election time comes, those people care about what the people who have
a voice in their community tell them to care about.
D: Absolutely.
B: And so getting them, without getting those people in the community, is not
our biggest bang.
D: Yeah, but a piece of that.
B: It’s a piece of it.
D: It’s a piece of it, right. Because you get them into—you begin to define what
the unmet needs are, and then you take them on site to show them what the
unmet need is.
B: You know, I think that that’s very good. It’s a very clever idea.
D: And it’s effective. ’Cause it was a national thing. But also I mean what one
of the things we’ve done that’s been successful is our donut discussions.
Where you get people running for office to meet at a local facility, and the
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parents and the community members meet, and you give them, you prompt
them questions. And they have this dialogue with their constituents. And they
eat donuts. And so the people running for office are now hearing from the
people. So I think it’s a twofold process. It’s engaging the real grass roots and
the people with elected officials, but also getting them on site with the facil-
ities around what the needs are.
B: And you know, let’s go a little bit further and have the doll stories, let’s take
them and do a video, a doll story kind of thing, and at these meetings, let’s
show it. If we can’t get these people at the outer cusp to come in, let’s take it
to them.
D: So you’re saying it’s the overall marketing plan here around how we utilize the
Web site, about how we utilize media, how we brand this stuff, and how that
then interfaces with our community forums and site visits and whatever we do?
The exchange between Dick and Betty, the exemplar dialogic moment,
dominated the second half of the meeting, ending on a note of agreement. As
a result, everyone present agreed Metro would target both the grassroots
people, not typically thought of as the choir, and politicians and other influ-
ential parties of interest who could help shape an ECE agenda in Urban City.
Interpreting the Constitutive
Power of the Dialogic Moment
By imposing the theoretical lens advanced through my research ques-
tions, I establish how interaction grounded in dialogic theory achieved the
goals of community collaboration. In particular, the dialogic episode
demonstrates how voice, a diversity of perspectives, and symmetry and rec-
iprocity constituted creative and democratic outcomes.
Voice constitutes creativity. A microview of the dialogic episode that
took place between Betty and Dick demonstrated an evolution from having
one’s say to voice. The episode established the role voice played toward
creativity in community collaboration (Research Question 1). Betty brought
another perspective to the table and talked differently.8Her language initially
set her apart from the members of this group; words such as branding and
vehicle were not exemplary of language typically observed in the monthly
meetings. Her different perspective inspired an idea for how to bring the
disparate objectives of the public engagement committee together. Although
the members of Metro Collaboration admitted they were cognizant of their
tendency to preach to the choir, the exchange illustrated their tendency to
recycle ideas from past experiences. At first, Dick could not see Betty’s
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perspective outside of his own experiences. Atterton, Calarco, and Friedman
(2004), interpreting Buber, distinguished dialogue, “in which I open myself
to the other of the person I meet,” from monologue, “in which, even when
I converse with her at length, I allow her to exist only as a content of my
experience” (p. 3). When Dick replied, “We used to do something like that,”
he did not acknowledge the difference in their perspectives. Limited by his
own perspective, he viewed the audience to be lawmakers.
Dick and Betty initially talked in monologues, having their say. Whereas
Dick focused on the message-delivering process, Betty focused on the audi-
ence driving the message-delivering process. Only after Betty’s repeated
objections did Dick reflect on Betty’s conception of the audience and how
it influenced her proposal to craft and implement the message. Betty’s and
Dick’s perspectives are eventually integrated to create a strategy for reach-
ing a newly defined audience. Voice led to constitutive understandings that
were not known or understood prior to the dialogic experience and ulti-
mately led to something new (creativity). Betty’s and Dick’s ideas built off
of each other, and in the process, Dick experienced a deconstruction of his
limited perspective of the audience. Dick’s final proposal demonstrated the
needs of two audiences, both the people running for office and the parents
and community members.
Although Dick’s transformation appears more evident, Dick and Betty
together achieved mutuality (Cissna & Anderson, 1998). (Mutuality should
not to be “confused with equality”; as Cissna and Anderson, 1998, argued,
“no relationship exhibits complete equality”; p. 69). The relationship is
viewed as mutual, not the privileging of one perspective versus the other.
Dick and Betty achieve mutuality in their relationship to the subject matter.
Creativity resulted from voice—the integration of their different perspec-
tives and the indeterminacy of the dialogic situation.
Diversity elicits contestation. The episode also demonstrated how diver-
sity, understood as the different perspectives participants bring to the
subject matter, worked to elicit contestation. Reading the episode through
dialogic theory elucidates what role diversity plays toward achieving cre-
ativity and democracy in community collaboration (Research Question 2).
Betty’s protests worked to “reclaim conflict,” which Anderson, Baxter, and
Cissna (2004a) argued to be a goal of dialogue (p. 262). What results from
her protest is a broader and ultimately more inclusive interpretation of the
target audience. Thus, Betty’s contribution exemplifies a negotiation of
social order, ultimately leading toward democratic accountability to a
greater constituency (Deetz, 1995). In this case, Betty contested the order
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of who is prioritized in the context of creating the group’s message; she
reordered the audience.
Although the discussion appears to be about a mundane difference in
how to package a message, it is actually an example of the different per-
spective Betty brings to the subject matter, particularly, demonstrating the
role of diversity in achieving democratic outcomes. Betty argued that the
audience for whom the package is addressed must not be limited to policy
makers; community members needed to be more broadly interpreted. Betty
disputed the historical practice of “preaching to the choir” when she said,
“And I think that’s Part A,” but continued to contest a plan that focused on
lawmakers: “But to be honest with you, when election time comes, those
people care about what the people who have a voice in their community tell
them to care about.” Her claims worked to protest the current practice of
targeting lawmakers rather than the citizens who put the lawmakers in
office. In rearranging the social order, Betty’s comments shifted power to
an overlooked group, thus moving Metro Collaboration toward account-
ability to a different audience. Betty’s claim is particularly important as it
serves as a counterweight to the group’s tendency to view lawmakers as its
constituents, a tendency, I develop later, is the result of a membership
model influenced by specific legislative mandates.
Affirmations, inquiry, and language choice maintain reciprocity and
symmetry. Finally, the excerpt above empirically established the role that
affirmations, inquiry, and language choice play in sustaining the dialogic
environment. The micropractices of dialogue demonstrate how reciprocity
and symmetry can be negotiated among stakeholders in community collab-
oration (Research Question 3). In this extended exemplar, not only did con-
testation work to keep the conversation open, but the conditions needed for
contestation that allow tension, conflict, and dissensus to work construc-
tively in group interaction were present. Reciprocity and symmetry were
visible in the conversation in which Betty and Dick used affirming lan-
guage that worked to encourage discussion. Although Betty contested the
claims in the conversation, she demonstrated care for Dick’s claims when
she said, “And I think that’s Part A.” Later she responded to Dick, “You
know, I think that that’s a very good, it’s a very clever idea.” Finally, she
said, “And you know, let’s go a little bit further.” Regardless of the inten-
tion of the actors (Betty’s affirmations could be a result of being polite), the
micropractices of communication accomplished constitutive work preserv-
ing the symmetry and reciprocity needed to encourage the discussion but
also contest the status quo.
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In a similar manner, questioning, built into the Habermasian method of
challenging a claim while maintaining a communicative environment, also
fostered reciprocity and symmetry. Questioning contributed to an interac-
tive climate that allowed for constructive disagreement.9For instance, the
episode commenced when Dick asked Betty to clarify her insights on how
to integrate a public relations strategy. During the parts of the conversation
in which Betty and Dick appeared to be talking past each other, Dick
retreated from questioning. Betty’s subtle contestation served the same
purpose of continuing the dialogue. At the same time, her affirmations
worked to value the distinctions between what she and Dick said. By the
end of the conversation, Dick used questioning again, this time validating
Betty’s contribution.
As the episode and the meeting drew to an end, Dick’s concluding dis-
cursive choices worked to reinforce symmetry and reciprocity when he
adopted the business-style language of Betty with words such as marketing
plan,brand, and interface. This gesture demonstrated Betty’s equality in
the conversation and symbolized reciprocity because Betty, as the other,
was typically entrenched with ECE lingo during these meetings. Dick acted
reciprocally by adopting the language of the other.
The Evolution of a Homogenous Stakeholder Model
The exemplar provides evidence of the power that temporally situated
dialogic moments can have in community decision making. The social and
historical context of this exemplar explains the anomalous character of its
existence and thus illuminates the challenges associated with facilitating
dialogue. Four organizing practices demonstrate how Metro Collaboration
developed a homogeneous stakeholder model: (a) a voluntary beginning,
(b) the mandated stakeholder participation, (c) a strategic orientation toward
resources, and (d) common work habits.
A history of volunteerism facilitated homogeneity. Metro’s stakeholder
membership, historically rooted in volunteerism, evolved into a partnership
among friends. Metro Collaboration began as a charitable group of
acquaintances who shared an ECE vision. The cohesion they developed as
volunteers led to a community perception of exclusion and their own atti-
tudes of entitlement described in Cathy’s comment: “I hear from other[s]
they’re not part of the group. They could be. Nobody’s excluding them. But
people that have worked very hard over the years, they really have a right
to say, ‘This is how it’s gonna be.’” In the beginning, these stakeholders
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were the only community members actively working to further an ECE
vision. Their history of volunteerism cultivated expertise and relationships,
rendering long-standing stakeholders politically powerful in the ECE arena.
Yet an unexamined outcome was that the founders were friends from very
similar types of organizations.
Mandated partnerships facilitated homogeneity. Mandated partnerships
added to the homogeneous character of the collaboration. Grants and fund-
ing opportunities tied to different legislative requirements resulted in the
formation of disparate community advisory boards. Specific organizations,
such as the school district and Head Start, were required to participate on
particular advisory boards. Metro participants eventually organized the var-
ious advisory boards under their umbrella because the boards were largely
composed of their own stakeholder membership. This created what one
stakeholder, Jim, called “a bureaucracy representing bureaucracies.” Metro’s
paid coordinator, Nick, explained, “We looked at all the mandated groups
of people that are supposed to be at the table and got them together....
This group has the right people around the table to comply with state man-
dates” [emphasis added]. The right people were those who were associated
with public funding. Accordingly, fiscal agents (e.g., the state legislature)
dictated participation from specific organizations, or organization types,
resulting in a further homogenized stakeholder membership.
A resource focus facilitated homogeneity. Similarly, a strategic orienta-
tion focused on obtaining resources emerged as a third organizing practice
that weighted the partnership toward homogeneity. Organizational practices
indicated that diversity was conceived as having different resources; differ-
ence represented what rather than who. Membership was heavily influenced
by the question, “What does a stakeholder bring to the table?” mirroring the
economic stakeholder model in which membership is determined by who
pays (Deetz, 1995). As one new member explained, his addition as a partner
brought the group access to an educational assessment tool anticipated to be
the next industry standard. At the same time, his membership facilitated his
organization’s access to a greater selection of educational sites in which the
tool could be tested. Accordingly, the what perspective, driven by a strategic
resource focus, contributed to cultivating a group composed of similar types
of stakeholders with similar needs for resources.
Normative organizing practices facilitated homogeneity. Finally, normative
organizing practices, particularly, meeting times, locations, and industry
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jargon, worked to sustain stakeholder commonalities. As an example,
Metro’s largest constituency, parents of young children, remained under-
represented despite being considered an important stakeholder group
(according to interview and questionnaire responses). However, parents,
especially those with greater economic needs, did not share similar sched-
ules or occupations or possess the individual resources needed to accom-
modate the meeting times of Metro. One parent, Patty, said, “To be honest
with you, because of the meeting times that they have the meetings... a
lot of them single parents, they don’t have choice. They can’t take off work
to come to a lunch-hour meeting.” Historically, the meetings were held dur-
ing the day because most of the stakeholders could easily justify attending
the meetings. For example, Cathy said, “It’s a volunteer position but it’s
also a part of my work here.... What I do for a living is work out in the
community with different groups. And this just happens to be one that I’m
on.” Daytime meetings better accommodated those who were able to attend
on company time.
Location was also problematic for parents. Patty admitted that getting to
the downtown meetings posed a challenge for her participation, yet down-
town meetings accommodated the majority of stakeholders because as
service providers, they worked in the city. When parents and others did
attend meetings, their ability to participate was challenged by technical lan-
guage. Many stakeholders admitted their industry jargon had an isolating
effect on newcomers. Leslie, an experienced ECE provider, complained to
me, “ECE professionals will get into the jargon and minutia ad nauseam.
You’ve been at these meetings, and everyone is asleep, and they feel like
they don’t have anything to contribute.” Although the organizing practices
worked well to facilitate collaborating in the beginning, the practices and
language of Metro Collaboration discouraged the attendance of the very
groups of people its members claimed they needed and wanted to include.
Homogeneity Facilitates Systematic Distortion
The final research question asked how discursive closure impedes cre-
ativity and democracy in community collaboration (Research Question 4).
The constraints built into Metro’s organizing structures and practices
explain why episodes of dialogue rarely appeared. The stakeholder model
disqualified diverse perspectives from the conversation and systematically
distorted the likelihood that organizing structures and practices would be
questioned. In this case, Metro failed to prepare the conditions necessary
for dialogue (McNamee & Shotter, 2004).
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Homogeneity facilitated discursive closure by disqualification. The con-
struction of membership at Metro Collaboration limited the breadth of
voices included in the discussion. As a result, conversations were often
technical and demonstrated discursive closure by disqualification (Deetz,
1992). Parents in particular, as a large constituency with a stake in decision
making, were inadvertently disqualified from conversations in the compo-
sition of the collaboration and further disqualified through the technical
language that many stakeholders admitted to be a conversation stopper.
Thus, an important constituency group did not have equal ability to partic-
ipate in the discussions.
The absence of contestation systematically distorted power. The discur-
sive closure tactic of disqualification led to a systematically distorted com-
munication situation. The absence of contestation from parents and others
normalized organizing practices (i.e., meeting times) that reinforced a par-
ticular power structure: the economic stakeholder model. By precluding
opportunities for oppositional discourse, the economic stakeholder model
was not thought to be problematic; systematic distortion is hidden power.
Those with resources were privileged at the decision-making table. According
to a questionnaire in which stakeholders ranked to whom they were
accountable, stakeholders listed on average each other first and parents last.
Additional evidence from stakeholders’ discourse (e.g., reference to “the
right people”; see also attention to lawmakers in the exemplar) and orga-
nizing practices revealed that the group attended to fiscal authorities as
opposed to the constituencies that elected the authorities. Hence, voice was
granted to the former, not the latter. Although stakeholders were cognizant
of the community perception that they were an exclusive group, the prac-
tices that facilitated exclusion remained uncontested. Recruiting friends
and those with connections to resources made economic sense, but these
practices systematically shut out oppositional voices in the communication
situation.
In sum, the lack of diverse perspectives in the decision-making situa-
tion weakened the dialogic environment and demonstrated an impover-
ished democratic stakeholder model of community collaboration. Metro
Collaboration’s economic stakeholder model favored providing services.
However, Metro also provided policy guidance on major issues that per-
tained to ECE without a communication protocol that included voice from,
or accountability to, a public constituency.
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Discussion and Conclusion
This study exposed the importance of, and challenges to, facilitating dia-
logic micropractices in the context of community collaboration. Findings
have implications for dialogue and collaboration studies.
Implications for Dialogic Studies
Community collaborations are unique organizational forms for which dia-
logic praxis holds particular importance. The case of Metro Collaboration,
in particular, develops “empirically based research on dialogue issues”
(Heath et al., 2006, p. 343). Although dialogue is not the panacea for all
problem solving (Pearce, in Heath et al., 2006), this case provides an answer
to Wood’s (2004) question, “When is dialogue likely to be appropriate and
effective?” (p. xxiii) Community collaborations provide empirical sites fit-
ting for studies on dialogue that are situated in the “larger network of orga-
nizational relationships” (Taylor, in Heath et al., 2006, p. 360).
In particular, Metro’s case demonstrated the “enduring” potential of
“temporal” dialogic moments. Cissna and Anderson (1998) argued that dia-
logic moments are often “ephemeral and fleeting” (p. 67). Dialogic
moments are also at times pivotal moments of change in organizing life
that, in this case, negotiate social orders such as who obtains voice or access
to knowledge. In 14 months of observation, only 13 episodes of interaction
resembled a dialogic exchange. Thus, the case demonstrates that dialogic
moments are not easy to identify. Yet recognizing the temporal character of
dialogue can help theorists and practitioners better dissect the constitutive
moments when problems, viewpoints, and organizations are formed (Kuhn
& Ashcraft, 2003). To further establish the link between fleeting dialogic
moments and meaningful change, organizational communication scholars
must trace decisions and other outcomes to identify the extent of the con-
stitutive power of temporally situated dialogic moments. The dialogic
framework in this study provides a methodological starting point by attend-
ing to communicative behaviors that exemplify voice, contestation, sym-
metry, and reciprocity.
Additionally, this study empirically supports the theoretical assumption
that diversity is embedded in the dialogic situation. Betty did not bring
diversity to the group because she represented leaders in the business com-
munity, as the group’s tacit theory of an economic stakeholder model might
have suggested. Diversity was not reducible to specific member attributes
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(Deetz, 1995). The diversity that Betty brought to the group was embedded
in the different ways she conceived of herself (identity), what she saw as
appropriate relationships (social order), what she perceived to be true
(knowledge), and what she inherently valued (policy) (see Deetz, 1995).
What she represented—the business community—was just one contributor
to her difference, which arose in her understanding of the subject matter.
This study demonstrates that diversity is not fixed but always related to the
context of our communicative experience. A communicative understanding
of diversity has implications for organizational theory and policy; for
example, how would managers design and articulate a diversity policy
based on the communicative perspective?
Implications for Collaboration Studies
The case of Metro also advances collaboration studies by grounding
community organizing in dialogic theory. In particular, the study demon-
strates how collaborative outcomes are communicatively accomplished.
Betty and Dick achieved voice through the democratic communicative
practices of gently prodding one another beyond monologues, contesting
and questioning assumptions and truths, and using affirming language to
validate the other’s equality in the conversation. These microprocesses that
became manifest from their diverse perspectives resulted in an expanded
public relations strategy and a reordering of their audience. By rooting
future studies of collaboration in dialogic theory, scholars will continue to
develop knowledge of how communicative practices accomplish the goals
of community organizing. For example, a dialogic perspective can expand
the work of McKinney (2001) and Kenney (2001) by articulating how
consensus decision-making in its many forms is accomplished, or not, in
collaborative stakeholder groups. A dialogic perspective provides many
possible lenses to analyze consensus, such as investigating how conflicts
are reclaimed within formal consensus processes.
Additionally, creativity in community collaboration is better served
when the stakeholder model is grounded in dialogic theory. This case estab-
lished that the democratic impulses embedded in dialogue, such as includ-
ing diverse perspectives and contesting power in the communicative
situation, served creative outcomes. Betty’s perspective as the only stake-
holder from the business community pushed the group to achieve a new
strategy that could not have been envisioned by a single party (Gray, 1989).
Democracy is also better served when collaborative stakeholder models
are rooted in dialogic theory. Grounding collaborative stakeholder theory in
dialogic theory alleviates the dilemma that occurs when the purpose for
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community collaboration evolves from creating services, an innovative
task, to include setting social policy, a democratic task. Although commu-
nity organizing groups differ in their commitments to democracy, collabora-
tion demands innovation. By attending to a dialogic theory that emphasizes
diverse perspectives in stakeholder models, collaborators seeking innovation
will also find they are prepared to make democratic decisions. A dialogic
stakeholder theory that facilitates creativity (new ideas) and democracy
(contestation) out of difference ensures that when collaborations gain civic
clout (Chrislip & Larson, 1994; Innes & Booher, 1999), their decisions will
be viewed as democratic.
A community collaboration stakeholder model informed by dialogic
theory requires that stakeholders are chosen for their ability to think dif-
ferently than, contest, and disagree with other stakeholders regarding
particular subject matters. Practically speaking, stakeholders with diverse
perspectives would be not only invited but sought after. Meeting times,
places, and language would accommodate the inclusion of those who hold
different perspectives. Future studies are needed to establish how a stake-
holder model grounded in dialogic theory endures over time, especially given
the emphasis on negotiating difference. Scholars should continue to record
empirical exemplars that emphasize contestation in consensus decision-
making situations (Benhabib, 1992; Deetz, 1995) and establish how dis-
agreement flourishes in community organizing while sustaining a democratic
dialogic environment.
In addition to the implications for stakeholder models, this case high-
lights the importance of considering communication when designing other
collaborative organizing structures and practices. Preconditions to collabo-
ration identified in previous literature tended to take communication for
granted (e.g., Gray, 1989; Gray & Wood, 1991). But preparedness matters in
dialogic situations (McNamee & Shotter, 2004). In particular, this study
illuminated that diverse perspectives are an important communicative pre-
condition for collaborative decision making. Given the absence of Betty’s
perspective and the history of the group, members would have likely agreed
on the recycled public relations strategies the group had typically practiced.
The implication is that preparing for communication matters when theo-
rizing organizational structures and practices. For example, collaborations
concerned primarily with solving disputes might emphasize communication
structures (i.e., rotating meeting locations) and rituals (i.e., sharing meals)
that communicatively achieve the goal of building trust with opponents.
Future research on collaboration should focus on the development of orga-
nizing structures and practices that begin by identifying the preconditions
necessary for successful interaction.
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In sum, collaboration theory must embrace dialogue theory. Given the
parallel goals of collaboration and dialogue, for instance, to generate some-
thing new or creative, dialogue theory explicates how collaborations occur.
From documenting the micropractices of interaction to developing stake-
holder models, collaboration studies will be enriched by the explicative
power of dialogic theories.
Irony and Good Humor
The organizing practices that led to the development of the homoge-
neous stakeholder model also ironically cultivated Metro’s political power.
Stakeholders were chosen according to whom they knew and interacted
with and what resources they would bring to the collaboration. These same
strategies developed the group’s power by cultivating a coalition of ECE
experts and securing more than $1.3 million in funds. No doubt the gath-
ering of like minds on ECE issues and the economic power of the group
captured the attention of policy setters. Thus the case of Metro illustrates
how a collaborative stakeholder group both acquires and risks legitimacy
and influence in the community because of its homogeneous structure.
Assuming community collaborations will continue to have political influ-
ence in their communities, theoretical and practical questions remain for
management and communication scholars: How do collaborations navi-
gate diversifying without abdicating influence on social issues? How do
public–private partnerships gain economic power without homogenizing
their membership?
An equally compelling irony in this study is that although voice was
gained through a different perspective, the perspective was one of a privi-
leged group. The difference Betty brought to the dialogic situation was
based on her membership in the business community, which by most
accounts is not a suppressed group. At the same time, my analysis pointed
out that the economically disadvantaged parent group, arguably a sup-
pressed group, did not achieve voice. Accordingly, this case falls short in
demonstrating the inclusive potential that dialogue could have if stakehold-
ers succeed at bringing suppressed groups to the table. Future research
should explore the embodied nature of representation attending to questions
of whether the other must be present for the dialogue or whether the other
can achieve voice in different ways. Future research should also examine
more closely whether partnerships between public, private, and private non-
profit organizations reproduce the power structures already embedded in a
community. These questions have great implication for suppressed groups
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and organizations that contribute ideological, as opposed to instrumental,
resources to community collaborations.
The case of Metro shows how dialogic moments catalyze meaningful
changes. It empirically demonstrates how stakeholders can create innova-
tive ideas and broaden their accountability to a larger group of constituents.
Additionally, the success of the dialogic moment in contrast to the stake-
holder model in which it was embedded demands that scholars and practi-
tioners attend to more thoughtfully conceived stakeholder models. By
illuminating how homogeneous stakeholder models develop, as well as
their benefits and shortcomings, this research provokes scholars and practi-
tioners to theorize and design stakeholder models that facilitate diverse per-
spectives. Of particular importance are those diverse perspectives that
frequently lack voice in our community decision-making models. At stake
are the innovation and democratic legitimacy of our social policies.
Notes
1. Other types of interorganizational collaboration such as for profit–oriented collabora-
tions would not necessarily share assumptions of democratic practices or outcomes and are
therefore beyond the scope of this project.
2. All names of places, organizations, and people have been altered to preserve anonymity.
3. According to Metro Collaboration’s reports, the gap between preschool and kinder-
garten has been empirically and longitudinally linked to greater success for children in school
and society.
4. This decision carries with it social ramifications for economically disadvantaged
families that cannot afford child care, in which case the ability to sustain gainful employment
is interdependently linked with kindergarten and elementary school entrance dates. In other
words, the parent of a child whose birthday falls after the designated cut-off date may delay
entry into the workforce for a full year because the cost of child care is prohibitive to working.
5. Participants completed a questionnaire in which items included a ranking of responses
elicited during the interview phase (for a review of this method, see Harding & Livesay, 1984).
6. By engaging in research that furthers the theory of communicative action, I have demon-
strated a particular epistemological commitment in this project to seek a truth, rejecting the
notion of the truth.
7. The dialogic exemplar was edited slightly for ease of reading. The chronological order
of the conversation is unedited.
8. Although Dick is a new, official voting member to the collaboration, he has participated
in various coalitions associated with Metro’s work and represents an early childhood educa-
tion (ECE) viewpoint that is well established in this community. No member of the group
would consider Dick’s perspective an outsider’s. In fact, his high-profile role in the ECE polit-
ical scene establishes him as an ECE leader in Urban City.
9. See also Barge’s (2002) work on appreciative inquiry regarding the utility of question-
ing in dialogic situations.
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Renee Guarriello Heath (PhD, University of Colorado at Boulder, 2005) is an assistant pro-
fessor in the Communication Studies Department at the University of Portland. Her research
on interorganizational community collaboration has been published in the Journal of Applied
Communication Research and Communication Yearbook.
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