Turning notions of cross-sector partnerships into practice: individual actors’ negotiations of institutional logics in collaborative arrangements

Abstract

ABSTRACT During the last decades, cross-sector partnerships have been presented as interactive and non-hierarchical decision-making processes. However, research has demonstrated that in practice, partnerships often involve tensions between institutional logics. Macro- and micro-level institutional logics studies often present diverging views of how individual actors handle such tensions. By combining a micro-perspective with the negotiated order theory, this study attempts to bridge this gap by portraying how partnerships can be characterized by negotiations and how such negotiations are always framed by an institutional and organizational context. The study demonstrates that although micro-level actors may handle logics to both influence others and justify their actions, their ability to act strategically is both based on role and perceived appropriateness in the specific organizational context. Furthermore, the implications of the dominance of a legalistic/bureaucratic logic and unequal sharing of decision-making power and responsibility for creating change are highlighted; in this case, micro-level negotiations on work structure, work processes, and decision-making resulted in a hierarchical relationship that contradicted the intentions of the partnership.