This study investigates if the collaborative process differs among a group of public programs involved in varying levels of interorganizational activities. Thomson and Perry (2006) suggest five process dimensions underlie collaboration: governance, administration, norms of trust, mutuality, and organizational autonomy. While these dimensions are clearly unique, it is unclear if any of these dimensions are necessary or sufficient for varying degrees of interorganizational involvement. Inventorying the interorganizational activities of pairs of government-funded preschools as ranging along a continuum of no relationship, cooperation, coordination, and collaboration, I conduct a qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) to assess the relationship between collaborative processes and activities. The findings suggest that the collaborative processes dimensions differ depending on the level of involvement. The QCA results also reveal substitutable combinations of process dimensions that underlie respective degrees of interorganizational involvement, offering insight to public managers about different skill sets they can focus on when managing interorganizational activities.

On March 11, COVID-19 was declared a pandemic. As the virus spread, governments called on citizens to comply with handwashing and social distancing behaviors. We use survey data from Finland and the United States to examine whether collaborative dimensions help predict compliance with health protective behaviors related to combatting COVID-19. We also investigate whether these factors’ influence on compliance varies between a market regime such as the United States and a more statist regime such as Finland. Our findings provide important insight for public administrators in crafting messages to the public that emphasize citizens’ collaborative role in combatting a pandemic.

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This article examines collaboration between Head Start and the Virginia Preschool Initiative to see how collaborative challenges vary given the degree of collaborative activity between programs. Limited collaborative management research addresses how challenges can change with varying degrees of collaborative activity; this research addresses the gap. Collaborative challenges are discussed through a series of three paradoxes, with evidence of three degrees of collaborative activity: cooperation, coordination, and collaboration. Drawing on qualitative interviews, the author reports that challenges differ with varying degrees of collaborative activity and that coordination between programs produces the most challenges.

Governance today often requires concerted action by multiple organizations operating within and across sectors. Although scholars fruitfully have assayed many factors that facilitate or constrain interorganizational collaboration, the extant literature largely ignores the ways in which historical patterns of policy and organizational development may figure in present-day obstacles to collaboration. This is unfortunate, for such obstacles may result from path dependence and, thus, be particularly ingrained and resistant to change. In this article, we detail recent advances in the path dependency theory, then illustrate our argument with a case study of path-dependent barriers to collaboration between two public programs pressed to work together after decades of deliberately separate operation. The case confirms the utility of new theoretical developments, yet also suggests necessary clarifications and refinements. Though aspects of path dependence theory should be reexamined, we argue that it is ripe for use by scholars of public management concerned with barriers to collaboration and other contemporary governance challenges.