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Paradoxes of Collaboration

Managerial Decision Styles

University of Tennessee, rcunning{at}utk.edu

Dorothy Olshfski

Rutgers University, olshfski{at}gmail.com

Reem Abdelrazek

Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, Reem.Abdelrazek{at}state.tn.us

Collaboration is a warm, friendly word currently used to describe a cooperative manager—subordinate relationship. In this study, the authors first specify a meaning for collaboration and then, from stories told by competent cabinet members at the state level, extract evidence of collaborative and directive managerial relationships in problem solving. Based on these stories, collaboration is usefully seen as one tool among several (directive, devolution, collaboration) rather than as a consistent manager style. Therefore, from the perspective of style, managerial behavior is more paradoxical than consistent. As a sidebar, devolution emerges as closer to directive behavior than to collaborative behavior as a way of relating to subordinates.

Key Words: manager-leader styles • collaboration • devolvement • paradox

This version was published on March 1, 2009

Review of Public Personnel Administration, Vol. 29, No. 1, 58-75 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0734371X08326434


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