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The unanticipated changes related to participation in interorganizational relationships: The Neighborhood Center Association case
Abstract
This study was designed to examine the unanticipated changes that occur for single organizations that participate in Interorganizational Relationships (IORs). Its purpose was to discover the unanticipated effects that organizations participating on one IOR known as the Neighborhood Center Association (NCA) experienced. It was focused to examine effects at an organizational level and to take into consideration NCA development over time. Through the use of participant observation, in-depth interviewing and document analysis methods it was intended to provide an insider's viewpoint of the case. This combination of purpose and focus was shown to be unique and lacking in the general literature on IORs. The NCA was a partnership of neighborhood centers which delivered human services to their neighborhood residents. All centers were located in the same small city and shared four common funders. The author was involved as a consultant to the partnership for several years. The NCA was seen to proceed through a series of developmental stages over its lifespan from 1980-89. Those stages of increasing then decreasing intensity were named as Networking, Coordination, Collaboration and Decline (Loughran, 1982). The results of the study identified five general areas of unanticipated changes that occurred for neighborhood centers participating in the NCA. (1) The NCA tended to impair the ability of neighborhood centers to adapt to their changing environment and eventually facilitated the forced consolidation of centers by their funders. (2) The existence of the NCA acted to unify neighborhood center funders together which in turn affected both neighborhood centers and the NCA in many ways. (3) The NCA served to intensify relationships between neighborhood centers and their directors which led to unexpected complications in those relationships. (4) The NCA required commitments of its members and thus tended to reduce their autonomy. (5) Consultants (including the author) were involved in nearly all key NCA development issues and thus strongly influenced that development and the subsequent effects on neighborhood centers.
Subject Area
Management|Public policy|Public administration
Recommended Citation
Bohr, Eric, "The unanticipated changes related to participation in interorganizational relationships: The Neighborhood Center Association case" (1991). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI9132822.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9132822