PROCESS VIEWS ON INTER-ORGANIZATIONAL COLLABORATIONS

Abstract

Introduction of a forthcoming Special Issue of Research in the Sociology of Organization on "Managing Inter-organizational Collaborations - Process Views" (2020)

Full text

PROCESS VIEWS ON INTER-ORGANIZATIONAL COLLABORATIONS
Hans Berends & Jörg Sydow1
Inter-organizational collaboration has become indispensable for many organizations.
Organizations may collaborate, for instance, to develop innovations (e.g., Powell et al.,
1996), to address grand challenges (Seidl & Werle, 2018), to streamline supply chains
(e.g. Dyer & Nobeoka, 2000), to set standards (Leiponen, 2008), to realize creative
projects (Windeler & Sydow, 2001), or to respond to emergencies (e.g. Beck &
Plowman, 2014). Inter-organizational collaboration enables organizations to pool
resources and accomplish objectives that they cannot realize on their own (Gray, 1985).
As a consequence, inter-organizational collaboration has emerged as a key topic
in management and organization research since the 1980s. It has been studied from many
perspectives including resource dependence and resource-based views, transaction cost
economics, social networks, institutional theory, organizational learning, and many more
(see e.g. Barringer & Harrison, 2000). Specialized literature has emerged on specific
forms of collaboration such as alliances, consortia, industry-university collaboration,
project networks, global production networks, cross-sectional partnerships, regional
clusters, and meta-organizations. Much of this literature has taken a variance research
approach (Mohr, 1982; Langley, 1999) as it has been concerned with the conditions for
effective collaboration, properties of collaborative relationships, and outcomes of
collaboration (see e.g. Gulati et al., 2012; Salvato et al., 2017, for reviews).
1 To be published in Research of the Sociology of Organization, 64 (2020).

Introduction
2
Yet, another approach, which is central to this volume, has been to focus on
processes of inter-organizational collaboration. A process approach views “phenomena
dynamically – in terms of movement, activity, events, change and temporal evolution”
(Langley, 2007). Process research seeks to explain how phenomena emerge, develop,
grow or terminate over time (Langley, 1999). Process is a distinct way of theorizing as
well as a way of doing research (e.g. Van de Ven & Poole, 1995; Langley & Tsoukas,
2017). Process research on inter-organizational collaboration seeks to explain how it
emerges, develops, changes and ends, usually by taking a longitudinal approach to trace
events over time. Early research on inter-organizational collaboration already
acknowledged its processual aspects (e.g., Gray, 1985). Process research on inter-
organizational collaboration received a boost in the 1990s from early papers by Ring and
Van de Ven (1992, 1994) and a special issue in Organization Science (1998), and
received more attention ever since (cf. Majchrzak et al., 2015).
Over time, research on inter-organizational collaboration processes has become
more attentive to complexities involved. Early process models often represented the
process of collaboration as a life cycle (e.g. D’Aunno & Zuckerman, 1987), a linear
sequence of stages that partners could move through in the development of their
collaboration, such as initiation, negotiation, formation, and operation (Schilke & Cook,
2013). Yet, in-depth empirical studies pointed out that real-life cases usually do not
follow such an orderly sequence (e.g., De Rond & Bouchikhi, 2004; Deken et al., 2018).
The development of collaboration is also driven by the agency of managers who respond
to intermediate outcomes and shifting conditions (e.g., Ariño & De la Torre, 1998; Das &
Teng, 2002; Doz, 1996). Thus, the development of inter-organizational relationships
typically comprises iterations of initiation, action, evaluation and readjustment, to

Introduction
3
recalibrate initial conditions for the partnership, incorporate learnings, and adapt to
changing conditions. Still, other studies emphasize the impact of existing relations on
new partnerships (e.g., Gulati, 1995; Li & Rowley, 2002), demonstrating that managerial
agency is enabled and constrained by the web of relations spun through prior interactions.
In addition to past experiences future expectations matter in processes of relationship
building, maintenance and ending as well (e.g., Ligthart et al., 2016).
The interplay of structural dimensions and managerial agency in such processes
has been captured in structuration theoretical accounts of inter-organizational
collaboration (e.g. Sydow & Windeler, 1998; Berends et al., 2011; Manning, 2010).
Structuration theory explains how social reality is continuously in the making through the
interaction of structure and agency: knowledgeable actors draw upon structural
dimensions that both enable and constrain actions and thereby either reproduce or
transform these structures with the help of practices. Collaboration is not determined by
pre-existing conditions, but not free to be formed by rational managers either. Inter-
organizational collaboration is continuously in motion and inherent tensions are never
fully resolved (De Rond & Bouchikhi, 2004; Putnam, Fairhurst, & Banghart, 2017).
This ever-evolving nature of interorganizational collaboration emerged as a
consistent finding in Majchrzak et al.’s (2015) review of in-depth process studies, no
matter whether they adopt a weak or strong process view (Langley et al., 2013).
Collaboration evolves due to organizational agency, inherent tensions, external events,
and achievement of outcomes. Majchzrak et al. conclude from their review that stability
is not per se preferred: dynamics in goals, interactions, and governance actually indicate a
healthy collaboration process. In order to give just one example: more often than not,
goals are not clear at the outset of a collaborative endeavor but can only be defined in this

Introduction
4
very process of collaborating (Huxham & Vangen, 2005). That is not to say that anything
goes. Process research has uncovered nuanced insights into which dynamics help to move
forward with the initiation, development or maintenance of inter-organizational
collaborations, and which dynamics are detrimental.
This volume seeks to advance research on processes of inter-organizational
collaboration. The contributing chapters are organized in three parts. The first part
focuses on the theme that has received most attention in process research on
collaboration: relational dynamics between partnering organizations. The second part
advances beyond current approaches by shifting attention to changes in the organizations
involved in collaboration and the transformation of intra-organizational collaboration into
inter-organizational collaboration, and vice versa. Finally, the third part broadens the
perspective by considering emerging forms of more distributed collaboration with crowds
and other groups of heterogeneous actors.
Relational Dynamics in Inter-Organizational Collaboration (Part I)
A significant share of research into inter-organizational collaboration has focused
on the relations between collaborating partners. Relations can be studied as entities with
properties, which can be characterized in terms of, for instance, commitment, trust,
mutual understanding, governance modes, or contractual obligations. Process views of
inter-organizational collaboration move beyond the description of properties and make
three related moves. First, process researchers investigate organizational processes within
such relations; in other words, they analyze the relational embeddedness of interactions.
Second, a processual view takes these relational features not as stable or given, but as
being in motion. From the early studies of Ring and Van de Ven (1992, 1994), the
development and change of relations has been the focus of research. Today, inspired by

Introduction
5
structuration theory and other theories of practice, research has examined relations
themselves as a processual phenomena. More often than not aligned with a process
philosophy of becoming (e.g., Tsoukas & Chia, 2002; Helin et al., 2014), researchers
argue that inter-organizational relations exist only in so far as they are enacted. These
moves surface in different ways in the four chapters of Part I.
In Chapter 1, Peter Smith Ring and Andrew van de Ven extend their classic work
on the development of inter-organizational relationships (Ring & Van de Ven 1992,
1994). Starting from the observation that the trust assumed in the development of inter-
organizational relationship is not always present in a particular society, they theorize
three types of relational bonds. Besides trust-based commitments they discern
forbearance-based-commitments and apprehension-based commitments. Whereas trust-
based commitment fits societies with strong exogenous institutional protection,
forbearance-based commitment fits societies with moderate levels, and apprehension-
based commitments with low levels of exogenous institutional protection. They explain
how collaboration processes in these different types of relational bonds play out over
time: during negotiations, after contracts have been entered, and when repairing breaches
in relational bonds.
Subsequently, in Chapter 2, Stephen Manning explores the processual
characteristics of organizing in project networks. In the context of TV movie production,
he examines how project network organizations create new collaborations for each
production by effectively drawing upon a network of prior collaborative relations. He finds
that the adaptive capacity of these organizations depends not only on structural network
properties and strategic agency, but also on the contextual embedding and disembedding
of network ties and relational practices. This requires seeing how prior collaborations and

Introduction
6
practices might connect with a new project, drawing both on a specific joint history as well
as the broader potential of past partners and practices. Along the way, these findings also
offer an excellent illustration of the structurational insight that the existence and value of
relations depends upon recurrent collective efforts to enact those relations in practice.
In Chapter 3, Harry Sminia, Anup Nair, Aylin Ates, Steve Paton, and Marisa
Smith analyze how actual interactions between organization members define an inter-
organizational relationship. In a study of contemporary manufacturing and the supply
networks involved, they focus on the people maintaining, changing, and developing
relationships between organizations. They unpack how actors deal with three paradoxes:
the capability paradox, the appropriation paradox, and the governance paradox. A key
feature of their insights is that these paradoxes are addressed in nested relationships.
Zooming in on an inter-organizational relation between partner organizations reveals a
nested network of interpersonal relations in which the challenges of organizing are
addressed.
Finally, Chapter 4 by Katharina Cepa and Henri Schildt directs attention to the
technological dimension of inter-organizational relations, which has hitherto been
underemphasized. Focusing in particular on big data technologies, they propose the
concept of ‘technological embeddedness’ to capture how technology is used to shape
activities at inter-organizational interfaces. They develop propositions on how
technological embeddedness facilitates inter-organizational collaboration processes, such
as the development of trust, mutual adaptation, and the temporal structuring of inter-
organizational interactions.

Introduction
7
Organizational Dynamics Forming and Dissolving Collaboration (Part II)
Part II of this volume addresses organizational dynamics in collaboration
processes. Much prior research on inter-organizational collaboration has taken the
organizations that are involved in collaboration for granted, by black-boxing them or
treating them as monolithic wholes. Typically, scholars investigated how the
collaborations emerge, develop, and change over time. Much less attention has been paid
to what happens in, or with, the partnering organizations themselves. As an initial step
into this direction, some prior studies unpacked how people and groups within
organizations drive the formation and dissolution of inter-organizational collaboration
(e.g. Berends et al., 2011; Marchington & Vincent, 2004). The chapters in the second part
further advance insight in organizational dynamics in the development of inter-
organizational collaboration.
Across the chapters, related insights can be discerned. First, organizations
themselves are not stable in any collaboration: just as collaboration is fluid, also
organizations are more or less continuously changing and intra-organizational dynamics
are key to understand the dynamics of external collaboration, and vice-versa. Moreover,
these chapters point at continuity between intra-organizational collaboration and inter-
organizational collaboration. Inter-organizational collaboration can transform into intra-
organizational collaboration (Faems & Madhok, Chapter 6), and intra-organizational
collaboration can transform into inter-organizational collaboration (Delbridge, Endo &
Morris, Chapter 7; Wiedner & Ansari, Chapter 8). The chapters also underscore the value
of a process approach as they show in various ways how collaborative processes at one
point in time have consequences for transformed processes at a later stage.

Introduction
8
The opening chapter in this second part, Chapter 5, is by Kristina Lauche. She
focuses attention on the individuals within an organization who advocate collaboration as
a means to realize change. Extending prior work on the role of individuals in the context
of inter-organizational relations, she investigates the intra-organizational dynamics before
organizations enter into relations. In particular, Lauche zooms in on the ‘issue selling’
efforts of organization members. She shows how interactions with external actors help
organization members to understand complex problems (see also Seidl & Werle, 2018),
and how those organization members draw upon their external network to promote
change and make the case for collaboration internally. Six different cases illustrate
different issue selling strategies to mobilize various recipients. These deliberate efforts at
the intra-organizational level contribute to an emergent trajectory at the level of inter-
organizational collaboration.
In Chapter 6, Dries Faems and Anoop Madhok present and theorize an in-depth
case study of collaborating partners that gradually merge into one organization. A multi-
national, called GCOMP, first took an equity stake in a technology-based startup labeled
OPTICS, and later acquired OPTICS. Whereas much of the alliance literature has
investigated the consequences of macro-level governance modes such as equity alliances
(e.g. Oxley & Sampson, 2004; Salvato, Reuer, & Battigalli, 2017), the chapter by Faems
and Madhok dives into micro-level forms of governance. The micro-level forms of
governance shift from arms-length governance to embedded governance in the equity
alliance, and then to preserving and later absorbing the acquired start-up. Moreover, they
show how micro-level processes, such as trust building and knowledge transfer,
subsequently change the conditions and trigger choices at the macro-level. In this way,
the chapter also illustrates how inter-organizational collaboration can morph via multiple

Introduction
9
micro- and macro-level shifts into intra-organizational collaboration. Thus, changes in the
form of collaboration are also associated with changes in the internal organizing of both
partners.
The last two chapters in this part describe a related phenomenon with dynamics
moving in the opposite direction: constituents of a single organization who separate and
form autonomous organizations, thereby transforming intra-organizational collaboration
into inter-organizational collaboration. Chapter 7 by Rick Delbridge, Takahiro Endo, and
Jonathan Morris uncovers the phenomenon of ‘disciplining entrepreneurialism’. This
particular approach combines elements of hierarchy, markets, and networks, yet is
distinct from all of them. Based on an in-depth study of a media, gaming, and advertising
business called CyberAgent, they show how entrepreneurial individuals were encouraged
to seek and grasp opportunities for new business projects, which they could pursue as
subsidiary firms. Despite the formal hierarchical relation with headquarters, such
subsidiaries had a strong sense of autonomy. Yet, initial socialization with the values of
the parent organization also meant that individuals who autonomously pursued
opportunities as subsidiary, did so with loyalty to the parent organization and disciplined
by a shared sense of corporate identity.
Finally, in Chapter 8, Rene Wiedner and Shaz Ansari further theorize processes of
separation leading to inter-organizational collaboration. The rich literature on the
formation of inter-organizational collaboration (e.g., Deken et al., 2018) typically
assumes that collaboration is initiated by two distinct organizations. Wiedner and Ansari,
instead, examine how collaboration can emerge as constituent parts of a single
organization separate. Drawing upon the subtle but important distinction between
autonomy and independence, they develop a process perspective on ‘collaborative

Introduction
10
separation’, which does not lead to independent entities, but establishes autonomy while
harnessing remaining interdependencies. Collaborative separation may help to increase
performance and sustain access to resources, but several factors, ranging from regulations
to feelings of betrayal and shame, may prove to be a barrier. Therefore, they identify five
steps that may aid separating organizations to develop effective collaboration.
Dynamic Collaboration beyond Organizations (Part III)
Over the past two decades, new forms of collaboration have become more
prevalent. Much of the empirical literature has focused on relatively stable forms of
collaboration involving regular organizations, such strategic alliances, joint ventures, and
R&D consortia. While these ‘traditional’ forms of inter-organizational collaboration are
still around, they get complemented with more fluid forms of collaboration involving a
larger variety of partners. These include, for instance, ecosystems around open source
software and digital platforms that allow organizations to collaborate at arm’s length with
organizations and individuals developing complementary products and services. Many of
these new forms of collaboration are enabled by digital technologies and they typically
involve a heterogeneous and distributed set of partners, which may include organizations
as well as loose collections of individuals. As a consequence, collaboration dynamics
tend to be even emergent and fluid.
In this volume we have four chapters exploring such dynamics of collaboration that
extend beyond organizations. In Chapter 9, Karl-Emanuel Dionne and Paul Carlile report
about the opening up for innovation to access and develop a greater amount and variety of
knowledge and resources. The authors’ critical literature review, paired with an analysis of
different empirical cases from a non-profit organization helping drive digital health
innovation, reveal user-centric, firm-centric and field-centric approaches to opening

Introduction
11
innovation that progressively connect a greater variety of actors and resources. The authors
show how specific new relational practices address the new relational dynamics these
connections bring to accumulate more resources for innovation to keep progressing.
Chapter 10, written by Linus Dahlander, Lars Bo Jeppesen, and Henning
Piezunka, integrates research on organization theory and innovation and develops a
framework that characterizes crowdsourcing as a sequential process, through which
organizations (1) define the task they wish to have completed; (2) broadcast to a pool of
potential contributors; (3) attract a crowd of contributors; and (4) select among the inputs
they receive. For each of these phases, the authors identify the key decisions
organizations make, provide a basic explanation for each decision, discuss the trade-offs
organizations face when choosing among decision alternatives, and explore how
organizations may resolve these trade-offs. This decision-centric approach shows that
there are fundamental interdependencies in the process that makes the coordination of
crowdsourcing challenging.
In Chapter 11, Luca Giustiniano, Terri L. Griffith, and Ann Majchrzak focus on
the forms of collaboration that blur the lines between organizations, calling into question
the fundamental label of crowd-focused inter-organizational collaboration. The authors
employ the concept of liminality and consider two forms: crowd-open and crowd-based
organizations. They show the organizational design impact of openness that spans from
the mere scalability associated with organizational growth to the phenomena of reshaping
formalization and standardization of roles and processes, and self-organizing over time.
The final chapter of this volume, Chapter 12, also advances our understanding of
collaborative innovation processes that span across organizational boundaries. In this
case, Benjamin Schiemer, Elke Schüßler, and Gernot Grabher report ethnographic

Introduction
12
research about an online platform that supports distributed songwriting. They discovered
three parallel processes that were triggered and maintained over time by temporary
stabilizations of provisional, interim outcomes: content-in-the-making, skill-in-the-
making, and community-in-the-making. Quite in line with a practice-based view the
authors elucidate interferences between these three processes and highlight the
constructive role of incompleteness (Garud, Jain, & Tuertscher, 2008).
Conclusion
This volume presents an up-to-date window into process research on inter-organizational
collaboration. In this introduction we have identified several process themes that cut
across these chapters. Still, comparison of the chapters shows a large variety in
theoretical perspectives. Process research often develops in dialogue with core theories
on collaboration and organizing (e.g., on governance, networks, and resources), which
are not per se processual in nature. Process research contributes to make such
perspectives more dynamic, for instance, by examining core assumptions, uncovering
how causal mechanisms play out over time, or showing how fundamental processes
unfold in the context of collaboration. Engaging with broader theoretical perspectives,
however important, may have the unintended consequence of limiting the accumulation
of findings into a distinct body of process insights. That is a clear challenge for future
process research on inter-organizational collaboration.
The chapters in this volume have pointed at several areas that are in need of
further research from a process perspective, which could become themes for further
accumulation of process insights. First, more research is needed on tensions and
contradictions in collaboration. Tensions and contradictions point at limits and potential
dark sides of collaboration, but are also the engine of progress and change in

Introduction
13
collaboration. Second, the relation between intra- and inter-organizational processes is a
new area that calls for further research. Some of the chapters observed interactions
between inter-organizational and intra-organizational processes and theorized how they
may transform into each other. The increasing permeability of boundaries and fluidity of
collaboration calls for deepening of this line of research. Finally, more research is needed
on new forms of collaboration. The development of technology enabled, distributed
forms of collaboration is likely to continue over the coming years. This invites further
exploration of these phenomena and calls for the examination of differences between
types of collaborative processes.
Future process research faces some methodological challenges. Attention to how
people deal with tensions in day-to-day organizing calls for ethnographic research
approaches. Yet, the more collaboration is becoming distributed and emergent, the more
difficult it becomes to trace, requiring smart choices in how to do ethnographic research
in such settings (Berthod, Grothe-Hammer & Sydow, 2017). Ethnographic and other
qualitative approaches can be complemented by the study of digital traces that are
becoming more and more abundant, ranging from e-mail and enterprise social media, to
workflow systems and algorithmic data decision-making. Quantitative analysis of digital
traces may document patterns that qualitative sources may help to further explain. Such
multi-method studies may help to overcome limitations of any specific method and
contribute to the further advancement of process research on inter-organizational
collaboration.
Ideas: more historical research; more on tensions and contradictions and the dark side
ofinter-organizational collaboration; beyond weak and strong process views;

Introduction
14
duality of stability and change (Farjoun, 2010); role of ethnographic techniques;
References
Arino, A., & De La Torre, J. (1998). Learning from failure: Towards an evolutionary
model of collaborative ventures. Organization Science, 9(3), 306-325.
Barringer, B. R., & Harrison, J. S. (2000). Walking a tightrope: Creating value through
inter-organizational relationships. Journal of Management, 26(3), 367-403.
Beck, T. E., & Plowman, D. A. (2014). Temporary, emergent interorganizational
collaboration in unexpected circumstances: A study of the Columbia space shuttle
response effort. Organization Science, 25(4), 1234-1252.
Berends, H., van Burg, E., & van Raaij, E. M. (2011). Contacts and contracts: Cross-level
network dynamics in the development of an aircraft material. Organization
Science, 22(4), 940-960.
Berthod, O., Grothe-Hammer, M., & Sydow, J. (2017). Network ethnography: A mixed-
method approach for the study of practices in interorganizational
settings. Organizational Research Methods, 20(2), 299-323.
D'Aunno, T. A., & Zuckerman, H. S. (1987). A life-cycle model of organizational
federations: The case of hospitals. Academy of Management Review, 12(3), 534-
545.
Das, T. K., & Teng, B.-S. (2002). The dynamics of alliance conditions in the alliance
development process. Journal of Management Studies, 39(5), 725-746.
De Rond, M., & Bouchikhi, H. (2004). On the dialectics of strategic alliances.
Organization Science, 15(1), 56-69.
Deken, F., Berends, H., Gemser, G., & Lauche, K. (2018). Strategizing and the initiation
of interorganizational collaboration through prospective resourcing. Academy of
Management Journal, 61(5), 1920-1950.
Doz, Y. L. (1996). The evolution of cooperation in strategic alliances: initial conditions
or learning processes? Strategic Management Journal, 17(S1), 55-83.
Dyer, J. H., & Nobeoka, K. (2000). Creating and managing a high‐performance
knowledge‐sharing network: the Toyota case. Strategic Management
Journal, 21(3), 345-367.
Garud, R., Jain, S., & Tuertscher, P. (2008). Incomplete by design and designing for
incompleteness. Organization Studies, 29(3), 351-371.
Gray, B. (1985). Conditions facilitating interorganizational collaboration. Human
Relations, 38(10), 911-936.
Gulati, R. (1995). Social structure and alliance formation patterns: A longitudinal
analysis. Administrative Science Quarterly, 40(4), 619-652.

Introduction
15
Gulati, R., Wohlgezogen, F., & Zhelyazkov, P. (2012). The two facets of collaboration:
Cooperation and coordination in strategic alliances. Academy of Management
Annals, 6(1), 531-583.
Helin, J., Hernes, T., Hjorth, D., & Holt, R. (Eds.) (2014). The Oxford handbook of
process philosophy and organization studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Huxham, C., & Vangen, S. (2013). Managing to collaborate: The theory and practice of
collaborative advantage. London: Routledge.
Langley, A. (1999). Strategies for theorizing from process data. Academy of Management
Review, 24(4), 691-710.
Langley, A. (2007). Process thinking in strategic organization. Strategic
Organization, 5(3), 271-282.
Langley, A., & Tsoukas, H. (Eds.) (2017). The SAGE handbook of process organization
studies. London: Sage.
Leiponen, A. E. (2008). Competing through cooperation: The organization of standard
setting in wireless telecommunications. Management Science, 54(11), 1904-1919.
Li, S. X., & Rowley, T. J. (2002). Inertia and evaluation mechanisms in inter-
organizational partner selection: Syndicate formation among U.S. investment
banks. Academy of Management Journal, 45(6), 1104-1119.
Ligthart, R., Oerlemans, L., & Noorderhaven, N. (2016). In the shadows of time: A case
study of flexibility behaviors in an interorganizational project. Organization
Studies, 37(12), 1721-1743.
Majchrzak, A., Jarvenpaa, S. L., & Bagherzadeh, M. (2015). A review of inter-
organizational collaboration dynamics. Journal of Management, 41(5), 1338-
1360.
Manning, S. (2010). The strategic formation of project networks: A relational practice
perspective. Human Relations, 63(4), 551-573.
Marchington, M., & Vincent, S. (2004). Analysing the influence of institutional,
organizational and interpersonal forces in shaping inter‐organizational
relations. Journal of Management Studies, 41(6), 1029-1056.
Mohr, L. B. (1982). Explaining organizational behavior. San-Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Oxley, J. E., & Sampson, R. C. (2004). The scope and governance of international R&D
alliances. Strategic Management Journal, 25(8‐9), 723-749.
Powell, W. W., Koput, K. W., & Smith-Doerr, L. (1996). Inter-organizational
collaboration and the locus of innovation: Networks of learning in
biotechnology. Administrative Science Quarterly, 116-145.
Putnam, L. L., Fairhurst, G. T., & Banghart, S. (2017). Contradictions, dialectics, and
paradoxes in organizations: A constitutive approach. Academy of Management
Annals, 10(1), 65–171.
Ring, P. S., & Van de Ven, A. H. (1992). Structuring cooperative relationships between
organizations. Strategic Management Journal, 13(7), 483-498.
Ring, P. S., & Van de Ven, A. H. (1994). Developmental processes of cooperative
interorganizational relationships. Academy of Management Review, 19(1), 90-118.
Salvato, C., Reuer, J. J., & Battigalli, P. (2017). Cooperation across disciplines: A
multilevel perspective on cooperative behavior in governing interfirm
relations. Academy of Management Annals, 11(2), 960-1004.
Schilke, O., & Cook, K. S. (2013). A cross-level process theory of trust development in
interorganizational relationships. Strategic Organization, 11(3), 281-303.

Introduction
16
Seidl, D., & Werle, F. (2018). Inter‐organizational sensemaking in the face of strategic
meta‐problems: Requisite variety and dynamics of participation. Strategic
Management Journal, 39(3), 830-858.
Sydow, J., & Windeler, A. (1998). Organizing and evaluating interfirm networks: A
structurationist perspective on network processes and effectiveness. Organization
Science, 9(3), 265-284.
Tsoukas, H., & Chia, R. (2002). On organizational becoming: Rethinking organizational
change. Organization Science, 13(5), 567-582.
Van de Ven, A. H., & Poole, M. S. (1995). Explaining development and change in
organizations. Academy of Management Review, 20(3), 510-540.
Windeler, A., & Sydow, J. (2001). Project networks and changing industry practices
collaborative content production in the German television industry. Organization
Studies, 22(6), 1035-1060.