Interagency Working Groups: Allegiances Across Agency Borders

This study explores interagency collaboration among agencies within the executive branch of the federal government. Given the mandate to collaborate, conveyed through the Government Results and Performance Act Modernization Act (2010), along with the well-documented institutional challenges of working across agency borders in highly bureaucratic cultures, empirical studies to advance theoretical development are much needed. Cross-boundary studies are often conducted under the umbrella of network theory; however, they have generally explored collaboration across different levels of government (i.e., Federal, state, and local), across sectors (public, private, and non-profit), and among private-sector firms. This study, while likewise exploring multi-organizational collaboration, is situated within the context of public-to-public interorganizational collaboration. The study draws from a sample of interagency groups characterized as examples of action (Agranoff, 2007), transformational (O'Toole, 2014), or orchestrated networks (Müller-Seitz, 2012; Provan and Kenis, 2008). These interagency groups were created expressly to solve a collective problem, with support from an organizing entity. This study adopts from network theory the premise that organizations purposefully working together can achieve better results jointly than independently (O'Toole, 1997; Agranoff and McGuire, 2003; Koliba, et al. 2010; Keast, et al., 2014). It also draws from the few extant empirical studies of public-public collaborative efforts (Jensen, 2017; Scott and Thomas, 2015; Fountain, 2013; Lambert, et. al, 2013; Bardach, 1998; Lynch, 1997; Raach and Kass, 1995; Guetzkow, 1950), from which I surmised that interagency collaboration might be influenced by the differing allegiances of the individual members: (a) their organizational allegiances, (b) their professional allegiances, and (c) the relational allegiances that permeate day-to-day operations and create the structures needed to sustain the group's ongoing legitimacy. As several scholars have noted, more research is needed on the motivational underpinnings of individuals within interorganizational networks (Das and Kumar, 2011; Tasselli, Kilduff and Menges, 2015); such research might advance a fundamentally new understanding of how to manage, structure and govern interorganizational networks (Provan and Lemaire, 2012). This empirical study examined the allegiances that motivated individuals within four interagency working groups to contribute to the aggressive government-wide goals mandated by GPRAMA. Using a mixed-methods approach, my study featured the use of an original survey, complemented by in-depth interviews, administered to a sample of experts. My data suggested an inverse relationship between organizational allegiance and the perceived effectiveness of interagency working group efforts. My data also suggested that the motivational value of professional allegiance varies by type of professional, that weaker allegiances may signal the willingness to compromise, that the power of relational allegiances becomes stronger over time, that relational allegiance is especially important during a change in leadership, and that conscious design of interagency working groups can promote the likelihood of successful collaborations. Through this work, I hope to contribute to the scholarship on purpose-oriented interorganizational networks, while also helping public managers to collaborate across agency borders in order to better achieve results.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Public Administration/Public Affairs

Department dc:contributor.department

Government and International Affairs

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2020

Author dc:creator

• Hopkins, Kathlyn J.

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Lemaire, Robin Hargroder

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Dull, Matthew M.
• Hult, Karen M.
• Jensen, Laura Smietanka

• Collaboration
• Networks
• Management

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

vt_gsexam:26593

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/98809