Virtual Balancing: How Digital Environments Influence the Participation and Efficiency of Cross-Sector Partnerships

Abstract

Cross-sector partnerships (XSP) that address complex societal issues tend to struggle to achieve a substantial impact. To attain successful collaboration, the way in which these XSPs balance participation and efficiency in collaborative practice is vital. While it is commonly examined in a face-to-face environment, this study investigates the practice in a digital context. Based on observations of virtual meetings in an XSP on climate change mitigation, a multimodal discourse analysis presents how affordances of communicative channels influenced the relationship of participation and efficiency, with consequences of increased centralization, virtual methods of governance and difficulties of dealing with complexity.

Keywords:

• Collaboration
• efficiency
• media
• participation
• tension

Introduction

Cross-sector partnerships (XSP) are regarded here as “a simultaneous process and structure that involves organizational representatives who come together in a deliberate manner to address issues that affect multiple stakeholders and are beyond the scope and capacity of any single organization or sector” (Koschmann, 2020, p. 82). XSP is a growing form of organizing, necessary to address societal or “wicked” problems that cannot be addressed individually (Heath & Isbell, 2017). The voluntary form of these XSPs makes them reliant on the commitment of their participants to exchange ideas, knowledge, and resources in order to be successful. One factor necessary for achieving this is the need to balance the many perspectives and interests of the participants without reducing the efficiency of accomplishing collaborative goals (Keyton & Stallworth, 2003). To foster commitment and knowledge exchange, the collaborative practice needs to allow members to be on an “equal footing” (Ansell & Gash, 2007, p. 9), but in order to remain on-task and achieve the collaborative aim, the XSP needs to find legitimate ways to create efficiency (Gray, 1989; Kramer, Hoelscher, Nguyen, Day, & Cooper, 2017).

Participation is understood here to be actions that indicate forms of involvement, while actions of efficiency reduce or condition participation to maintain or create a collaborative process (Goodwin, 2000; Kramer, Hoelscher, Nguyen, Day, & Cooper, 2017). Assuming that full participation is incompatible with efficiency and vice-versa, equal footing needs to be balanced with efficiency through acts of authority (Keyton & Stallworth, 2003; Lewis, Isbell, & Koschmann, 2010). Authority refers to participants’ “ability to exercise power, control or influence among collaborative members” (Koschmann, 2020, p. 85). This manifests itself in participants’ conditions of possibility (Cooren, 2015), that is, the things someone is entitled to say but also their access to, and influence of, communicative resources (Meyrowitz, 1995). However, the voluntary nature of these XSPs means any formal legitimate authority is absent, with conditions of possibility instead needing to be accepted and negotiated by their members (Koschmann & Burk, 2016; Taylor & Van Every, 2014).

The increased usage of digital communication resources for XSPs (Heath & Isbell, 2017), not least actualized in XSPs’ relocation to fully digital environments during the COVID-19 pandemic, has led to a growing dependence on digital media for collaborative practice. Digital media is referred to here as digital technologies for the transmission and storage of symbols, with the ability to produce and influence based on how their content operates in groups and society (Couldry, 2020). Due to XSPs’ reliance on group-level meetings for discussions and decision-making (Hall, Leppänen, & Åkerström, 2019), the most influential digitalization of collaborative practice could be said to have occurred in the shift toward virtual meetings.

The virtual environment is an arena of digital communicative resources in which members of an XSP need to create normative discourses of how to use them for collaboration. Therefore, collaboration in virtual meetings allows authority to manifest itself in different ways, influenced by the characteristics of digital media (Couldry, 2020). Consequently, the ways in which participation and efficiency are balanced in XSPs depend on how affordances of the digital environment operate. With its focus on an XSP dedicated to an important societal issue, this study investigates the tricky communicative challenge of relying on negotiated authorities whilst collaborating in a digitally mediated environment. This is examined together with an analysis of how balancing participation and efficiency is enacted in virtual meetings and the consequences this has for addressing the XSP’s complex societal issues.

Outline

This article is divided into four parts. The first section presents the literature review that has served as a basis for the study and purpose of investigation, with connected research questions. After that, the analytical framework, including the case for analysis, is presented. In that section, the analytical concept of affordances and how they are operationalized in a multimodal discourse analysis for addressing purpose and research questions is elaborated. The following section presents the analysis, divided into addressing one research question at a time. The article is concluded by a brief discussion based on the implications of the findings and suggestions for further research.

Collaboration and Communication in XSPs Addressing Complex Societal Issues

XSPs dedicated to addressing complex societal challenges tend to be administered and initiated by a public organization (referred to as the governing organization), and deal with what is considered a public purpose (Gray & Purdy, 2018). Apart from the governing organization, these XSPs often include a wide distribution of public and private stakeholders, which creates a high degree of uncertainty about what to solve and how to tackle the complex problem at the center of the collaboration (Cox, 2010). This makes it necessary for members to participate in the collaborative process to straighten out differing understandings (Vlaar, Van den Bosch, & Volberda, 2006), but also to avoid unwanted asymmetric power relations and instead establish a common direction (Gray & Purdy, 2018). Members who, due to institutional size and status, become too influential on the collective purpose and direction could lead to other actors exiting, thereby reducing the XSP’s collaborative output (Saffer, Yang, & Taylor, 2018). Ironically, while high “access and inclusion” (Walker & Daniels, 2019, p. 7) are considered central to the XSPs in terms of finding a mutual way forward, the urgency of the matters also requires them to be efficient and push for collaborative progress.

Recently, it has been argued that it is important to investigate XSPs’ communicative practices in order to understand the challenges that surface in these collaborations (e.g. Heath & Isbell, 2017). Traditionally, XSPs have been investigated from a management perspective from which communication is one variable among many. However, understanding how the relational balance of participation and efficiency is enacted in the communicative practice adheres to a social constructivist understanding of communication as central to (or constitutive of) collaboration (e.g., Lewis, 2006). This perspective regards the meaning-making potential of communication as formative, thereby enabling XSPs, with all their features, to be created, maintained, and recreated through interaction. Investigating the formative features of communication has proven suitable for examining the unformalized and undefined character of XSPs (Koschmann & Sanders, 2020; Koschmann, Kuhn, & Pfarrer, 2012; Miller, 2015), in which XSP members’ participation in the communicative practice becomes central for examining how XSPs are developed. Previous scientific contributions have investigated the importance of communication for creating, such as collective identity (Hardy, Lawrence, & Grant, 2005), participatory value (Koschmann, Kuhn, & Pfarrer, 2012), managing tensions (Lewis, Isbell, & Koschmann, 2010), and coping with membership (Cooper, 2021).

Balancing Participation and Efficiency in XSPs

While the conditions and consequences of participation are central to a communication-centered perspective, previous investigations have tended to focus on examining the balancing of participation and efficiency in analog face-to-face communication. In analog environments, studies have investigated how this balancing manifests itself in norms of operation within the XSP, and how communicative acts of individual members can authoritatively modify the balance (Hardy, Lawrence, & Phillips, 2006; Koschmann, Kuhn, & Pfarrer, 2012). For example, participants in “powerful positions” (Kramer, Hoelscher, Nguyen, Day, & Cooper, 2017, p. 442) can, through authoritative acts (using texts or through interaction), end stagnant and polarized discussions and allow for XSPs to progress, thus enabling efficiency to the benefit of equal input.

Although complex societal issues often involve multiple powerful actors, the “natural authority” that follows from the governing organization comes with an informal responsibility to ensure participation while simultaneously guaranteeing efficiency (Kramer, Hoelscher, Nguyen, Day, & Cooper, 2017). However, the risk of taking over discussions and, intentionally or unintentionally, limiting the level of participation in the XSP could follow (Gray & Purdy, 2018). Communication scholars have therefore suggested that collaboration leaders should be cautious of how they govern and “carefully consider” (Kramer, Hoelscher, Nguyen, Day, & Cooper, 2017, p. 443) when to favor efficiency ahead of participation.

Apart from the actors involved in the communicative practice, the communicative setting and its related conditions are also influential in terms of how participation and efficiency are manifested (Keyton & Stallworth, 2003). Factors such as unequal access, unbalanced representation, and undesirable norms of collaborative practice can foster delegitimization and loss of commitment among members, thereby limiting innovation and the free flow of ideas (Lewis, Isbell, & Koschmann, 2010). Turning attention to collaboration in digital settings is thereby influenced by the norms, access, and other aspects established by collaborating digitally. Although digital media were initially argued to be a means of democratizing communication, the ways in which such media are used have become increasingly situated (Syvertsen, Enli, Mjøs, & Moe, 2014). That is, organizational representatives bring their home organization’s access, abilities, and norms of how to use digital tools into the collaborative arena. This makes XSPs increasingly dependent on members to co-orient access to software and on situated organizational logics for how to use them for collaboration.

XSP in Virtual Meetings

The ability of digital media to lower the threshold for participation by reducing spatial and temporal barriers has led to it being promoted as an enabler in terms of enhancing XSPs (Abrahamsson Lindeblad, Voytenko, Mont, & Arnfalk, 2015; Fulk & DeSanctis, 1995; Vial, 2019). Although a fair amount of XSPs’ collaborative practice today is digitally mediated (Heath & Isbell, 2017; Shumate, Atouba, Cooper, & Pilny, 2017), scholars deem its influence on collaboration practice to be “underresearched” (Fu, Cooper, & Shumate, 2019, p. 234). That said, a significant number of studies have acknowledged the influence that digital media have on organizational and interorganizational practices, including their use of virtual meetings (Markaki & Mondada, 2012; Persson & Mathiassen, 2014; Strengers, 2015). Previous studies have, for example, highlighted how virtual meetings can lead to undesirable outcomes, such as a reduction in groupness (Meier, 2003), tendencies of “unfairness,” and situations in which “participants do not get fully involved” (Abrahamsson Lindeblad, Voytenko, Mont, & Arnfalk, 2015, p. 118). However, they have also shown how “established policies, procedures, technologies, and norms” can be challenged (Persson & Mathiassen, 2012, p. 10).

Although studies on collaboration in virtual meetings have indicated actions that encourage both participation and efficiency, few studies have examined how the important collaborative and communicative practice of balancing them is enacted in the virtual environment and its formative implications for XSPs. Since the use of digital media to collaborate is increasing, its influence on XSPs’ collaborative practice needs also to be increasingly investigated—particularly in XSPs that address complex societal issues due to their wide representation of organizations, need to address power relations, struggles with complex problems, and urgent need to create collaborative output.

Purpose of Study

Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine how the relational balance of participation and efficiency in an XSP on a complex societal issue is enacted in virtual meetings and what consequences this entails for collaborative practice. The examination is based on a case study of a Swedish regional collaboration on the societal issue of climate change mitigation. The empirical material is from the initial stages of the XSP as it switched to virtual meetings in the midst of its collaborative process. Building on a communication-centered perspective of collaboration, the study examines the norms of practice that emerged in the digital environment during collaborative discussions in three sub-groups of this XSP.

The purpose of study was condensed into two research questions.

RQ1:

How do the members of this XSP balance participation and efficiency in their virtual meetings?

Building on the communication-centered understanding of collaboration as being created from processes of communication, and digital media as operating on features of this communication (Couldry & Hepp, 2017), the consequences that followed were also of interest.

RQ2:

What consequences does this have for the XSP’s collaborative practice?

Analytical Framework

This section presents the case that served as empirical material and the concepts and methods used for investigating it.

The Case

The case in question is a Swedish regional XSP on climate change mitigation, initiated in 2011 by a regional public authority which has governed the XSP since that time. The XSP collaborates with the aim of becoming a region with a surplus of regional renewable energy before 2045. Since 2011, its participants had worked to realize this collective vision through inter- and intraorganizational activities. At the time of study, the XSP consisted of about 50 organizations and more than 100 representatives. The XSP was divided into seven permanent groups with different thematic interests and obligations. During the period of data collection, a considerable amount of discussion was dedicated to developing a new “program of measures.” The program was formally authored by the governing organization but needed to be collectively developed, accepted, and realized within five years by members of the XSP.

Three groups, similar in their number of regular members, meetings, and tasks, were chosen for investigation, due to their responsibility for developing new or improved collective measures. All groups consisted of a combination of public and private representatives from different parts of the region, with most having collaborated in the XSP for more than two years. All groups consisted of both men and women, and had a wide age distribution, from participants in their thirties to those beyond the formal age of retirement. No individual was present in more than one of the three groups.

The meetings were conducted in line with a traditional bureaucratic format, with a chair, secretary, and agenda (see Svennevig, 2012). For administrative reasons, the governing organization had been represented as the secretary in all groups, and in one group also as the chair from the outset. The group secretary was responsible for hosting the virtual meetings, which included writing agendas and notes, choosing a platform, and sending emailed invitations to the virtual meetings.

The groups in question are presented in Table 1.¹

Table 1 Empirical Material for Analysis

Name	Preparatory group	Working group 1	Working group 2
Task	To evaluate suggestions from working groups, advisory group to the board of the XSP.	To suggest a direction and arrange activities to reach the collective vision based on thematic area.	To suggest a direction and arrange activities to reach the collective vision based on thematic area
Number of regular members	11	10	15
Organizations represented	10	10	13
Meeting 1 (Minutes, Participants, Organizations)	180, 7, 5	70, 7, 7	120, 10, 9
Meeting 2 (Minutes, Participants, Organizations)	180, 9, 6	180, 5, 5	120, 8, 7
Material for in-depth analysis (Minutes)	90	150	60

Collection of Empirical Material

By following recommendations from similar studies (e.g. Kramer, Hoelscher, Nguyen, Day, & Cooper, 2017), the choice was made to collect the empirical material as a non-active member of the virtual meetings to enable first-hand experience of the communicative practices (Kozinets, 2017). The presence of the researcher was highlighted at the beginning of each meeting and acknowledged during the meetings by way of an icon in the interface. Field notes were taken during meetings, and, so as not to overlook the simultaneous usage of various communicative channels, audio/video recording was used for data management (suggested by Boellstorff, Nardi, Pearce, & Taylor, 2012). The empirical material was collected between August 2020 and November 2020. In total, six virtual meetings on Skype for Business totaling 14 hours formed the corpus of material, whose distribution is also presented in Table 1.² The virtual meeting interface was adapted so that all textual, spoken, and visual communication formed part of the recordings, presented in Figure 1.

Figure 1 Presentation of Interface.

Prior to analysis, an initial review of the recorded material was conducted to inductively identify situations (Alvesson, 2014) considered key to the purpose of investigation. Of interest were situations in which the discussion indicated a conflict of opinion and was thereby considered likely to be influenced by a discursive distribution of power (e.g. Foucault, 1980; Thompson, 1995) to allow for equal input, but also to enable efficiency. The discussions regarding the new program of measures were considered likely to foster these situations and therefore selected for closer analysis. From the fourteen hours of material in total, five hours were chosen for in-depth analysis³ (presented in Table 1, last row).

All verbal communication—i.e., anything that was spoken through the microphone or written in the chat module— was transcribed verbatim. Figure 1 presents the interface with the three textual and visual channels for communication labeled: A for chat module, B for screen-sharing, and C for icon/visualization of participant. The decision was made to focus on the usage of A, B, and speech. Although visual appearance can be used to induce efficiency in a conversation, Skype’s default settings only allow the person speaking in the interface to be seen. This made it difficult to monitor and distinguish the extent to which visual appearance enabled the balancing of participation and efficiency, and it was therefore deemed difficult to draw any conclusions from how it affected the purpose of investigation. Hence, C was excluded from analysis.

All participation was voluntary, and participants were informed about the study and data management before giving consent to participate. Prior to each meeting, the participants were reminded verbally that the meeting was being recorded, reminded verbally of what the purpose of the recording was, and given the chance to ask questions about the study and data collection.

In-Depth Analysis

Based on social-constructivist ideas of collaboration, the focus of the in-depth investigation was to examine norms of how multimodal channels for communication were used to communicate socially constructed signs and symbols. This corresponds to a multimodal discourse analysis (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2001) with a focus on members’ communicative actions. Central to the analysis was the concept of affordances (Ledin & Machin, 2018). Affordances (most affiliated with Gibson, 1979) are understood here as a group’s constructed ideas and assumptions of how to use channels for communication in the virtual meetings (Ledin & Machin, 2018). In other words, the “material and social possibilities and constraints” (Adami & Kress, 2010, p. 185) that “facilitate or restrain how we can engage with others” (Ledin & Machin, 2018, p. 109). In this context, affordances in the virtual meetings are understood to be constructed through an interplay of what the channels invite participants to do and what the group negotiates as accepted usage. Viewing a virtual meeting as “multimodal in its affordances” (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2001, p. 67) enabled the presence of a multimodal discourse to be examined in relation to how affordances encouraged, but also constrained, actions of participation and efficiency.

To examine participants’ usage and their arguments for how to use chosen communicative channels, two empirical indicators suggested by Koschmann, Kuhn, and Pfarrer (2012) served as a basis for analysis: (1) participants’ ability to get involved in discussion, and (2) the consequences of participants’ involvement. To analyze how affordances affected (1) and (2), a toolbox was developed consisting of analytical elements to examine how participation and efficiency were enacted in visual and verbal features (see Table 2). The toolbox was developed after the initial review and was based on a selection of analytical elements that were considered of relevance for the purpose of investigation (particularly using Ledin and Machin (2018), Stenglin (2014) and Baym (2015)).

Table 2 Analytical Toolbox

Analytical element	Analytical form
Accessibility	Participants’ ability and access to communicative channels and interaction
Interactivity	Participants’ ability to interact with the interface
Focal Point	Object in center of attention in terms of positioning, color and size
Connotations	Connections between lexical and visual attributes in the communicative channels
Frames	Connections and focus of objects and information, emphasized by frames
Reach	Participants’ ability to reach and interact with other participants
Temporal Structure	Temporal character of participants’ input, such as level of transitivity
Super-/Subordination	Hierarchies of communicative channels, based on positioning and usage
Lexical/Visual Suppression	Suppression or disappearance of information and participants’ involvement
Lexical/Visual Exclusion	Exclusion of elements of information and participation in interaction

The analytical toolbox was used to examine one group at a time. Supported by both the recorded and transcribed material, descriptive coding (Saldaña, 2009, p. 70) was used to indicate and describe how the analytical elements were enacted and negotiated in relation to each communicative channel. This included identifying situations in which affordances enabled authoritative acts for encouraging participation or efficiency. The codes were summarized by the researcher to give an overview of the affordances for each communicative channel. The summaries were used to compare affordances across the groups to build an understanding of the various methods and authorities that enabled balancing of participation and efficiency, and thereby to reveal affordances more prominent in the material.

To investigate the consequences this had on collaborative practice, the way in which affordances supported participation and efficiency was connected to communicative challenges common to these XSPs, such as managing complexities and asymmetric power relations (e.g., Cox, 2010; Gray & Purdy, 2018; Heath & Isbell, 2017). Going back and forth between the analysis and XSP literature enabled situations to be pinpointed in which affordances assisted in encouraging or constraining these challenges. Throughout the process, the analysis and its conclusions have continuously been discussed with colleagues and academic supervisors to improve reliability and focus the discussion.

Presentation of Results

The results are presented one research question at a time. The first research question is answered by presenting three affordances empirically identified and considered most influential for the balancing of participation and efficiency. The section that follows addresses the second research question by presenting three ways the affordances shaped collaborative practice. The results are presented together with excerpts from the empirical material considered to be key situations for describing how the affordances were manifested, and the resulting consequences. The excerpts were translated from Swedish to English by the researcher. All names of participants and organizations are removed out of ethical consideration.

Analysis

RQ1 – How Do Members of an XSP Balance Participation and Efficiency?

To present the three affordances, each section starts with a brief description of how the affordance enabled balancing of participation and efficiency, followed by examples from the empirical material of how the particular affordance was negotiated.

Efficiency Through Selective Elevation

In the first finding, affordances of the chat module enabled participants in symbolic power positions to selectively elevate comments to induce efficiency. The analysis suggests that this affordance was enabled by a transition and transformation of previous distribution of power from the traditional non-virtual meeting genre. The affordance made participation in the spoken discussion conditioned, as it was dependent on the chair and secretary.

The chat module is a communicative channel without any obvious counterpart in a physical meeting. It provides an area of participation to read and write textual comments that are visible to everyone. In the version of Skype used for this XSP, the chat module was not visualized by default but needed to be opened by each participant to enable usage. This made the chat module subordinate to other communicative channels and created uncertainty around which participants were using it. The chat module was framed as separate from screen-sharing, far to the left of the focal point (see Figure 1), which created a sense of detachment or of being secondary to what was in focus.

This version of Skype only allowed the chat module to be used in a one-to-group manner. It was, however, used for a multitude of reasons, such as posing questions, answering questions, addressing absence, showing appreciation, giving an opinion on a matter, sharing hyperlinks and more—all while other members were speaking. It became an area in which both formal and informal participation could take place. However, although anyone could participate textually in the chat module, the written comments only became part of the spoken discussion when elevated by the chair or secretary. This responsibility appeared to be related to traditional obligations, such as sharing the floor. However, due to the irregular character of comments in the chat module, it was not obvious which comments the chair or secretary should elevate or not. Comments were instead selected for elevation.

The ability to selectively elevate comments became a method for inducing efficiency. This was exemplified in Working Group 1, wherein five participants from five public organizations used screen-sharing to co-write a collective measure on a garbage collection initiative. The measure was considered hard to define and had been an object of discussion at many meetings. Prior to the meeting, the group had received feedback from the governing organization to make the measure more “powerful.” During a long discussion involving two distinct opinions of how to interpret “powerful,” the group did not make enough progress and it was clear that more time than available was needed to finalize the formulation.

A:

I Think This One is Really Hard

During the discussion, two out of four participants used the chat module on different occasions to announce their brief absence. The secretary, however, only decided to elevate one of the participants’ comments.

Secretary:

Mmm, exactly. Now [A] is disappearing for a bit.

B:

Maybe we should take a break.

Secretary:

Yes, maybe we should think about …

Chair:

Is ten minutes enough?

The participants who announced their absence appeared to be equal in status among members and in relation to the question being discussed. Elevating just one of the two could therefore have been done unconsciously or randomly. However, the consequence of elevating the absence of [A] was to break the negotiation and end the discussion—a discussion that was never re-opened afterward. The secretary’s ability to selectively elevate comments and the chair’s communicative act to make “the break” definite (“Is ten minutes enough?”), were both acts of authority. The selective elevation enabled the secretary and chair to induce efficiency by ending a long and stagnant discussion by moving to the next object on the agenda.

The potential for some members to exclude or elevate comments in the chat module made it an influential channel with the potential to condition participation in the spoken discussion. Since only the chair and secretary had the authority of elevating comments, the affordance seemed to be a result of transferred symbolic power structures of the non-virtual meeting genre, which was manifested through affordances of the virtual communicative channels.

Reducing Co-Presence for Short-Term Efficiency

The second finding addresses how technical constraints created situations in which the balance of participation and efficiency was forced to be negotiated. These situations occurred when participants expressed an inability to access collaborative material, which resulted in a tension that jeopardized equal participation. Efficiency was created by finding alternative and conditioned ways for members to participate.

This tension built upon an affordance of multimodal interdependence between the three channels of communication. The comments written in the chat module were connected to something spoken or visualized. What was shown on the screen-sharing interface was connected to the spoken presentation. In order to be fully informed about the collaborative discussion, participants needed to have accessibility, literacy, and an awareness of how to use all channels (also suggested in the previous example). This created difficulties for the collaborative practice. Participants repeatedly expressed an inability to see what was being shared on screen due to technological constraints, which created a limitation in terms of reach and accessibility of the collaborative material and excluded participants from participating equally in discussions.

An example of this occurred in the Preparatory Group, where seven participants from five public and private organizations were informed by the governing organization about how the new program of measures was progressing. The program was described as containing “what the [XSP] will do in the coming years.” On this occasion, three months had passed since the group had last been updated. The latest draft of the program had been emailed to the group prior to the meeting and was presented at the virtual meeting for the group to give feedback. Early in the presentation, Participant C signaled in the chat module that she was unable to see what was being visualized. This was elevated and responded to by Presenter A, while addressing the co-presenter, Presenter B, who was managing the presentation (both were from the governing organization):

Presenter A:

Okay [C], I see that you cannot see the presentation, but maybe we could email it [Presenter B]? To share …

Presenter B:

I can do that.

Presenter A:

Okay, so the first block […]

The situation was quickly handled by representatives of the governing organization who used their authority to provide an alternative for those not able to follow the presentation. The authoritative act of the governmental representatives enabled efficiency by negotiating the access to collaborative material: “but maybe we could e-mail it.” This averted the swift drop in accessibility to collaborative material and allowed for participation. What is interesting is how the group decided to continue. It was not suggested to stop use screen-sharing, nor was the question raised as to whether any of the participants saw what was being shared. Here, equal accessibility and reach became subordinate to the software’s multimodal potential of combining visual material with spoken presentation. The presenter chose to adapt the spoken presentation to enable all participants to follow, manifested by referring to the emailed material (“we are now on slide eight”).

A similar situation occurred in Working Group 2 when discussing the package of collective measures for which the group was responsible for producing. Ten participants from nine public and private organizations attended the meeting. The discussion took place one hour into the meeting and was introduced by a presentation from the representative of the governing organization. Early in the presentation, two participants stated in the chat module that they were unable to see what was being visualized, while two others confirmed their ability to see.

Participant A:

I cannot see any image. Can anyone else?

Participant B:

Yes

Participant C:

I see the image

Participant D:

Neither do I

The situation was elevated by the presenter/secretary into a spoken discussion of how to solve the problem. For a couple of minutes, participants tried to guide each other verbally until the chair decided to end the discussion and let the problem remain unsolved. The presenter/secretary decided to act on this by adjusting the spoken presentation:

Chair:

[A] can you see the presentation now that you re-entered?

A:

No, but I got some messages about a weak connection, so I have to live with that.

D:

So do I.

Chair:

Yes, but everyone else can see.

Presenter/Secretary:

Then I need to be a bit clearer when I speak so that everyone can follow.

Similar to the previous example, the chair’s authoritative act of ending the problem-solving discussion enabled efficiency at the expense of participation. The assertion that “everyone else can see” suggests that efficiency is justified if eight out of ten can see the visual material. This enabled the group to not become stuck on solving technical constraints but to instead proceed with the collaborative task. However, participants unable to see the visuals also encouraged the group to proceed using screen-sharing, despite being unable to take part in it. The notion that efficiency was necessary and that they “have to live with that” appeared to be consensual. In contrast to the first example, no presentation was distributed by e-mail here, but the decision was made to “be a bit clearer […] so that everyone can follow,” thus addressing the loss of co-presence. This suggests an understanding that losing visuals would reduce access to the information presented, making the presentation hard to “follow.” However, no participant expressed a dependence on the visuals for collaborating, but rather an obligation to remain using the technology and to follow the initial plan of the meeting. In order to keep using screen-sharing, negotiation was required on the part of the presenter/secretary, who offered alternative modes of involvement such as emailing the material or adapting the spoken presentation.

Here, technological constraints created situations in which the balancing of efficiency and participation was forced into an object for negotiation. Adjustment of language and emailing of documents were used as leverage to remain at a high multimodal level at the expense of equal access to collaborative material. These authoritative acts induce efficiency to discussion and enabled the XSP to move forward.

Balancing Efficiency Through Interactivity

The last affordance presented suggests that the element of interactivity in virtual meetings enabled ways of managing participation and efficiency by involving participants in the writing process, but excluded them from deciding the focus of the discussion. The following finding is connected to Working Group 1, which used “screen sharing” to co-write and develop the collective measures visualized in Figure 2. Sharing the screen was encouraged by the secretary as a way to include other participants.

Figure 2 Example of Use of Colors and Framing Through Screen-Sharing.

Secretary: I Think I’ll Share My Desktop so That You Can See

The choice to use co-writing enabled interactivity with the textual material and created an increased focus on the task of producing text, whereby the “program of measures” became a focal point for discussion. Co-writing through screen-sharing enabled participants’ accessibility to see what was written, but also to immediately respond, comment, and instruct the writing verbally. In this sense, it encouraged transparency and participation by enabling participants to be closely involved in the process of writing the measures.

The role of participants as active co-writers was not suggested by the secretary but, rather, emerged in the interaction between secretary and participants. What started out as a consultative manner, with participants giving their opinion on a written text (i.e., “I agree,” “I think it is clear,” “[…] but maybe the members want to use [the measure] in different ways?”), developed into a co-constructing dialogue which enabled participants to influence the development by directing the secretary on what to “write,” “remove,” and “change” in the shared document.

Secretary:

Is this where to write it then? Under expenses?

A:

Yes, I reckon that sixty to seventy thousand is just to develop the material … and then how you want to distribute it.

The affordance created by co-writing through screen-sharing bridged the transient nature of speech, whereby information becomes inaccessible after speaking, by allowing participants’ suggestions to be (almost) synchronically textualized.

However, the design of the interface only allowed the participant sharing the screen to write in the document, and this participant was the secretary. The secretary used interactive features (such as scrolling and highlighting) to choose the focal point of discussion. Yellow and red markers were placed in the document (see Figure 2) prior to the meeting, which gave prominence to particular areas of the text and guided the screen-sharing framework. In this way, certain collaborative issues were highlighted while others were excluded. This increased efficiency by not allowing the discussion to divert to areas of the text the secretary considered irrelevant or unproblematic.

The secretary had extensive freedom to decide the focal point of the discussion. The documents appeared to be approached ad-hoc, (“we will see [which measure to start with]”), and were based on sections the secretary found most important and urgent to handle. In this sense, the secretary and governing organization set the agenda in terms of issues to be discussed. This proved to be successful in relation to efficiency but came at the price of limiting participants’ own agendas. The affordance enabled authority to be concentrated, and consequently created an increased responsibility for participants to be aware of excluded issues, i.e., those not framed or marked and thereby not part of the discussion.

The affordances of interactivity enabled ways of influencing participation and efficiency by inviting participants to develop the collaborative direction, encouraged by frames and markers. However, features in the interface limited the interactive potential to the secretary, giving him or her the authority of imposing efficiency by deciding focal points of discussion and, thereby, the potential to set the agenda.

RQ2 – What Consequences Does This Have on Collaborative Practice?

Based on how the affordances were used to induce participation and efficiency, three implications were suggested to be particularly relevant for the collaborative practice of XSPs addressing complex societal issues. The implications are presented one at a time and supported by empirical excerpts.

Centralization of Collaborative Communication

The XSP’s sudden switch to virtual meetings suggests that the distribution of power from analog meetings was highly present in the material (Couldry, 2020). Chairs and secretaries were, for example, given authorities that others did not have, thus providing them with affordances to balance participation and efficiency. The use of communicative channels for interaction was in this sense centralized. This manifested itself in the dependence on the secretary/presenter to distribute visual material or “talk extra clearly,” the secretary’s role in interactively writing collaborative documents, and the authority to elevate comments from the chat module.

Centralization in a non-digital meeting is a means of structuring interaction, for example by enabling participants to share the floor and the group to follow the agenda. However, in the virtual meetings, the centralization worked in both enabling and disabling opportunities for collaborative practice. This was exemplified when Working Group 1 was co-writing a collective measure through screen-sharing. At the meeting, seven participants from seven public and private organizations were present and, early on, one of the participants announced in the chat module that she was unable to see what was being shared on screen:

I cannot see so I probably need to re-enter

This comment remained unaddressed and a couple of minutes later the same participant wrote again. The second comment was directed to a fellow participant but excluded elevation, which made the message unable to reach the intended recipient.

I cannot see so I probably need to re-enter

…someone needs to close their window so ice-cream trucks and reversing trucks won’t be heard so loudly

The question remained unaddressed, as did the noise from traffic, until the comments were noticed by the addressed participant at the end of meeting. In this example, either the participants involved (the participant without visuals and the participant with the open window) were using the communicative channels differently and thereby unable to communicate or the comment was simply neglected by the participant addressed. Notably, none of the other five participants in the meeting interrupted the discussion to elevate the comment. This inability to reach each other exemplifies how the centralization resulted in a communicative barrier between participants.

As a group, the centralization enabled participants to stay on-task while noise from traffic continued to disturb the audio feed. However, as an XSP, the centralization made it difficult to communicate outside the prioritized channels for communication. Since speech and visual communication were superordinate, comments in the chat module became less important for discussion. In the example above, centralization disabled the chat module as a way to influence discussion. Hence, the asymmetric power relations common to these XSPs are expressed differently through affordances of their virtual meetings. Here, centralization, or dependencies on the organizations that represented the chairs and secretaries, in combination with hierarchies in the communicative channels, prevented members from connecting. This impeded on the idea of members’ equal input but also their ability to straighten out misunderstandings, as the later sections show.

Virtual Methods of Governance

Common to these XSPs is the “natural” authority of the governing organization, working to align the XSP through communicative actions of governing. Here, the governing organization was initiator and administrator, and represented the majority of chairs and secretaries of the XSP. With multiple opportunities to govern, the analysis suggests that the affordances used to balance participation and efficiency also enabled virtual ways of governing to emerge.

This was exemplified in Working Group 1, wherein interactive markers created a focal point for unresolved matters. However, the unresolved aspects were not only decided by participants of the group but also by individuals from the governing organization represented in other groups. In the following excerpt, the secretary of Working Group 1 explained the markers of the collective document:

Secretary: Exactly…I can just mention that, when discussing with [secretaries from] the other groups, they thought that maybe it’s not just about consumption. They also wanted to include transportation and renewable energy and such. So, I was asked to think about that, and reached the conclusion that they are also part of consumption, ha-ha. So, I have added that down here. Highlighted in yellow as you can see.

Here, frames and markers enabled voices from the governing organization to influence the discussion with what they “wanted to include.” Governance practiced through frames and markers focused the attention but also added external voices to the discussion. In this example, the collaborative initiative was broadened from concentrating on a particular theme to a measure that aligned the XSP toward a common purpose. In this sense, the measure became less dependent on the group developing it and part of the wider collaborative practice.

The affordances that enabled participation and efficiency to be balanced paved the way for virtual methods of governing the XSP by allowing external voices to participate and influence the collaborative practice. Although these voices might have been referred to in an analog meeting as well, the analysis shows how they were emphasized virtually by creating a focal point for frames and markers to encourage the chosen direction.

Difficulties of Dealing with Complexity

The ability to manage uncertainties related to the complex issue of collaboration is central to these XSPs. To do so, members’ access to the same information is considered valuable for co-orientation. However, the analysis suggests that the affordance to reduce co-presence to cope with technological constraints compromised this ability.

An example occurred when Working Group 1 was using screen-sharing for co-writing collective measures. Early in the meeting, Participant A had announced her inability to see what was being shared. The group responded to this by choosing short-term efficiency instead of equal participation. To be part of the co-writing she needed to use material emailed prior to the meeting. The difference in accessibility made it hard for her to follow the number of times a collective measure was proposed for implementation.

A: But did we say just once?

Secretary: Yes, we changed it.

A: No but it is also … it’s a bit weak in that case. To only do it once in four, five years. Hehe.

Secretary: Yes, it is.

A: Maybe you should do it more than once then?

Secretary: At least three times?

Following this, the secretary changed the measure to take place three times per year during the period instead of the initial suggestion of once per year. This was apparent to everyone able to see the shared screen. Later in the meeting, the group reviewed the measure once again.

Secretary:

But if we say “at least three times per year” …

A:

Or “during the period,” not “per year”!

Secretary:

Yes …

A:

Or am I right?

Secretary:

Yes, but is it low?

A:

I don’t know.

Confusion as to whether the collective measure should be implemented three or fifteen times suggests a high level of uncertainty as to what a reasonable level of implementation would be. However, the conversation indicates that Participant A was unable to understand whether the group was discussing the number of implementations “per year” or “during the period.” This made her unintentionally suggest a number neither she nor anyone else supported. In the last excerpt she proposed a number lower than was originally suggested.

These situations of confusion appeared to occur due to participants’ differing abilities to build information, which made it hard for members to deal with complexity and remove uncertainties. The material suggests that being in “different informational worlds” (Meyrowitz, 1995, p. 84). came from the affordance of prioritizing a multimodal interdependence in the meetings. The disorder and confusion that emerged due to differing levels of accessibility was not (only) a result of flaws in the software but of the choices of how to operate as a collaboration in the virtual environment. Being an XSP addressing a complex issue such as climate change mitigation makes the ability to deal with uncertainties and complexities in a proper way highly important. The analysis suggests that the high multimodal interdependence present in the virtual meetings impeded on the ability to deal with this complexity, thereby prolonging the collaborative process and increasing the effort needed to collaborate.

Concluding Discussion

The purpose of this study was to examine the ways in which the relational balance of participation and efficiency is enacted in virtual meetings of an XSP addressing a complex societal issue, along with the consequences this had for its collaborative practice. The purpose was addressed by investigating affordances of the communicative channels through a multimodal discourse analysis. The case for investigation was an XSP focusing on climate change mitigation. These XSPs are characterized as involving a vast array of representatives from different voluntary organizations with various understandings of how to solve the collaborative issue, but also differing ideas and logics of how to use digital media for collaboration.

Three significant ways in which affordances of the virtual meetings enabled the balancing of participation and efficiency were identified: by allowing selective elevation of chat comments, the reduction of co-presence, and the usage of interactive features. Departing from these affordances, three consequences that followed for collaboration were distinguished. They enabled the manifestation of a centralized collaborative communication, virtual methods of governance, and a multimodal interdependence that created difficulties of dealing with complexity.

This study provides empirical examples of how differing organizational and individual understandings of using media for collaboration are co-oriented in XSPs’ communicative practice. The examples of how affordances influenced roles and encouraged asymmetric power relations in the XSP, and furthermore compromised the ability to address complex issues, offer valuable insights to continue exploring the complex nature of XSPs. The study hereby contributes a multimodal dimension of understanding communication as constitutive for collaboration and will hopefully enable future studies to build on its findings.

The limited empirical material makes it difficult to draw any conclusions about long-term impacts of the outlined consequences. However, the full empirical material suggests that the process of establishing a program of measures became difficult for this XSP. It required more meetings than initially intended and multiple deadlines to be pushed back. While there could be many reasons for this, awareness—and sometimes avoidance—of the implications presented in this study is of relevance for XSPs addressing complex societal issues, due to their increased usage of digital media and strong need to make collaborative progress.

Limitations and Future Studies

Although there are many limitations, the most significant is the study’s case-based approach. Each XSP is unique in its constellation, practice, context, and focus of collaboration, which makes any ambition to generalize difficult. Furthermore, the study only focused on “virtual meetings” as the media for communication, while the media ensemble of most XSPs (this case included) involves a multiplicity of digital media for communication (see Fu, Cooper, & Shumate, 2019). To gain greater insights from investigating the influence of digital media on the balancing of participation and efficiency, an analysis of the full media ensemble would be advised.

Due to the “vast opportunities to collaborate through technology” (Keyton, 2017, p. 11), this study should encourage future studies that address how technology—and especially digital media—influence XSPs. Collaborations that address complex societal issues are particularly suitable for these investigations due to their high variation of actors, with differing understandings of media, and are highly socially relevant. While this study focused on actions, a suggestion would be for similar studies to focus on insights from participants to understand intrinsic or hidden factors that influence members’ abilities to collaborate digitally and the consequences this could have for the collaborative output. On a practical level, studies that investigate strategies for implementing communication technologies in XSPs are also highly encouraged.

Acknowledgments

This study was made possible by financial support from the Climate Council of Jönköping County, a non-profit XSP that also served as a case for analysis. No financial interest is connected to the results of the study and the analysis was conducted without any influence from the funder.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Jönköping University [Not applicable]; The Climate Council of Jönköping County.

Notes on contributors

Otto Hedenmo

Otto Hedenmo is a doctoral candidate in media and communication at Jönköping University. In his doctoral project he investigates the relationship between media and agency in interorganizational communication, with the case of climate change mitigation as empirical focus.

Notes

1. For transparency, it should be acknowledged that I, prior to this research project, had a role as secretary in one of the working groups of this XSP for two years. Due to this background, that working group was not chosen for analysis. Potential bias aside, this pre-understanding enhanced my ability to follow and interpret what was discussed in the XSP, which was helpful in the analytical process.

2. The material is part of a larger data set of textual documents and e-mail conversations which, although not the focus of analysis, provided valuable contextual knowledge of discussions for this study.

3. Which corresponded to 73 pages of transcription, single spaced, 10-pt font.