Watching Whale Watching Exploring the Discursive Foundations of Collaborative Relationships

In this article, the authors develop a discourse analytic framework for examining the antecedents, dynamics, and outcomes of interorganizational collaboration. They argue that a framework based on a discursive understanding of collaboration can provide a coherent basis for understanding the dynamics of collaboration, the relation of collaboration to its broader institutional context, and the management and facilitation of collaborative activity as a communicative process. The authors base this framework on a study of the fabric of collaborative relationships that characterize one organizational field—the Pacific Northwest whale-watching industry. The theoretical framework they have developed frames collaboration as the discursive negotiation of the issues to be addressed by the collaboration, the interests relevant to the collaboration, and the actors who should represent these legitimate interests.