By Katherine R. Cooper, Rong Wang, Jack L. Harris, Joshua Paul Miles, Michelle Shumate
Background: Conveners are crucial in coordinating interorganizational partnerships, particularly purpose-oriented networks. However, their roles may shift from initially recruiting organizational partners to overseeing and sustaining a network through periods of change. Extensive research has focused extensively on these early stages of the interorganizational venture, but less scholarship has focused on how conveners respond to critical changes over time and the implications of convener actions in sustaining resilient networks.
Purpose: This research explores the convener’s role in purpose-oriented network formation and change management and offers implications for creating resilient purpose-oriented networks.
Research Design: The study conducts qualitative analysis of interviews conducted with cross-sector, purpose-oriented networks at two points in time to explore how conveners organize networks and respond to change.
Study Sample: This study draws on two waves of interview data collected from the conveners of 26 cross-sector collaborative networks focused on education reform in the United States.
Data Collection and/or Analysis: Interviews with conveners of 26 networks were analyzed through attribute and provisional coding to study the network’s composition and activity, perceptions of the problem and reasons for network. A second round of interviews was later collected and analyzed to explore what changes emerged after a network’s initial convening and how conveners responded to those changes through provisional and magnitude coding.
Results: Findings reveal different magnitudes of change experienced by the networks (e.g., incremental, radical, and in-between) that influenced convener responses to those changes. Additionally, networks were found to have two founding orientations: problem- and solution-oriented. Networks founded with a problem orientation were more resilient than those founded with a solution orientation, partly because of the repertoire of activities in which their conveners engaged.
Conclusions: Conveners play a critical role both in founding purpose-oriented networks and in leading them through change. This study suggests the concept of founding orientations to explore the different frames purpose-oriented networks may adopt and offer insights as to how those orientations influence network reactions to change. Findings pertaining to founding orientation, network change, and convener response offer theoretical and practical implications for building resilient networks.