Power Dynamics in Inter-organizational Strategizing

Abstract

Inter-organizational strategizing is associated with opening up the strategy-making process in order to pool expertise and resources across different organizations. However, some organizations still tend to have more power than others in the strategy-making process. Thus, understanding inter-organizational strategizing requires understanding how and by which resources actors that are more powerful exercise power over other, less powerful actors and how these power relations change over time. A deep understanding on power dynamics between organizations is still lacking in inter-organizational strategizing literature. However, exploring these power dynamics is essential because power crucially shapes the constitution of strategy. Our study addresses this important research need by exploring inter-organizational power dynamics and by identifying the relevance of different sources of power during different phases of a strategy-making process between eleven different organizations in a health care partnership. Our findings contribute to literature on inter-organizational strategizing by disclosing underlying power dynamics and by providing innovative and novel insights into the sources that explain changing power relations in inter-organizational strategizing.