Abstract

Public and nonprofit organizations often face various challenges when collaborating with others. The existing literature emphasizes the danger of collaborative challenges, and an implicit assumption is that collaborative challenges will affect inter-organizational relationships and network structures. Using data from three different purpose-oriented networks, this study explores the relationship between perceptions of collaborative challenges and network structure across the node, dyadic, and whole network level of analyses. The multi-case, multi-level analysis indicates that there is no pattern between perceived challenges and network structures. Organizations that perceive more challenges are not necessarily more resistant to work with other organizations. This counterintuitive null finding offers important implications for theory and practice. Network managers should be encouraged to embrace the complex or even paradoxical nature of collaboration. Emphasizing collaborative incentives may have greater impact than focusing on clearing challenges that are inherent in collaboration.

摘要

公共和非营利组织在与他人合作时经常面临各种挑战。现有文献强调协作挑战的危险，并隐含假设协作挑战将影响组织间关系和网络结构。本研究使用来自三个不同的以目的为导向的网络的数据，探讨了跨节点、二元和整个网络分析级别的协作挑战感知与网络结构之间的关系。多案例、多层次的分析表明，感知挑战和网络结构之间没有模式。感知到更多挑战的组织不一定更不愿意与其他组织合作。这种违反直觉的零发现为理论和实践提供了重要的启示。应该鼓励网络管理者接受协作的复杂性甚至自相矛盾的本质。强调协作激励可能比专注于解决协作中固有的挑战产生更大的影响。