Configurations of network governance in civil society: The role and impact of power and knowledge

Beschreibung

In Austria public and nonprofit volunteer managers meet on a regular basis to exchange advice on managing volunteers coproducing social services to combat wicked social problems since the early 2000s. These expert exchange meetings have grown into a national advocacy and education network, focused on developing and spreading professional volunteer management practices within their member organizations. Collaborative conversations with international peers revealed similar networks, dealing with the consequences of welfare state retrenchment and other unprecedented social challenges –like nonprofits improving their capacity by professionalizing– in multiple countries. Each with a case-specific and context-sensible mode of network governance (Provan & Kenis 2008) structuring governance roles of network coordinators and members.
The prevailing question for social scientists regarding such networks is one of contingency factors informing structural design decisions (Van den Oord et al. 2023). Thus, keeping “conjunctural causation (combinations of interacting variables) and equifinality (multiple pathways of configurations of factors to a particular outcome)“ (Smith, 2020, 177) in mind, a network survey was developed to investigate the interplay of the network governance role (Raeymaeckers et al. 2020) taken by network coordinators and the perceived legitimacy, adoption, and impact of disseminated practices. The research question is: How does the network governance role of a cross-organizational network influence member perception of disseminated practices?
The social network survey originating from the Austrian case is replicated in different national contexts (Belgium, Czech Republic, Slovakia) with slight contextual adaptions of the survey to allow the application of set-theoretic methods (fsQCA) (Ragin 2008). We thus add to the rising “neo-configurational perspective” (Misangyi et al. 2017, 255), investigating how configurations of power (network governance) and knowledge (practice dissemination) interact with each other and how they impact member organizations. A novel quantification of Raeymaeckers et al. (2020) framework on network governance roles –combining nine dimensions from theory on a top-down to bottom-up continuum– enables our study to empirically identify the network’s governance role as perceived by its members.
After preliminary interviews with network coordinators in Austria and Belgium the network survey was first launched in Austria in September 2024, with further adaption and launches in different national contexts ongoing and scheduled for early 2025. For each case, we test pre-registered hypotheses on the correlations of (H1) the specific network governance role on trust and legitimacy, (H2) member perceptions regarding practice adoption, (H3) the role of social network integration, and (H4) practice adoption and impact on member organizations. 
References:
Misangyi, V. F., Greckhamer, T., Furnari, S., Fiss, P. C., Crilly, D., & Aguilera, R. (2017). Embracing Causal Complexity. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206316679252
Provan, K. G., & Kenis, P. (2008). Modes of Network Governance: Structure, Management, and Effectiveness. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 18(2), 229–252. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/mum015
Ragin, Charles (2008). Redesigning social inquiry: fuzzy sets and beyond. Chicago, Ill.: Univ. of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226702797.001.0001

Raeymaeckers, P., Vermeiren, C., Noël, C., Van Puyvelde, S., & Willems, J. (2020). The Governance of Public–Nonprofit Service Networks: A Comparison Between Three Types of Governance Roles. VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 31(5), 1037–1048. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-017-9920-7
Smith, J. G. (2020). Theoretical Advances in Our Understanding of Network Effectiveness. Perspectives on Public Management and Governance, 3(2), 167–182. https://doi.org/10.1093/ppmgov/gvz032
Van Den Oord, S., Kenis, P., Raab, J., & Cambré, B. (2023). Modes of network governance revisited: Assessing their prevalence, promises, and limitations in the literature. Public Administration Review, 83(6), 1564–1598. https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13736

Zeitraum	7 Apr. 2025
Ereignistitel	IRSPM 2025 International Research Society for Public Management: Annual Conference
Veranstaltungstyp	Konferenz
Ort	Bologna, ItalienAuf Karte anzeigen
Bekanntheitsgrad	International