KEY COMPONENT: TRAJECTORY OF THE AT

Collective agency is found in the trajectory of the AT and to be successful, it needs two essential and interconnected elements. These elements are defined as the ability of the XSP “to influence efforts to attract capital and marshal the consent of relevant parties”.

Trajectory is a term used to denote the general direction and whatever it is trying to accomplish, with the assumption that it is ‘on track’ and is moving in its intended direction. It is important to note that language such as plans, goals, aims or objectives is deliberately avoided so that it is communicative processes that are recognised and not instrumental or strategic intentions.

The first element is the ability to attract capital and this is not restricted to economic capital, but also includes social, cultural and symbolic capital; terms derived from the work of Bourdieu (1986).

It is therefore about attracting and mobilising resources of various kinds and from various sources.

The second element is described as “marshalling consent” and it is about persuading others to participate voluntarily, so that they, in turn may also help in mobilising further resources. Securing the willing consent of participants is a key idea and relates to the CCO concept of coorientation, which is discussed in Section 4 of this chapter. Coorientation occurs when people willingly interact with each other towards an object of common interest.

Applying the concept of coorientation, for collective agency to be successful, for it to work, interactions between people need to be aligned towards a common interest, but also they direct attention towards mobilising resources and persuading others to participate in that common interest.

According to Koschmann et al., it is through the trajectory that personal interests and identities and organisational interests and identities are able to connect to the XSP. The capacity for collective agency, and therefore the capacity to create value, is situated within the trajectory of the AT.

4.15.1 Collective agency and authority to act

The capacity to act of an XSP, is described by Koschmann et al. (2012) as “making a difference”

and they described collective agency as “the capacity to influence a host of relevant outcomes beyond what individual organisations could do on their own”. This definition assumes the idea of acting at a distance as described above, including human, material and textual agency. However, Koschmann et al. did not explicitly address these forms of agency in the framework of value creation. These ideas are considered in the next section on the CCO approach.

4.15.2 Forms of capital

The framework of XSP value (Koschmann et al., 2012) depends on collective agency, the capacity of the partnership to act, and as noted above, this means attracting and mobilising resources.

Resources refer to various forms of capital and Kuhn (2008) referenced this conceptualisation to the work of Bourdieu.

Bourdieu (1986) identified three primary forms of capital and defined these as economic, cultural and social capital and each of these may also function as symbolic capital. Bourdieu explained that the social world functions with capital in all of these forms and not only economic capital.

Bourdieu acknowledged economic capital as the dominant form of capital and defined it as that which is “immediately and directly convertible into money and may be institutionalised in the form of property rights”. Economic capital would include physical assets, products and services and other materials used in the market economy.

Cultural capital relates to the knowledge, skills and capabilities of people and in its institutionalised form it refers to educational qualifications. Bourdieu explained that cultural capital can be acquired over time. It is also tied to cultural tradition and heritage and in this respect it may also function as symbolic capital.

According to Bourdieu, “social capital is the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalised relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition” and membership of groups. Social capital depends on the network of connections that can be mobilised and other forms of capital that may be brought to bear so that social capital is not separate or independent from economic and cultural capital.

From this brief introduction, it is evident that the different forms of capital are inter-related and as conceived by Bourdieu, they are recognised in various institutional forms.

According to Koschmann et al. (2012), an XSP as a process of organising, not only involves coorientation but also the ability to secure and apply the different forms of capital. It is the different

forms of capital and their ongoing accumulation and exchange that provide the resources to support the value creation process. The willing consent to participate is also a necessary factor.

The trajectory of the XSP incorporates each of these components, which in combination generate its collective agency or capacity to act.

4.15.3 More on social capital, action and value creation

Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998) argued that there is no clear definition of social capital. However, there is agreement on “the significance of relationships as a resource for social action”. It is this attention to action at a collective level that connects the concept of social capital with collaboration.

According to Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998), some approaches to social capital focus on the structure of relationships in a network, while others focus on the relational resources that can be accessed.

Coleman (1988) incorporated both structure and resources into a concept of social capital as a

“resource for action” and a means to explain social action, so that social capital is not only about relationships and connections but about how those connections lead to collective or social action.

He discussed the attributes or resources of social capital that may be considered to be useful such as obligations, trustworthiness, norms and sanctions and the structures that facilitate social capital such as whether there is an open or closed community and whether resources are appropriated from one community to another.

Coleman proposed a theoretical approach to social capital that combined two streams of research on social action. The one is characterised by “social norms, rules, and obligations” and how action is “shaped, constrained, and redirected by the social context”. The other assumes an independent, rational actor who acts in their own self-interest to maximise utility and is known as a theory of rational action. In order to combine these different conceptualisations of social action, Coleman devised the concept of social capital, which he distinguished from physical capital and human capital. While physical capital is tangible and “embodied in observable material form”, such as

“tools, machines, and other productive equipment”, human capital relates to the skills and capabilities of an individual person. Coleman characterised social capital in terms of “the relations among persons that facilitate action”. He explained that each form of capital, physical, human and social, “facilitate productive activity”. These are not distinct from, but yet have some similarities with Bourdieu’s concepts of economic, cultural and social capital.

Coleman further explained that the value of social capital is in its ability to offer resources that can be used to pursue the interests of participants and to achieve various outcomes. It acts as an indicator “that something of value has been produced” and “the value depends on social organisation”. Social capital may therefore be connected to value creation.

Coleman concluded that social capital is different from other forms of capital because the person who devotes time and resources into building it, does not necessarily experience the benefits of the actions and consequent value that it brings.

This is different from other forms of capital. Coleman (ibid) explained that there are certain property rights attributed to physical capital, as a private good, and this means that the person who invests in physical capital is usually the person who obtains the fruits of that investment. In contrast, Coleman related social capital with public goods and he asserted that a direct input-output connection generally does not apply. Rather, in the case of social capital, there is a collective benefit to a wider community and those that invest time and resources in a social endeavour may only receive an indirect benefit and they share the benefits with others.

Other more recent research has built on these early conceptualisations of social capital by Bourdieu and Coleman and appropriated the idea for application in other contexts. Kwon and Adler (2014) noted that social capital has “matured from a concept into a whole field of research”, while Portes and Vickstrom (2011) expressed the view that the concept of social capital as written by Bourdieu now has little in common with its use today.