An Assessment of Factors Influencing Collaboration Impacts on Organisational Performance: A Review

Poor organisational performance is partly attributed to lack of collaboration within an organisation. Therefore, this paper sought to establish the factors that influence collaboration and the impact of collaboration on organisational performance. A literature review was conducted to achieve the objectives of the study. Literature from Google Scholar, Emerald and Science Direct were used, based on the keywords relevant to the study. The materials consulted included journals and conference proceedings. Thematic content analysis was used to identify factors that influence collaboration in an organisation. The findings revealed that collaborative leadership, collaborative culture, attributes of partners, strategic and external environment factors influence collaboration. Further findings revealed that collaboration could influence an organisation’s performance in terms of knowledge creation and transfer, innovativeness, ability to leverage resources to achieve maximum benefits, as well as competitive advantage. This study provides knowledge on factors that influence collaboration in order to devise strategies to improve the quality or extent of collaboration in an organisation. By understanding the factors of collaboration, which in turn influence organisational performance, strategies can be developed by stakeholders and managers to encourage collaboration and thus performance.