More Than a One-Trick Pony: Exploring the Contours of a Multi-Sector Covener

Today\u27s managers must find ways to identify and sustain productive relationships within multi-sector collaborative arrangements. This paper explores empirically the activities of a convener based on tasks identified by Agranoff and McGuire (2001) and applies this framework to the case of Virginia\u27s Coastal Zone Management Program (VCZMP). We find that the convener displays characteristics described by Agranoff and McGuire, as well as characteristics of traditional hierarchical managers. This research suggests that both sets of skills are necessary for effective multi-sector collaborative governance

Civil Society Legitimacy and Accountability: Issues and Challenges

University education rarely focuses its attention and imagination on teaching students how to turn a vision into reality; how to design, develop, and lead social change organizations. The author co-created the Social Entrepreneurship Collaboratory (SE Lab) at Stanford University and then Harvard University as a model educational program designed to achieve this goal. The SE Lab is a Silicon Valley influenced incubator where student teams create and develop innovative pilot projects for US and international social sector initiatives. The lab combines academic theory, frameworks, and traditional research with intensive field work, action research, peer support and learning, and participation of domain experts and social entrepreneurship practitioners. It also provides students an opportunity to collaborate on teams to develop business plans for their initiatives and to compete for awards and recognition in the marketplace of ideas. Students in the SE Lab have created innovative organizations serving many different social causes, including fighting AIDS in Africa, promoting literacy in Mexico, combating the conditions for terrorism using micro-finance in the Palestinian territories, and confronting gender inequality using social venture capital to empower women in Afghanistan

Cross-Boundary Stewardship for Wetland Integrity and Resilience in the Greater Rocky Mountain National Park Ecosystem

Approximately half of the wetlands in Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP) are degraded due to human disturbances that often occur beyond park boundaries. Like most protected areas, RMNP is part of a larger ecosystem with critical connections to surrounding lands. Therefore, more effective stewardship of wetlands within RMNP is likely to be achieved through cross-boundary cooperative efforts. Through interviews with wetland stewardship agencies and organizations and an analysis of their wetland plans and policies, barriers and opportunities for cross-boundary stewardship were identified, as well as common structures used to facilitate work across boundaries. Wetlands outside of RMNP are experiencing similar impact across boundaries as those within the park. Though participants recognize that working cooperatively with neighboring entities can benefit wetlands, they also reported that the most significant cross-boundary challenge is working with others. Despite these challenges, many entities in the greater RMNP ecosystem have found ways to work together. We defined three types of cooperative interactions - communication, coordination, and collaboration - and developed a framework that describes elements of each type. Based on these findings and the framework presented, we provide recommendations on how to address cooperative management challenges, while taking advantage of opportunities to facilitate cross-boundary stewardship for wetland integrity at the ecosystem-scale

Exploring the Role of Organizational Motivations in Cross-Sector Watershed Collaboration

Watersheds are complex, dynamic and nested ecological systems that span across multiple jurisdictions. The complexity of watershed pollution requires adaptive and responsive strategies that incorporate government intervention along with community stakeholder engagement. This study explores the motivational determinants that drive local cross-sector watershed collaboration. Cross-sector collaboration offers local watershed stakeholders a holistic approach to address community watershed issues. These collaborative partnerships involve the voluntary engagement of member organizations from different industry sectors directing resources and working together to address local watershed issues of mutual interest. This research explores the social processes and the motivations that drive organizations in different industry sectors to engage in local watershed collaboration. Drawn from the motivational and interorganizational relationships literature, a conceptual framework is created to guide the investigation of the study. A single case study research design is utilized to answer the research questions. Data sources included: (1) interviews, (2) official government and organizational web sites and various media sources, and (3) field observations and memos. A total of twenty-nine organizations participated in the study. The composition of the organizations included 10 private sector organizations, 10 public sector organizations and 9 nonprofit sector organizations. Interviews were conducted with representatives from each of the member organizations that collaborate with Lynnhaven River Now. All of the organizations in the study are located within the boundaries of the Lynnhaven River watershed. The results of the study identify ten motivational determinants that drive local cross-sector watershed collaboration. These motivational determinants include asymmetry, catalytic actors, corporate/social consciousness, efficiency, instability, legitimacy, necessity, organizational interests, reciprocity, and stability. In addition, the results of the study identify variations in the level of prevalence in the motivations of organizations from the public, private and nonprofit sectors that collaborate with LRN. Finally, the results from the study identify three types of organizational motivation orientations in local cross-sector watershed collaboration: (1) transactional, (2) philanthropic and (3) symbiotic. Empirical evidence suggests that determinants in local cross-sector watershed collaboration are likely driven by the organizational motivational orientations of an organization

Meta-Organizational Design: Rethinking Design in Inter-Organizational and Community Contexts

This paper provides conceptual foundations for analyzing organizations comprising multiple legally autonomous entities, which we call meta-organizations. We assess the antecedents of the emergence of such collectives and the design choices they entail. The paper identifies key parameters on which such meta-organizations' designs differ from each other. It also presents a taxonomy that elucidates how such forms of collective action vary and the constraints they must address to be successful. We conclude with implications for research on meta-organizational design

Addressing Trans-boundary Challenges Through Collaboration: How Organizations Harmonize Actions and Decisions Across Problem Landscapes

Collaborative governance- or collaboration- has become increasingly important for the design and implementation of public policy in the United States. This dissertation explores concrete and unique policy-related benefits emerging from collaboration, and the processes by which they emerge. Collaboration is defined broadly as any interaction between two or more organizations undertaken with the intention to cooperate. This definition is applied in the context of water quality management, where the physical nature of watersheds and the lack of regulatory authority available to policy-makers leads to a variety of collaborative arrangements. A survey of literatures addressing collaboration from different theoretical angles revealed five concrete, policy-related benefits of collaboration: 1) resource access/exchange, 2) innovation generation, 3) coordinated action, 4) working relationships built through social capital, and 5) reduction/resolution of conflict. A rich empirical dataset was developed to explore these benefits, utilizing one large case (the Chesapeake Bay watershed restoration) and one smaller case embedded in the first (water quality management in the Northern Virginia, or NOVA, region). Key data sources included 1081 Bay Journal newspaper articles and 86 hours of audio interviews. Coding revealed 456 instances in which collaboration led to one of the five benefits, including 243 instances of resource exchange/access, 99 instances of coordinated action, 62 instances of working relationships developed through social capital, 28 instances of innovation generation, and 24 instances of conflict resolution. The analysis in this dissertation focuses on the 99 empirical instances of coordinated action. A process common to all instances, called Harmonizing , is identified and described. Harmonizing occurs when organizations address a shared problem at a scale that approaches the actual scale or scope of the problem. Chapter 5 features an original typology of harmonizing based on the type of problem landscape over which organizational actions are harmonized: geographical, organizational, or ecological. Chapter 6 describes how harmonizing solves three types of boundary problems common to many policy areas (not just water quality management) and results in more holistic and efficient policy-making by avoiding the pitfalls of duplication, divergence, omission, and counter-production (Huxham and MacDonald 1992). The context of collaboration is explored by applying three contextual codes to the data: 1) the types of groups collaborating, 2) the collaborative forum, and 3) the policy area in which collaboration occurs. A key contextual finding is that certain collaborative forums - particularly coordinating organizations- facilitate harmonizing under difficult conditions. A thematic analysis of the role of coordinating organizations, utilizing a broader spectrum of data, revealed in more detail the roles that coordinating organizations play in overcoming obstacles to collaboration such as competition, parochial perspectives, and accountability concerns. The greatest contributions of this dissertation relate to the benefit of coordinated action. However, a thematic analysis (presented in Chapter 8) uses empirical data to describe the other four benefits and processes by which they emerge. It is found that resource exchange generates benefits at the community level - not just at the organizational level as implied by resource exchange theory-- by expanding the overall resource base and improving organizations\u27 collective ability to act. Another key finding is that including perceived naysayers in the decision process helps to prevent innovations from being squashed, by forcing a serious conversation about perceived versus real obstacles

A MULTIDIMENSIONAL APPROACH TO INTERORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION VIA EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT ORGANIZATIONS AND THEIR TWITTER ACCOUNTS

Using an adaptation of O’Connor and Shumate’s (2018) theoretical propositions, this research examines interorganizational communication through the lens of multidimensional networks. Twitter data was crawled from a selection of emergency management organization accounts to measure affinity, representational, flow, and semantic networks. These data included the organizations’ followed accounts, retweets, replies, and mentions. A thematic analysis of the organizations’ mission statements was also conducted in order to inform the examination of the semantic networks. The results show a significant relationship between the number of accounts an organization follows and the likelihood of having its message shared. This research provides a further theoretical application of a network analysis method of studying interorganizational communication as well as a practical application for organizations seeking to increase their engagement on Twitter

The role of nonprofits as administrators in municipal sustainability planning: An exploration of four cities

Municipal governments across the United States have been integrating sustainability into their planning and economic development strategies for more than a decade. Despite this, forging a consensus on exactly what a “sustainable city” is—or how communities can pursue sustainability in financially and politically viable ways—has proven difficult. Over the past several years, however, many governments have strengthened their initiatives by harnessing the capacity of nonprofit organizations to serve as administrators of their sustainability plans. The roles of nonprofits vary between cities but often include information gathering and designing and developing plans, while the task of implementing these plans is managed by the municipal governments. This study explores this promising and emerging technique against the backdrop of theories of collaboration and cross-sector coordination and their practical application. Through an intensive case-study approach that involved interviews with key staff members in four U.S. communities, including Akron, Ohio; Elgin, Illinois; Fairfield, Iowa and ; Oak Park/River Forest, Illinois it explores these partnerships and the practical lessons that these pioneers in nonprofit-municipal collaboration suggest for other communities. The findings also illustrate the value of collaborative theory in understanding how nonprofits and municipalities can work together in the design and development of community sustainability plans. Interpreted broadly, such results can help deepen scholarly understanding of the potential value of intersectoral strategic planning initiatives among different entities