Inter-organizational collaboration projects between public organizations: a site of coexisting simultaneously performed boundary work

Abstract

This study investigates how public organizations engage in inter-organizational collaboration projects, what is done in practice within such collaborations and how this affects boundaries and boundary work performed between the organizations. By conducting a case study of a Swedish infrastructural project, the West Link, we explore what challenges a collaboration between three public organizations might be facing and how these challenges affect boundary work. We find that some of the main difficulties lies in coping with organizational differences, not meeting on equal terms in regards to decision mandate and political governance, how to organize, frame and define the collaboration and what form of entrepreneurial contracts are used. These challenges have affected boundary work, leading to multiple, coexisting and sometimes conflicting forms of boundary work being performed simultaneously. By this study, we contribute to a wider understanding of inter-organizational collaboration projects by illustrating the importance and influence of partner organizations’ individual characteristics, roles and objectives on cross boundary collaborative work. We also contribute to broadening the field of boundary work research by illustrating the simultaneous coexistence of multiple forms of boundary work, that emerge from both deliberate and reflexive actions of individuals within the collaboration.