Is government ready for today's society? Dilemmas of collaborative work: bridging institutional logics

This paper explores how different institutional logics shape the work of district managers within local government. Drawing on stories of 16 district managers in the Dutch municipality of Rotterdam collected by means of... [ view full abstract ]

This paper explores how different institutional logics shape the work of district managers within local government. Drawing on stories of 16 district managers in the Dutch municipality of Rotterdam collected by means of in-depth interviewing, this study shows that the work of district managers - as boundary spanning entrepreneurs - is accompanied by several dilemmas that originate from the bureaucratic and result oriented logic present in the local governmental organization. Especially the type of collaborative work that concerns dealing with (bottom-up) societal action and needs that are not part of the governmental planning and/or existing policy goals, causes dilemma’s for district mangers when seeking collaboration with their fellow public officials. In order to bridge the differing logics, district managers take a creative approach to dominant routines and rules and try to find the right balance between engaging in dialogue and seeking the confrontation with colleagues working from different perspectives of appropriateness. Our study contributes to current research on partnership-working in the public domain by using a grounded theory approach to studying the institutional dilemma’s public officials face when trying to work in a collaborative way.

Keywords: collaborative work; institutional logics; boundary spanning; grounded theory

About the authors

Prof. Martijn van der Steen (steen@nsob.nl) is a professor at the Department of Public Administration and Sociology, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and co-dean of the Netherlands School of Public Administration. His focal areas for research and education are: public management, innovation, PPS partnerships.

José Nederhand, MSc (nederhand@fsw.eur.nl) is a PhD student at the Department of Public Administration and Sociology, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Her focal areas for research are: social innovation, PPS partnerships and citizen self-organization.

Prof. Mark van Twist (twist@nsob.nl) is a professor at the Deprtment of Public Administration and Sociology, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and dean of the Netherlands School of Public Administration. His focal areas for research and education are: public management, innovation, PPS partnerships.