Consensus and professionalism in networks and their effect on outcomes

The last ten years we have seen a surge of network research looking both at networks characteristics and at managerial efforts and their effects on network performance (see Meier and O ‘Toole, 2007; Provan et al, 2009;... [ view full abstract ]

The last ten years we have seen a surge of network research looking both at networks characteristics and at managerial efforts and their effects on network performance (see Meier and O ‘Toole, 2007; Provan et al, 2009; Klijn, Edelenbos and Steijn, 2010; Cristofoli et al, 2015).
However, less attention have been paid to the orientations of actors in the network and their consequences for network performance. In this paper we will look at the consensus and professional orientation of network actors (as reported by the project managers). But we also look at the influence of these two types of orientations on the employment of network management strategies.
The analysis is based on a survey of managers of complex environmental projects in the four large cities in The Netherlands (N=141). Managers were asked to answer the survey for the project they were the manager of (so each manger reports about the network around a specific project which makes the number of projects equal to the number of managers). Analysis shows that consensus orientation has no significant effect and professional has a positive effect on network performance (measured as perceived outcomes). Professional orientations also has a significant influence on network management.