Collaborative Approach in the domain of social innovation?

The key to building and maintaining a high-trust society is to create a culture of coordination, cooperation, and collaboration. Collaboration is the reason for networking among groups, generating ideas, and building social prosperity. People will collaborate and take part in working together in order to achieve a result they would not be able to achieve alone, and the outcomes will produce breakthrough results and wider social value as a result.  Collaboration takes place when people encounter each other and exchange something (time, care, experiences, expertise, etc) through a shared value in order to receive a benefit. 

A collaborative approach is a framework that is based on trust, engages all stakeholders, and creates a work environment that

• can tap a holistic perspective and the full intellectual potential, so they are able to produce breakthrough and sustainable results, and
• removes the burden of malpractice and unintended consequences of innovations, so it allows the intrinsic value of innovations to realize their full potential.

The goal of the collaborative approach in the domain of social innovation is to give meaning and purpose to all participants including designers, users, clients, customers, and other stakeholders. Ideal social innovations occur when people, knowledge, expertise, and material assets come into contact in a new way that is able to create new opportunities and meaning. So the likelihood of this happening depends largely on the people who share common values and are willing to design as a service for all. 

Here are several other ways to think about the Collaborative Approach:

• A total shift. The collaborative approach is a total shift in the way we work together, the reason we work together, think about the service, and social values. It is a principle-based process of working together, which produces trust, meaning/purpose, and breakthrough results by building true consensus, ownership, and alignment in all aspects of the process.
• A new work ethic and meaning. The collaborative approach provides long-term stability for the work environment because it is a work ethic that recognizes that work gets done through people with a purpose; end results of the work create social value and serve all. It is a way of life that enables us to meet our fundamental needs for self-esteem and mutual respect in the work environment.
• A common denominator for relationships. Collaboration provides the common denominator for engaging all members who will be affected by the designs or innovations since its core values and beliefs are the foundation for maintaining trust-based relationships. 
• A decision-making framework. The collaborative approach creates a network-based leadership model and consensus-based decision-making rather than power or personality whether those decisions are about strategy, design process, customers, people, or systems. 
• Shared responsibility and accountability. The collaborative approach provides shared responsibility and accountability among team members for the impact of innovations or design. It means designers shared responsibility with all stakeholders by engaging them in the design process.  
• An ownership feeling.  The collaborative approach creates an environment for individuals to participate, contribute and build consensus for producing breakthrough results and innovations. We feel ownership when we contribute and see our contributions shape the end results and produce the final outputs.
• A shared perception of reality. The collaborative approach creates an environment where the members of the team share the same view of what the change should be, based on a shared perception of current realities. 
• A set of methods and tools. The collaborative approach also provides a set of tools that help the workforce become aligned, take ownership of and responsibility for the success of the innovation or design and build a distributed process for modification and improvement of the system
• A cultural framework. The collaborative approach is a cultural framework for leading and managing a project or an enterprise, collaboration is a work ethic that governs human behavior in the organization across groups, teams, and even companies.