Co-Production of Governance Practices - A collaboration between a board, its management and stakeholders

In this paper we take an interest in how a board, its management and stakeholders co-produce different governing practices when strategizing. A research area that has growing, but is not yet that well developed, and where the... [ view full abstract ]

In this paper we take an interest in how a board, its management and stakeholders co-produce different governing practices when strategizing. A research area that has growing, but is not yet that well developed, and where the human side of board work seems to be under privileged. We intend to contribute with a longitudinal case study by investigating how governance practices are co-produced and developed over time. We have studied the work of a management team in a small non-profit organization in Sweden for ten years and its relations to the board and stakeholders. A broad conceptualization of public governance is applied, which opens up for new subjects to be researched, e.g. concerning the relationships between the different parts of the governance system. By doing this we show how funding and financiers' regimes can influence governance practices at the organizational level, and how internal actors such as managers also carry out governance practices. Moreover, our results show that in a context of public organizations it is a paramount to understand stake management and to have the ability to balance different aspects of accountability and performance. This is true especially if the organization is acting in a complex setting including both private and public actors that poses monitoring and control challenges of different stakes and interests.