James Coleman symposium 2010
The 2010 James Coleman symposium took place on April 16, 2010 in Utrecht.
The aim of the James Coleman Symposium is to connect scientific research with important problems in practice.
The theme of the 2010 symposium on April 16 is extremely important in all present organizations, namely what are the conditions for the realization of joint production or, as others call it, co-creation in organizations that tend to become less and less hierarchical. Two excellent speakers, Siegwart Lindenberg from ICS Groningen and Boris Blumberg of Maastricht University and ICS alumnus from ICS Utrecht (yeargroup 1992) gave new insights and information on this important topic.
Siegwart Lindenberg's presentation was titled "How can joint production be sustained? An alternative theory of the firm". Due to the magnitude of our neocortex, Lindenberg argues, like no other creature on earth man is capable of cooperation in groups. If organizations do not optimally use this capacity, optimal production is not feasible. In his presentation, Lindenberg gave suggestions on how to activate the capacity for collaboration in organizations. A short summary:
"Firms have been conceptualized as particular kinds of "contractual entities", as "governance structures", as "allocations of property rights", "bundles of resources and capabilities", "identity creating and maintaining entities", and "clusters of social capital" that provide an "organizational advantage". All these conception miss out on the central aspect of motivating the employees. Basically, I claim that motivation for joint production is a hard-wired ability and potentially so strong that a firm that fails to motivate its employees to exert their intelligent effort in the service of joint production cannot reach its optimal level of sustained value creation. The difficult part of theory of the firm is then the question: how can such a motivation be sustained? This is the major question I will try to answer".
Boris Blumberg delivered the second presentation, "Social capital and trust. A dynamic view." Blumberg argued to perceive trust not as part of, but as a necessary precondition for social capital. A short summary of his presentation:
"The idea that trust is an important phenomenon in social networks has been widely acknowledged. It is commonly assumed that a certain degree of trust among members is necessary for a social network to emerge and be maintained. A decline of trust can easily result in erosion or rupture of a social network. Trust has even been seen as an inherent part of social capital. In this talk I present another view of the relation between trust and social capital. In contrast to earlier work in which trust was seen as part of social capital we consider trust as a factor in the dynamics of social networks that affects the use of social capital. Taking a dynamic look at trust as well, we examine how declining and increasing trust will influence the magnitude of social capital as well as its depletion and its replenishment after having been used".
Both presentations resulted in lively discussions with the audience of current and former ICS- members.The symposium was followed by the annual Members' Meeting of the James Coleman Association, and concluded with drinks for all participants.
