Abstract/Summary

This study is conducted within a UK social sector context and sets out to explore the lived experiences of leaders in relation to ‘good’ and ‘bad’ cross-sector collaborations, primarily through the lens of competencies. In doing so, it directly answers calls for such research and contributes to knowledge because little is empirically known about why these collaborations so often fail, or what the commonalities and differences across good and bad collaborations are. The study takes an abductive approach and employs qualitative methods. It consisted of two interlinked studies, the first, an exploratory study comprising of three group interviews with 18 participants, and a second main study involving individual interviews with 30 senior social sector leaders. Data emerging from both studies were thematically analysed. Results from the exploratory study validated the thematic literature review in which collaboration surfaced with particular warranty, suggesting its suitability for further investigation. The study makes a number of contributions to the literature. Firstly, findings from the main study suggest that good collaborations can be viewed as a function of three key themes: competence sufficiency, balanced accountabilities and relationship sufficiency. This thesis makes a valuable contribution in relation to competence sufficiency by highlighting the importance of competence switching for good collaborative outcomes, thereby challenging the literature which tends to view competencies as ‘static’ across single-organisational and collaborative settings. The study contributes to the literature in relation to multiple accountabilities by establishing leaders’ concomitant accountabilities as critical to the development of good and bad collaborations. In this way the study places particular saliency on mission for securing a balance between organisational and collaborative accountabilities, adding weight to theorists who highlight the importance of purpose to organisational and collaborative success. A third contribution is made in relation to relationship features, confirming the importance of trust, communication, and shared values for collaboration development along good and bad trajectories. This is the first time that these three themes have been associated with cross-sector collaborations and thus provides much needed insights into the field (Bryson et al. 2006; 2015; Gazley and Guo, 2020). Importantly, the study contributes to knowledge by providing evidence that ‘good’ collaborations are found to be characterised by mission-preferencing (prioritising the mission ahead of the organisation), while ‘bad’ collaborations are found to be characterised by organisation-preferencing (placing the organisation ahead of the mission). This study makes several supplementary contributions to the literature. By exploring both good and bad collaborations, it addresses an important lacuna in the literature: the lack of comparative analysis as well as the lack of examination of bad collaborations (Gazley and Guo, 2020). Additionally, the study provides much-needed insights about cross-sector collaboration competencies and the lived experiences of social sector leaders engaged in collaborative practice (Bryson, 2015; Boyer et al., 2019). Finally, the study is conducted within the UK social sector, which is under-represented in the literature when compared to US studies. As such, this research provides a working model by which others can start to understand good and bad collaborations within a UK context and provides important new insights into bad collaborations.