The purpose of this study is to investigate the ways in which members of interorganizational collaborations (IOCs) create and maintain the processes and structures of collaborative organizing. This research argues that IOCs are complex organizations that include ongoing communicative processes among individuals who act as collaborative members and constituent representatives. Specifically, this research seeks to explain how individual boundary spanners come to understand collaborative identities that create structures affecting actions and outcomes of the collaboration. Five research questions are posed using social identity theory as a guide to explore the data collected. The communication processes of IOC boundary spanners was investigated during a 13-month ethnographic field study, which included meeting observations, in-depth interviews, video stimulated recall, and document analysis. Overall, over 90% of the active members in the IOC were interviewed. Data was analyzed using the constant comparative method and organized by research question. Results indicate that boundary spanners in IOC use social identity to help orient and organize the diverse voices present within the collaboration. IOC members invoked group prototypes that created sub-groups within the IOC, thus allowing members with different goals for participation to find ways to justify membership. These prototypes also formed norms for communicating between members and created a collaborative environment that eventually led to organizational collapse. In addition, memberships within the IOC was constantly negotiated between members as the IOC worked towards certain goals. As sub-groups communicatively interacted with each other in the IOC, individuals would become more or less engaged in the collaborative process based on the successes and failures of the sub-group a boundary spanner has joined. Overall, this study helps us better understand how individuals within the IOC experience the collaboration and emphasize the importance of communication in collaborative processes. This study concludes with a discussion of the results and implications of the data for social identity theory, boundary spanner research and IOC research, as well as implications for practice. Limitations and future directions are also discussed. / text

As city governments and universities expand their roles in economic development, an opportunity is created to transform a university–city relationship from an operational one to a strategic one and from co-existence to collaboration. Impacted by history and context, there are many challenges to overcome. The goal of my thesis was to understand the “doing of collaboration” and the specific management processes in university–local government collaborations. I conducted a comparative case study of a Canadian University, Simon Fraser University, and two city governments, Burnaby and Surrey. A number of management processes are critical in building a successful collaboration. Two of the most important are the use of one or more liaison people with the appropriate skills, mandate and access to resources and the involvement of representatives at different organizational levels, particularly faculty who provide access to the university’s research capacity. Bilateral city–university committees and a good relationship between the university president and city mayor are useful but not sufficient to deepen the collaboration. The involvement of third-party organizations in the university–city relationship is beneficial. The importance of trust-building processes such as attribution and dispute resolution are heightened if there is a need to overcome a negative historical incident, an isolated geographic location, or tensions over transactional issues. While management processes are important, a shared strategic goal is paramount. This shared goal may not be evident at the start of a relationship. To identify the shared goal, it is necessary to have an understanding of the most valued university roles given the city’s context and aims. Each organization must have sufficient trust to enter into a deeper collaboration and an initial condition of openness, responsiveness, and commitment is necessary. The thesis provides practical advice to cities and universities and reveals how demonstration of value can build over increasingly ambitious projects.

<p>Although many organizations aspire to be diverse, both in their internal composition and external collaborations, diversity's consequences for organizational outcomes remain unclear. This project uses three separate studies to examine how diversity within and across organizations influences organizational outcomes. The first study uses original data from a national study of organizations to analyze how an organization's internal social composition is associated with its performance. It advances diversity-performance research by demonstrating how the mechanisms of social bridging and social bonding can work together within a diverse organization to improve its performance. The findings suggests that an organization can improve its performance by having socially diverse members who interact often and in ways that engage their social differences. The second study integrates social capital theory and network analysis to explore the relationship between interorganizational networks and organizational action. It uses cross-sectional and panel data from a national study of congregations to analyze the collaborative partnerships congregations form to provide social services. This study demonstrates that a congregation's network ties, net of the effects of its internal characteristics, are significantly associated with the number and types of social service programs it offers. The third study illustrates how an organization's external ties can shape its action by examining black churches and their responses to people living with HIV/AIDS. It uses data from a nationally representative sample of black congregations and draws on institutional theory to analyze congregations as open systems that can be influenced by their surrounding environment. This study indicates that black churches that are engaging their external environment are significantly more likely to have an HIV/AIDS program. Overall, by analyzing how individuals interact within organizations and how organizations interact with one another, these three studies demonstrate how diverse networks influence organizational outcomes.</p> / Dissertation