ABSTRACT
The collaborative economy is just the beginning of the evolution into a more interconnected society as practitioners, governments, private organizations, and policy-makers converge around common social issues. Collaborations are the manifestation of individual actors sharing information, resources, and common values. A major benefit of collaborative processes is that the values of all participating stakeholders can be recognized, which eventually leads to other benefits including the building of relationships and networks, greater transparency, creating trust, and the sharing of information. As a process, collaborations give voice to individuals and can enlighten stakeholders of their interdependent relationships with other stakeholders. Barbara Gray describes the collaborative process as a means to transform adversarial interaction into a mutual effort to constructively explore an issue from multiple perspectives and approaches. Social capital is the foundation necessary to create civic foundations that are critical to the development of partnerships and collaborations. Collaborations are a social structure, a social process, and an emergent quality of society.
