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Background: Conveners are crucial in coordinating interorganizational partnerships, particularly purpose-oriented networks. However, their roles may shift from initially recruiting organizational partners to overseeing and sustaining a network through periods of change. Extensive research has focused extensively on these early stages of the interorganizational venture, but less scholarship has focused on how conveners respond to critical changes over time and the implications of convener actions in sustaining resilient networks. Purpose: This research explores the convener's role in purpose-oriented network formation and change management and offers implications for creating resilient purpose-oriented networks. Research Design: The study conducts qualitative analysis of interviews conducted with cross-sector, purpose-oriented networks at two points in time to explore how conveners organize networks and respond to change. Study Sample: This study draws on two waves of interview data collected from the conveners of 26 cross-sector collaborative networks focused on education reform in the United States. Data Collection and/or Analysis: Interviews with conveners of 26 networks were analyzed through attribute and provisional coding to study the network's composition and activity, perceptions of the problem and reasons for network. A second round of interviews was later collected and analyzed to explore what changes emerged after a network's initial convening and how conveners responded to those changes through provisional and magnitude coding. Results: Findings reveal different magnitudes of change experienced by the networks (e.g., incremental, radical, and in-between) that influenced convener responses to those changes. Additionally, networks were found to have two founding orientations: problem- and solution-oriented. Networks founded with a problem orientation were more resilient than those founded with a solution orientation, partly because of the repertoire of activities in which their conveners engaged. Conclusions: Conveners play a critical role both in founding purpose-oriented networks and in leading them through change. This study suggests the concept of founding orientations to explore the different frames purpose-oriented networks may adopt and offer insights as to how those orientations influence network reactions to change. Findings pertaining to founding orientation, network change, and convener response offer theoretical and practical implications for building resilient networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasingly, nonprofits and corporations publicly communicate about their partnerships. Guided by Information Integration Theory, this paper examines how information about a nonprofit's relationship with a corporation relates to individuals' intention to donate and volunteer. This research used a two‐study experimental design. Study 1 (N = 966) examined how partnership explanations and evaluation were related to the two outcomes. Study 2 (N = 970) further examined whether specific information about partnerships, including type, duration, and communication source, was integrated with existing knowledge to relate to the outcomes. Partnership evaluation consistently related to stakeholders' intention to support nonprofits, and it mediated the effect of partnership explanations on the intention to volunteer. Furthermore, partnership type was significantly related to the two outcomes, while duration and source of communication were not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As pressure increases to support social justice, coalitions try to understand their role in oppression while implementing practices to create equitable environments. Twenty-six education-focused community coalitions in the United States participated in the study. Coalition interviews and membership rosters are used to evaluate the degree to which these coalitions engage in community engagement practices conducive to empowerment. Involvement practices emphasize communication strategies and participatory design structures. Systems change practices emphasize agenda-setting processes and a level of awareness of structural sources that create social marginalization. This work investigates how these two practices create empowerment. This study uses fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to examine the impact of community poverty, coalition age, government representation, coalition size, school district size, and coalition governance on involvement and systems change practices. The results demonstrate combinations of these conditions in four mutually exclusive solutions for involvement practices and two mutually exclusive solutions for systems change practices. The paper ends by identifying cases that coincide with these solutions and how communities thoughtfully configure their collaborations to coincide with empowerment theory. Additionally, we identify potential trade-offs between involvement and systems change practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The HIV-AIDS epidemic is one of the most challenging and significant health crises facing the world today. In order to cope with its complexities, the United Nations and World Health Organization have increasingly relied upon the resources offered by networks of HIV-AIDS nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The research reported here uses evolutionary theory to predict the patterns of alliances and collaborations within the HIV-AIDS International Nongovernmental Organizations (INGO) network. The hypotheses are tested using 8 years of data from the Yearbook of International Organizations. The results showed that geographic proximity and common ties with intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) predict the pattern of alliances among HIV-AIDS INGOs. The best predictor of such alliances, however, is past relationships among these organizations.

This research extended earlier public goods research on individual incentives to use an organizational information commons that was based in Marwell and Oliver's (1993) collective action model. A revised theoretical model that incorporated team-level social influence and technology-specific competence was proposed. The model was tested using online survey data from 150 individuals in 13 work groups across 5 organizations. The research demonstrated that perceived team member behavior and technology-specific competence were positively related to individual use of intranets, over and above the collective level influences modeled in earlier research. These findings supported a more "socialized" model of individuals' motivations to participate in organizational information sharing via collective repositories and suggested that management could boost levels of intranet usage through group level social influence and technology-specific training.

To authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2010.01498.x Byline: Michelle Shumate (1), Amy O'Connor (2) Abstract: We introduce the Symbiotic Sustainability Model (SSM) as a macrolevel explanation of nongovernmental organization (NGO)-corporate alliances. The SSM presents NGO-corporate alliances as distinct interorganizational communication relationships, symbolized to stakeholders to influence the mobilization of capital. We contend that alliance partners communicatively co-construct the alliance with stakeholders in order to mobilize economic, social, cultural, and political capital. By focusing on the communication of alliances' existence and character, new propositions emerge concerning the role of communication, capital mobilization resulting from NGO-corporate alliances, NGOs and corporations' choice(s) of alliance partner(s), the number of partners with whom organizations are likely to communicate, and potential risks and rewards. The model is illustrated using the Rainforest Alliance and Chiquita Better Banana program as an abbreviated case study. Abstract (French) Le modele de la durabilite symbiotique : une conceptualisation de la communication d'alliance entre ONG et entreprises Nous presentons le modele de la durabilite symbiotique (MDS) pour expliquer d'un niveau macro les alliances entre ONG et entreprises privees. Le MDS presente ces alliances comme etant des relations de communication interorganisationnelle distinctes, montrees aux parties concernees pour influencer la mobilisation de capital. Nous soutenons que les partenaires de telles alliance co-construisent communicationnellement l'alliance avec les parties concernees de maniere a mobiliser du capital economique, social, culturel et politique. En insistant sur la communication de l'existence et du caractere des alliances, de nouvelles propositions sont avancees a propos du role de la communication, de la mobilisation de capital resultant des alliances entre ONG et entreprises privees, du ou des choix de partenaires que font les ONG et les entreprises, du nombre de partenaires avec lesquels les organisations sont susceptibles de communiquer et des risques et recompenses potentiels. Le modele est illustre par une courte etude de cas basee sur Rainforest Alliance et le Chiquita Better Banana Program. Author Affiliation: (1) Department of Communication, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL 61820-5711, USA (2) Department of Communication, North Dakota State University, 321H Minard Hall, Fargo, ND 58105, USA Article note: Michelle Shumate; e-mail: shumate@illinois.edu

To authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2010.01483.x Byline: Yannick Atouba (1), Michelle Shumate (1) Abstract: This research seeks to explain the structure of the interorganizational network of international development organizations, including international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs). The study uses a multitheoretical, multilevel model to examine the endogenous and exogenous influences on the international development organization network. Results indicate that homophily, mutuality, transitivity, and centralization influence the configuration of the international development organizational network. In particular, IGOs tended to collaborate with IGOs; both INGOs and IGOs were likely to seek joint dependencies over asymmetric dependencies; some organizations acted as intermediary coordinators; and organizations were more likely to form collaborations with partners of partners. Implications for executive directors of INGOs and policymakers are drawn from the results. Author Affiliation: (1)Department of Communication, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA Article note: Yannick Atouba; e-mail: yatouba2@illinois.edu

Nongovernmental organization (NGO)--corporate alliances are a strategic type of institutional positioning communication. From a sample of 155 US Fortune 500 corporations and 695 NGOs drawn from corporations' websites, this research examines: (a) the number of NGOs with which corporations communicate alliances; (b) the patterns of communicated alliances that exist between corporations in economic industries and NGOs in social issue industries; and (c) the relationship between corporate stakeholders and the communication of alliances with NGOs in particular social issues. This research tests the propositions of Symbiotic Sustainability Model concerning the number and type of NGO alliances likely to be communicated by corporations. In particular, this research demonstrates that most corporations only communicate alliances with a few NGOs and with one NGO in an issue industry. In addition, the results suggest that corporations in the same economic industry are likely to communicate alliances with different NGOs in the same issue industries. In combination, these findings imply that a small set of social issues are likely to be included in NGO--corporate communication. Exploring this implication, this research reports preliminary findings about communicated alliances between corporations in 11 economic industries and NGOs in 59 social issue industries. Keywords: Symbiotic Sustainability Model; Interorganizational Networks; Corporate Social Responsibility; NGO DOI: 10.1080/03637751003758201

Collaborative governance research examines the role of individuals, organizations, and partnerships within a community to understand why particular interorganizational networks emerge. We take a different tact, arguing that communities adopt collaborative governance models based upon exposure to the models and the individual and organizational resources in a community. We conducted a web-based national-level scan of communities in the United States (N = 1,162) for the presence of one model of collaborative governance, education-focused collective impact. We found that spatial proximity, poverty rate, and individual resources each predicted the existence of collective impact in a U.S. county. Implications for collaborative governance research are drawn from the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Appardurai's five landscapes of globalization are used in this article to demonstrate that storytelling in the mediascape can transform the terrain of an ideoscape. Storytelling is viewed to be of [...]

The way in which boundary characteristics of the various organizations in a particular field influence developments in that field is explained. The important realm of home working for 21st century workers is described by many fruitful directions.