Designing For Collaboration: Groundbreaking Research by Fielding’s Brenda Barker Scott and Michael R. Manning

Brenda Barker Scott, Ph.D.

Recent alum Brenda Barker Scott, Ph.D.’20, has her work published in two leading academic journals in the organization development discipline, Research in Organizational Change and Development and The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science. Her work on the factors contributing to widespread collaborative capacity in organizations builds on the dissertation she completed, guided by her doctoral committee—Barbara Mink, Ed.D., Fred Steier, Ph.D., Michael Manning, Ph.D., and Sarah Evans.

Before starting her doctoral journey at Fielding in the Human and Organizational Development Program, Brenda Barker Scott, Ph.D.’20, was a practitioner who consulted with organizations for two decades. Building on her dissertation work, Dr. Barker Scott’s subsequent research resulted in her becoming a leading expert on how to design organizations to maximize peer-led and team collaboration.

Michael R. Manning, Ph.D.

Dr. Manning shared: “Dr. Barker Scott’s research identifies specific tactics essential in generating collaborative capacity. Her recent published work provides resources for both the scholar and practitioner. For the practitioner, these publications provide the needed guidelines to increase collaboration organization-wide. For the researcher, her publications offer a novel conceptual approach aligning two collaborative subsystems—strategic and operational—that, when integrated, produce high levels of both formal and informal collaboration.”

To learn more about the research on organizational collaboration by Dr. Barker Scott and Dr. Manning, see their articles: 

Barker Scott, B.A. & Manning, M.R. (2021), Designing for Collaboration: Don’t Just Focus on the Team, Focus Also on the Context in Which Teams Work: Research in Organizational Change and Development. Vol. 29

Barker Scott, B. A., & Manning, M. R. (2022). Designing the Collaborative Organization: A Framework for how Collaborative Work, Relationships, and Behaviors Generate Collaborative Capacity: The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science.