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The facilitation of groups and networks: capabilities to shape creative cooperation

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Abstract

Various economic, social and technological developmental trends have induced new challenges to intra- and inter-organisational cooperation. The facilitator, defined as a process guide of creative cooperation, is becoming more and more in focus to assist groups, teams and networks to meet these challenges. The author defines and exemplifies different levels of creative cooperation. Core capabilities of facilitation are defined and explained at each level. Finally, possible societal and ethical aspects of facilitation are discussed as well as future perspectives of disseminating facilitative values and methods.

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Notes

  1. Hunter, Bailey and Taylor (1995) suggest three more levels, namely, the "energy level", the "ritual or spiritual level" and the "intuitive level". We find no justification for a specific "energy level", because all levels contain a certain kind of energy. The "ritual or spiritual level" may be relevant for religious groups, but not as a level for all kinds of facilitation in general. The "intuitive level" is included in the "synergistic level" in our definition.

  2. We are not going to describe each method in this article but recommend the following literature: Mintzberg 1994; Blades 1992; Jungk and Müllert 1989; Rasmussen 2003; Eden 1990; Friend 1993; Checkland 1989.

  3. Here I am deviating a bit from Heron, who seems to advise that implicit statements should be "divined and put back to them" by the facilitator (Heron 2000). To my mind, it is not always productive to make everything explicit. Sometimes there is a good reason not to go further into a specific issue, even if it may be tempting to do so. In other situations it may be very important to divine and make it explicit. The empathic facilitators are able to judge when they should make implicit statements explicit and when not.

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  1. Department of Manufacturing Engineering and Management, The Technical University of Denmark, Building 303, 2800, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark

    Lauge Baungaard Rasmussen

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  1. Lauge Baungaard Rasmussen
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Correspondence to Lauge Baungaard Rasmussen.

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Rasmussen, L.B. The facilitation of groups and networks: capabilities to shape creative cooperation. AI & Soc 17, 307–321 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-003-0285-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-003-0285-7

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