Integrative Leadership and the Creation and Maintenance of Cross-Sector
Collaborations
By
Barbara C. Crosby and John M. Bryson
Abstract
This article presents a theoretical framework for understanding integrative leadership and
the creation and maintenance of cross-sector collaborations that create public value. We
define integrative leadership as bringing diverse groups and organizations together in
semi-permanent ways – and typically across sector boundaries – to remedy complex
public problems and achieve the common good. Our framework highlights in particular
the leadership roles and activities of collaboration sponsors and champions. The
framework is illustrated with examples from the development of MetroGIS, a geographic
information system that promotes better public problem solving in the Minneapolis-St.
Paul region of the U.S. A set of propositions is offered to guide further research and to
prompt reflective practice.
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Integrative Leadership and the Creation and Maintenance of Cross-sector
Collaborations
By
Barbara C. Crosby and John M. Bryson
Many major public problems or challenges – such as global warming, HIV/AIDS,
economic development, poverty, homelessness – can be addressed effectively only if
many organizations collaborate. Collaborators would include governments certainly, but
often must include businesses, nonprofit organizations, foundations, higher education
institutions, and community groups as well. Leaders and managers in government
organizations thus face the need to inspire, mobilize, and sustain their own agencies, but
also to engage numerous other partners in their problem-solving efforts.
As we see it, this is the basic challenge of integrative public leadership – defined
as bringing diverse groups and organizations together in semi-permanent ways, and
typically across sector boundaries, to remedy complex public problems and achieve the
common good. We have argued elsewhere that such problems are often due to the
characteristic failings of government, business, and civil society and that sustainable
remedies must draw on the characteristic strengths of each sector while overcoming or
minimizing their weaknesses (Bryson and Crosby, 2008). In other words, the power to
adopt and actually deliver effective solutions is shared among sectors and organizations
within the sectors. Integrative public leaders will have to lead across sector boundaries to
foster the requisite relationships and resource flows needed to produce desirable
outcomes
Several analysts (e.g., Cleveland, 2002; Crosby and Bryson, 2005) have provided
insights about leadership in this “shared-power, no-one-wholly-in-charge world,” an
increasingly apt descriptor in the early years of the 21st century. Scholars also have made
headway in considering the implications for government power, authority, and
responsibility in such a world. What does it mean, they have asked, when so-called
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“public” problems spill beyond government’s power and authority, yet citizens still look
to democratic governments to help solve them? Harlan Cleveland (1977, 1993, 2002) was
among those who a few decades ago first began popularizing the term “governance” to
describe arrangements (regimes) in which government bodies share power with other
types of organizations to create significant achievements of lasting public value (Kettl,
2002, 2009; Light, 2002; Osborne, 2010).
A substantial body of scholarship now describes how public administrators create
and manage collaborations among governments, businesses, and non-profits. Indeed,
collaborative public management has become a hot topic (e.g., Goldsmith and Eggers,
2004; Agranoff, 2007; Bingham and O’Leary, 2008; O’Leary and Bingham, 2008; and
Kettl, 2009). Much of this work builds on a long-standing tradition of research into
public-private partnerships and other cross-sector policy “tools” (Salamon, 2002;
Osborne, 2010). At the same time, leadership language and scholarship have been
remarkably scarce in the academic literature on collaboration, although the literature
typically does highlight implicitly the roles of what we call sponsors and champions.
Huxham and Vangen (2005) are an exception in their focus on leadership as enacted
through the “media” of people, processes and structures. We agree with them in part, but
see leaders as agents as well as media. In addition, a National Academy of Public
Administration-sponsored book (Morse, Buss, and Kinghorn, 2007) brings together a
number of scholars who discuss public leadership in collaborative settings. Chrislip and
Larson (1994) and Chrislip (2002) offer guidance for collaborative civic leaders; Linden
(2002) also describes qualities of government and nonprofit leaders engaged in crossagency collaboration.
This article adds to the growing attention to leadership among scholars of public
administration and governance. It also builds on the work of leadership scholars who are
increasingly describing the existence of, and increased need for, shared, collective, and
distributed leadership within organizations and networks (see Pearce and Conger, 2003;
Uhl-Bien, Marion, and McKelvey, 2007; Ospina and Foldy, this issue). The article
presents a framework for understanding integrative leadership in cross-sector
collaborative settings in which government is typically an important actor, but not the
only actor. The starting point is a widely cited cross-sector collaboration framework and
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set of propositions developed by Bryson, Crosby and Stone (2006). That framework
consists of five main elements: initial conditions, process, structure and governance,
contingencies and constraints, and outcomes and accountabilities. The framework
addresses factors affecting cross-sector collaboration in general, and is not focused
specifically on leaders and leadership. The revised framework presented here
acknowledges that leaders and leadership are crucial in integrating all aspects of the
framework. Said differently, we argue that leadership work is central to the creation and
maintenance of cross-sector collaborations that advance the common good.
The revised framework builds on an extensive literature review, as well as on our
subsequent research into cross-sector collaborations (Bryson, Crosby and Stone, 2007),
particularly in the areas of employment (Stone, 2007), urban transportation systems
(Bryson, Crosby and Stone, 2008; Bryson, et al., 2009), and regional geographic
information system development (Bryson, Crosby and Bryson, 2009). The revised
framework draws attention to crucial leadership work related to bridging processes and
structures, including: bridging roles and boundary spanning activities (Maguire, Hardy
and Lawrence, 2004), the creation of boundary experiences and boundary groups and
organizations (Feldman, et al., 2006), boundary object creation and use (Carlile, 2002,
2004; Kellogg, Orlikowski and Yates, 2006), and the development of nascent or protoinstitutions (Lawrence, Hardy and Phillips, 2002). In the revised framework leadership
work clearly is central.
Throughout this article we offer illustrations from the creation and
institutionalization of MetroGIS, an award-winning geographic information system (GIS)
initiative in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis – Saint Paul) metropolitan area of Minnesota,
USA. MetroGIS is a completely voluntary collaborative network of over 300
governmental units, businesses, and nonprofit organizations that has created a mostly
virtual geographic information systems organization under the auspices of the
Metropolitan Council (MC), the regional government (www.metrogis.org). Note that the
case is used for illustrative purposes only; it is not a test of the framework. Indeed, the
flow was the other way – our study of MetroGIS (Bryson, Crosby, and Bryson, 2009)
helped crystallize the revision of the earlier framework. In the article’s next section we
briefly describe geographic information systems and their importance, and also present a
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thumbnail history of the MC and MetroGIS. In the following section we present the
revised framework. In doing so, we briefly recap the propositions drawn from the
literature and presented previously. Most space, however, is devoted to presenting the
propositions related to the highlighted bridging processes and structures. In the final
concluding section we emphasize theoretical, methodological, and practical implications
of the revised framework.
Introduction to Geographic Information Systems (GIS), the Metropolitan Council,
and MetroGIS
Technological innovations in recent decades have produced powerful web-based
geospatial mapping tools that can help a variety of groups solve problems and achieve
ambitious goals. Users of the tools might be, for example, nonprofits or governments
seeking to combat public health problems or a business entrepreneur wanting to corner
new markets. Yet putting together a mapping system that draws on expertise and
databases of multiple organizations (at multiple levels of government and across sectors)
remains a challenging endeavor for leaders like those who were central to the creation
and continuation of MetroGIS under the sponsorship of the Twin Cities Metropolitan
Council.
Geographic Information Systems
Maps, of course, have been used throughout human history to visually represent
geographic space, the elements making it up, and the relationships among the elements.
The creation of an analogical space representing a larger geography is one of the great
accomplishments of human history, on par with the development of language and
numeracy (Robinson, 1982). Maps are crucial to knowing where anything is and to
navigating between points; to assertions of sovereignty and the rights and duties of those
under the sovereign power; to understanding amounts, capacities and/or flows of various
things (land, water, weather, traffic); to establishing ownership and the legitimacy of real
property exchanges; and to a host of other purposes. Maps typically are two-dimensional,
5
but represent three-dimensional spaces. They also can be three-dimensional, as in globes;
or four-dimensional via time-lapsed presentations.1
Since the 1960s, it has become possible to produce digitized geospatial
information in order to create computerized maps (models) and to format, reformat, and
analyze them using various analytic tools. Geographic information systems (GIS) are
computerized models containing digitized, manipulable, and geospatially referenced data.
In principle, with a GIS
you can study not just this map or that map, but every possible map. With the
right data, you can see whatever you want – land, elevation, climate zones,
forests, political boundaries, population density, per capita income, land use,
energy consumption, mineral resources, and a thousand other things – in whatever
part of the world interests you (Ormsby, et al., 2004, p. 2).
In a GIS, the maps are made up of layers (think of the zoom feature on Google
Earth). Each layer consists of features (cities, jurisdictions, tracts of land) and/or surfaces
(lakes, land uses, snow cover). Each geographic object in a layer is called a feature, but
not all layers contain features (e.g., the ocean layer may just be a single expanse which
changes from place to place in terms of depth). The features have shapes and sizes, while
the surfaces have values (elevation, slope, temperature, depth). Features have specific
locations identified by coordinate systems and can also be displayed at different sizes
(scales) (Ormsby, et al., 2004, pp. 2 – 10). Google Maps (www.maps.google.com) is the
best-known GIS. Each year it includes more and increasingly accurate data, including
geospatially referenced video feeds. Automobiles increasingly feature onboard GIS
systems as standard equipment to assist with navigation; most include voice directions.
The Metropolitan Council (MC)
The Metropolitan Council (MC) was created in 1967 to be the regional planning
and coordinating agency for the Minneapolis-St. Paul region of Minnesota. It formally
sponsors MetroGIS and has assumed primary responsibility for the system.
The Minneapolis-St.Paul region since the 1960s has experienced many of the
same problems as other metropolitan centers in the U.S. and other “developed” nations.
Integrative leaders in the region responded by creating over many years regional
government structures –especially the MC – that increased the capacity of local, state,
6
and federal governments to tackle regional public problems (Bryson and Crosby, 1992;
Metropolitan Council, 2007). The council works with local communities to provide the
following services (http://www.metrocouncil.org/about/about.htm):

operating the region's largest bus system

collecting and treating wastewater

engaging communities and the public in planning for future growth

providing forecasts of the region's population and household growth

providing affordable housing opportunities for low- and moderate-income
individuals and families

providing planning, acquisitions and funding for a regional system of parks and
trails

providing a framework for decisions and implementation for regional systems
including aviation, transportation, parks and open space, water quality and water
management.
The MC’s governing board consists of 17 members, 16 of whom represent a
geographic district and one chair who serves at large. They are all appointed by and serve
at the pleasure of the governor. At present, the MC has staff of 3,700 and an annual
operating budget of about $700 million, 90 percent of which is funded by state
appropriations and user fees such as wastewater treatment charges and transit fares. Ten
percent comes from local property taxes. The bulk of the MC’s employees operate the
region’s transit and regional wastewater treatment systems.
While the council had accomplished many things since its establishment, by the
1990s regional officials and planners were still struggling to have timely, accurate,
reliable and comparable geospatial information about local conditions so they could:
understand the contours of transportation, housing, open space, and waste treatment
challenges; generate solutions that were more finely tuned to local and regional realities;
and build the coalitions needed for necessary policy changes and resource allocation
choices. Said differently, in any democratic society based on the rule of law, accurate,
timely, geospatially referenced information is absolutely necessary for effective
governance, planning, and coordination; the MC had for years produced information, but
it was often based on imprecise estimates and projections.
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MetroGIS grew out of the efforts of a group of public officials and managers,
along with partners in other sectors, to remedy this shortcoming. They sought to create a
shared GIS for the region that linked and made easily accessible business, government
and nonprofit databases of accurate, timely, standardized, and needed information; and
acquired or developed the software applications to make use of the data to solve public
problems. These leaders practiced integrative leadership as they strove to improve
multiple governments’ capacity for public problem-solving around a host of issues
affecting the Twin Cities metropolitan region, including urban traffic congestion,
economic development, affordable housing, threats to water availability and quality,
provision of parks and other recreational opportunities, waste management, and crime.
Regional capacity building may be seen as more a management than a leadership
challenge. Yet, government structures and tools often are simply inadequate to allow
government agencies to carry out responsibilities and partner effectively with other
organizations (Kettl, 2009; Osborne, 2010). Developing these structures and tools can be
a major integrative leadership challenge – and certainly was in the MetroGIS case.
MetroGIS
This article’s illustrations trace efforts of MC administrators and appointed
officials, along with several county commissioners and others, to develop a sustainable
cross-governmental, cross-sector system for sharing detailed geographic information (for
example, exact location of land parcels, streets, sewer and utility lines) across numerous
jurisdictional boundaries. MetroGIS is now 14 years old and involves 300 governmental
units, businesses, and nonprofit organizations (www.metrogis.org). The organization’s
small coordinating staff is housed in the MC. Its policy board consists exclusively of
government representatives, but its management-level coordinating committee and
technical advisory team consist of members representing a variety of units of
government, businesses, and nonprofits.
The data on which these illustrations are based come from several sources:
archival research, including a review of materials on the MetroGIS website; an
unpublished written history of MetroGIS; individual interviews with ten leaders involved
in MetroGIS’s founding and subsequent development; one group interview with five
8
knowledgeable MetroGIS leaders; and participant observation by the second author in the
build-up to, facilitation of, and follow-up to both major MetroGIS strategic planning
efforts.2
MetroGIS is now nationally and internationally recognized as one of the best GIS
organizations in the world. Its accomplishments include, among other things
(http://www.metrogis.org/about/accomplishments/index.shtml):

Implementing, or making substantial progress on implementing, regional solutions for
nine of the MetroGIS community's thirteen priority information needs: jurisdictional
boundaries; street addresses/where people live; parcels/parcel identifiers; highway
and road networks; census boundaries; lakes, wetlands, water courses; land cover;
and planned land use.

Implementing MetroGIS DataFinder as a registered node of the Federal National
Spatial Data Infrastructure, fully integrated into the State of Minnesota's GIS, with a
state-of-the-art downloading capability (DataFinderCafé). Over 200 datasets are
currently accessible via DataFinder. Over 800 data downloads per month occur and
the trend is a steady increase.

Implementing (in conjunction with the State of Minnesota’s Land Management
Information Center [LMIC]) GeoService Finder, a resource for finding geospatial
applications and web services.

Executing agreements that provide access by all government interests serving the
seven-county metropolitan area, without fee and subject to identical access
requirements, to parcel and other geospatial data produced by all seven metro area
counties and the MC.

Receiving several state, national and international awards for innovation.

Maintaining active involvement of key stakeholder representatives at the policy,
management, and technical levels since MetroGIS's inception in 1995.
The road to these achievements has been a long and not necessarily easy one. The
journey began when Rick Gelbmann, an MC manager, concluded in the mid-1990s that
the time had come to improve the system the MC used to develop projections about the
future development of Twin Cities communities. Local planners like Randall Johnson of
9
Shoreview (a St. Paul suburb) were complaining that the projection system’s methods
were not sufficiently based on local data and as a result the council’s projections were
unreliable. Meanwhile, new technology for more precise local data gathering was
becoming available. Gelbmann persuaded Richard Johnson (no relation to Randall
Johnson), deputy administrator of the MC, to seek approval from the council members
for creation of a small internal unit to explore the possibility of creating a multi-county
GIS. The unit was to undertake the necessary planning to define what a metro GIS would
include, how it would operate, and how it would be financed.
Randall Johnson was hired to head the unit and in 1995 he and his staff organized
two regional forums that involved county officials, GIS experts, MC staff, and
representatives of cities, school districts, water management organizations, the regional
mosquito control district, park boards, and the Metropolitan Airport Commission. The
forums produced consensus that local governments were ready to cooperate with the
council in setting up and maintaining a geographic information system. Randall Johnson
soon became a determined champion of developing a system that was technically
advanced, met local and regional government needs, and helped the region become an
example of how pooled geospatial information could be used to foster wise development
and improve public services.
In December 1995, Johnson and his staff worked with faculty at the Humphrey
Institute of Public Affairs (including this paper’s second author) to conduct a Strategic
Planning Forum that included 18 representatives of government, nonprofit and business
organizations. The author facilitated a strategy mapping session (Bryson et al., 2004) that
helped the group agree on a set of strategic issues for the GIS effort, elements of a
mission statement, a statement of intent to pursue creation of a shared system, and a set of
what came to be called “strategic projects.” Interviewees agreed that the strategy
mapping session was a signal event in the creation of MetroGIS.
In April 1996, a formal mission statement, goals, guiding principles, five strategic
projects (called Strategic Initiatives), and an initial organizational structure were created
and agreed by key stakeholders, including the formally established Coordinating
Committee and the MC. In other words, what had been several strategic “matters of
concern” involving direction, organization, and governance evolved into “matters of fact”
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(Latour, 2005, p. 22). The original, officially approved mission of MetroGIS grew
directly out of (meaning much of the language was taken directly from) the strategy
mapping exercise. The original mission was: “To provide an ongoing, stakeholdergoverned, metro-wide mechanism through which participants easily and equitably share
geographically referenced data that are accurate, current, secure, of common benefit and
readily usable. The desired outcomes of MetroGIS include: improved participant
operations; reduced costs; and support for cross-jurisdictional decision making”
(www.metrogis.org/about/history/mission.shtml).
Many persons interviewed for this article commented on the importance of the
guiding principles for developing and sustaining the organization across many different
kinds of boundaries. Many noted the principles are frequently referred to, and are clearly
– even emphatically – inclusive, participatory and democratic. Interviewees also
emphasized the importance of tapping and creating shared knowledge and understanding.
The principles are as follows (slightly modified in recent years from the original)
(http://www.metrogis.org/about/index.shtml#principles):

Pursue collaborative, efficient solutions of greatest importance to the region when
choosing among options.

Ensure that actively involved policy makers set policy direction.

Pursue comprehensive and sustainable solutions that coordinate and leverage
resources: i.e., build once, make available for use by many.

Acknowledge that the term “stakeholder” has multiple participation characteristics:
contributor of resources, consumer of the services, active knowledge sharer, potential
future contributor, potential future user, continuous participant, and infrequent
participant.

Acknowledge that funding is not the only way to contribute: data, equipment and
people are also valuable partnership assets.

Rely upon voluntary compliance for all aspects of participation.

Rely upon a consensus-based process for making decisions critical to sustainability.

Ensure that all relevant and affected perspectives are involved in the exploration of
needs and options.
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
Enlist champions with diverse perspectives when implementing policies and carrying
out activities.
The key stakeholders also established the MetroGIS Coordinating Committee that
would guide the system’s development. The Coordinating Committee agreed to
undertake five design projects:

eliciting endorsements from stakeholders

executing data and cost-sharing agreements

implementing an Internet-based data search and retrieval tool

identifying common information needs

creating a business plan and organization structure.
By the end of 1996, the group had obtained substantial stakeholder buy-in. Eleven
key stakeholder organizations had adopted resolutions endorsing creation of MetroGIS
and designated a representative for the MetroGIS Policy Board that was created to set
policies for the system. The policy board consists of public officials from the MC and
counties, as well as associations of local governments (municipalities, school districts,
watershed districts). Victoria Reinhardt, a member of the Ramsey County Board of
Commissioners, became chair. (St. Paul is in Ramsey County.) The Coordinating
Committee became more formalized, and David Arbeit, director of the state’s Land
Management Information Center (LMIC), was elected as chair. Other members,
including Will Craig, a GIS expert at the University of Minnesota, provided early and
continuing leadership within the committee. A Technical Advisory Team also was
established. Staff secured preliminary data-sharing agreements with representatives of
metro area counties and other data producers, and they began efforts to identify common
information needs.
During the next four years the MetroGIS staff, the technical advisers, the
Coordinating Committee, and the Policy Board worked hard to put together more
permanent data and cost-sharing agreements and to establish rules and standards for data
collection and dissemination. An important product was the DataFinder Internet tool,
which provided a quick data search and retrieval mechanism for MetroGIS partners.
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When a University of Minnesota team assessed the benefits of MetroGIS during this
period, it found that the system had given stakeholders easier access to useful data,
fostered better communication among GIS users across the region, and increased trust in
sharing geographic information with the user community (Craig & Bitner, 1999).
The MC hired a consulting firm to produce a business plan for sustaining the
system through 2003. The plan, which built on the findings of the university assessment,
was approved by the Policy Board and the MC; it identified priority functions, projected
costs, and outlined long-term funding issues. By 2001, MetroGIS was attracting favorable
attention from national GIS advocates and policy makers. It received a federal grant to
improve the DataFinder website. Victoria Reinhardt was appointed to the board of the
National GeoData Alliance created by the U.S. Department of the Interior.
During the next six years, the project leaders focused on improving and further
institutionalizing the system. To improve the ability of the DataFinder to respond to user
needs, a consultant team solicited input from users, state agencies, and the US Geological
Survey. The expanded tool allowed much more customized usage. A working group of
MetroGIS stakeholders and a consultant also developed a performance measurement
program. Additionally MetroGIS came up with “endorsed regional solutions” for the 13
highest priority information needs of the region and established mechanisms for quick
distribution of relevant data during emergency and homeland security events.
During this period, MetroGIS had to survive a major challenge from within the
MC to its continued existence via the program evaluation audit. According to MetroGIS
Policy Board Chair Virginia Reinhardt, the organization had been called on to justify its
existence as a public entity by MC decision makers; when a program audit found that
MetroGIS produced benefits far in excess of its costs, the challenge disappeared (Virginia
Reinhardt interview 2008). In June 2006, the MC endorsed MetroGIS and guaranteed its
continued existence.
By 2006, the system had won national and international recognition for its
accomplishments. Its leaders recognized that now that the system was on a solid footing,
they should plan for the next five years. They convened stakeholders once again to
consider new technological opportunities and growth dynamics for the region. In 2007,
system managers and policy makers participated in a Strategic Directions Workshop,
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again facilitated by this paper’s second author, in order to continue providing public
value and be a leader in using geographic information systems to meet public needs. An
expanded mission for the system and new goals and strategies emerged from the
workshop (and from further consultations). The new mission is: “…to expand
stakeholders' capacity to address shared geographic information technology needs and
maximize investments in existing resources through widespread collaboration of
organizations that serve the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area” (www.metrogis.org). The
new mission represents a significant change from the previous mission and helps
MetroGIS “go to the next level” (Randall Johnson, personal communication 2007; Group
interview 2008). Previously the purpose of the organization was to create a mechanism
for sharing GIS information. The new mission states the purpose is to expand
stakeholders’ capacities to address GIS needs, maximize investments in existing
resources, and foster widespread collaboration of organizations – not just governments –
that serve the metropolitan area. The interviewees agreed that the mapping process
helped clarify for key MetroGIS stakeholders that the organization had outgrown its
previous mission. In other words, mapping again made a difference – and was in essence
an “actor” in its own right (Latour, 2005, p. 71).
The mapping exercise also resulted in a focus on eight major activity areas for the
next three to five years, beginning in 2008. The activities are as follows:

Develop and maintain regional data solutions to shared information needs

Expand endorsed regional solutions to include support and development of application
services

Facilitate better data sharing through making more data available, having more uses, and
improving processes

Promote a forum for knowledge sharing

Build advocacy and awareness of the benefits of collaborative solutions to shared needs

Expand MetroGIS stakeholders

Maintain funding policies that get the most efficient and effective use out of available
resources and revenue for system-wide benefit
14
While collaboration may be necessary or desirable, the research evidence
indicates that it is hardly easy (Agranoff, 2008; O’Leary and Bingham, 2009). The
MetroGIS story fits this pattern. The organization has survived serious challenges over
the course of its history, including particularly the concerted effort noted above by some
within the MC to eliminate it. They argued that the GIS service should be provided by the
business sector, or not at all. Additional controversies have not yet been settled. Some
MetroGIS founders have moved on; others may soon, so the issue of leadership
transitions is ongoing. In addition, cities are big users of data and applications, but are not
major providers of them, so maintaining an equitable balance of benefits and
contributions remains an important issue. Finally, one member county appears to be
ambivalent about supporting development of applications and allowing participation by
businesses.
A Framework for Understanding Leadership and the Creation and Maintenance of
Cross-Sector Collaborations
In this section each part of the framework (see Figure 1) will be described
theoretically and summary propositions will be offered, with illustrations as appropriate
from the MetroGIS case. The parts are: initial conditions, processes and practices,
structure and governance, contingencies and constraints, and outcomes and
accountabilities. Integrative leadership involves leading across boundaries at individual,
group, organizational, and broader levels. In this case, Randall Johnson, Richard Johnson,
Victoria Reinhardt, Will Craig and other leaders had to work with their partners across
individual, intra-organizational, inter-organizational and sector boundaries to create and
maintain MetroGIS as a sustainable cross-sector collaboration that can help meet
important public needs and advance the common good. To repeat, the illustrations are
meant simply to ground the propositions and are not presented as part of a test of the
propositions. Other views and examples will also be presented as appropriate.
Insert Figure 1 About Here
In the framework, initial conditions are thought to affect directly both processes
and practices and structure and governance. Processes and practices, on the one hand, and
15
structure and governance, on the other hand, are seen as intimately entwined; as also
affected by contingencies and constraints; and as also directly affecting outcomes and
accountabilities. We also posit a direct effect of initial conditions on outcomes and
accountabilities. The two-way linkage between processes and practices, on the one hand,
and structures and governance, on the other, represents insights from structuration theory
about how practices and structures are created and recreated through action (Giddens,
1979, 1984; Feldman, et al., 2006; Pentland and Feldman, 2008; Orlikowski, 2009).
The framework also incorporates insights from actor-network theory (ANT)
(Latour, 2005; Law and Hasard, 1999). Latour asserts that ANT takes as its challenge
accounting for new associations – i.e., “the tracing of associations” (2005, p. 5, italics in
original) – without a priori assuming any fixity to social aggregations. In other words, the
“social” (e.g., existing and new data-sharing networks, communication patterns,
stakeholder relations, coalitions, collaborations) is what must be explained, not assumed.
Further, tracing associations also means accounting for connections among “things that
are not themselves social” (loc. cit.); for example, strategy maps, plans, integrated
computer networks, and worksites. “Association” includes far more than, for example, a
communication link between nodes in a network. Associations may also be shared
understandings, affective responses, identity-based or -forming linkages, agreements,
commitments, resource flows, and host of other possible connections, including causal
connections. In the article’s concluding section, we will say more about the aptness of
structuration theory and ANT for studying leadership and cross-sector collaboration.
Initial conditions
At the outset of a change effort, initiators confront the challenges of adapting
leadership to context and making use of the talents of particular kinds of leaders to push
the action forward (Crosby and Bryson, 2005). That is, they must pay attention to
contextual forces that affect the change effort and they need to understand the people
(including themselves) who bring assets and liabilities to the leadership work. They must
seek sponsors of and champions for the change effort.
In terms of context, studies of cross-sector collaboration have emphasized the
importance of system turbulence in general, and institutional and competitive forces in
16
particular, in launching successful collaboration (Sharfman, Gray, and Yan, 1991;
Bryson, Crosby, and Stone, 2006). Changing conditions provide a perturbation that offers
opportunity for the system to re-organize (Burns, 1978; Senge 1990; Allen and Cherrey,
2000; Uhl-Bien, Marion, and McKelvey, 2007). Particularly important are institutional
arrangements – political, economic, and social – that can aid or hinder collaboration.
Effective integrative leaders must take account of these institutional arrangements, but
also recognize that changing conditions within and outside the institutions can offer
opportunities for new institutional arrangements. Leaders must demonstrate a kind of
“systems thinking” (Senge, 1990; Senge, et al., 2008) in order to understand the
turbulence as well as the driving and constraining forces. Systems thinking also involves
seeing existing flows of information and other resources among relevant organizations,
and noting where desirable flows are negatively constricted by intra-organizational, interorganizational and sector rules and boundaries. A sense of links and gaps can help leaders
think about who and what must be integrated (and perhaps dis-integrated). Randall
Johnson and Rick Gelbmann demonstrated systems thinking in their ability to see
connections among local government information needs and emerging technologies (the
Internet and GIS) to address them. In a related vein, stakeholder identification and
analysis efforts are also important in order to understand the political contours of the
context: who has information and other resources (authority, technical expertise and
commitment or enthusiasm) for tackling a public problem or championing a solution, and
the what avenues for change are likely to garner sufficient stakeholder support (Luke,
1998; Bryson, 2004). Resources may show up in unlikely places, particularly in sectors
with which one has least familiarity.
In this case, political institutions offered the most important constraints and
drivers. The fragmentation of local governments was definitely a constraint on efforts to
build a unified geographic information system for the metropolitan area. At the same
time, the MC had been established in the 1960s precisely to deal with problems that
spilled across local government borders and affected the entire region; it had
responsibility for planning major regional functions such as open space, transportation,
and sewer service. The council also had its own taxing authority. Still, it had relatively
little power to force local governments to follow its guidance. Thus as Richard Johnson
17
and GIS liaison Randall Johnson launched the MetroGIS project, they knew that
obtaining local government buy-in was a must.
Several forces drove the collaboration in this case – population growth in the
metro area, increasing needs of local government for information about existing and
future development as well as public services, and the availability of increasingly
sophisticated GIS technology. In addition to local governments, utility companies,
retailers and other businesses wanted more reliable information about growth trends in
the region. These forces provided the “case” that metropolitan GIS advocates could use to
justify asking for MC funds and staff to launch the effort. Moreover, if the advocates
could convince local governments that the potential GIS system would be carefully
designed to meet their needs, the basis for buy-in would be there. Significantly, there did
not appear to be any potential competitors, particularly from the business sector.
Proposition 1: Like all inter-organizational relationships, cross-sector
collaborations are more likely to form in turbulent environments. Leaders
will have more success at launching these collaborations when they take
advantage of opportunities opened up by driving forces (including helping
create or favorably altering them), while remaining attuned to constraining
forces.
Cross-sector collaborations also appear to be fostered by recognition that no one
sector can solve an important public problem on its own (Bozeman, 2007; Bryson and
Crosby, 2008). In this case, neither the MC nor local governments had enough GIS
expertise and money to establish their own full-fledged systems. Local government
planners were increasingly frustrated by the inaccuracy of MC projections and the
barriers to exchanging information with each other. Utility companies and other
businesses were in a similar situation, and GIS technology firms did not have the
authority, resources, or credibility to develop a unified regional system. Faculty and
technical experts at the University of Minnesota had crucial skills for putting together
such a system, but also lacked needed authority and funding. Leaders of the GIS effort
recognized the need to involve stakeholders from multiple sectors to provide the
necessary combination of skills, money, and expertise.
Proposition 2: Leaders are most likely to try cross-sector collaboration if they
believe that separate efforts by several sectors to address a public problem have
failed and the actual failures cannot be fixed by a separate sector alone.
18
Linking mechanisms – such as existing cross-boundary groups or organizations,
and general agreement on the problem to be solved – also contribute to the formation of
cross-sector collaboration (Bryson, Crosby, and Stone, 2006). In this case, local
governments, MC staff, and university faculty had worked together in the past on a
number of tasks. At the university, geography and planning faculty in particular had
played a strong role in making the case for regional governance, planning, and geospatial
information gathering. Of course, the relations between local government and the MC
weren’t always smooth, since local governments sometimes viewed the MC as attempting
to impose its will on them. Nevertheless the GIS advocates were able at the outset to
assemble a small group of local government partners who did share a general agreement
that they needed the ability to gather data and information systematically across the
region. One GIS partner commented, “Many of us felt a common need, so it was easier to
reach a common vision.”
In spite of the common rhetorical emphasis on public-private partnerships, the
literature seems to indicate that sector boundaries between governments and nonprofits
(including academic institutions) may be easier to bridge than those between government
and business (Salamon, 2002). Part of the difficulty is inherent in the popular label
“public” sector, which is usually applied to government, but also occasionally to
nonprofits, and its contrast, “private sector.” The contrast presumes conflict as much as it
might imply the need for cooperation to solve public problems. The deeper challenge
appears to be the competing “institutional logics” between government and business
(Friedland and Alford, 1991). Though Randall Johnson has been fairly successful in
involving technical experts from for-profit enterprises, the Policy Board has been
somewhat stymied about how to give businesses full-fledged access to the system.
An important part of the analysis of initial conditions should include looking for
individuals who can exercise personal leadership – that is, deploying personal assets and
structural position to lead change efforts. Major change efforts are unlikely to get off the
ground and prosper unless at least one committed champion and one committed sponsor
support them (Crosby and Bryson, 2005). By champion we mean a person who is a
tireless, process-savvy organizer and promoter of the change effort; in contrast, a sponsor
19
is less involved in the process, but deploys authority, money, or connections to move the
change effort forward. For example, Richard Johnson deployed his formal authority to
gain MC members’ support for the project. Randall Johnson played a champion role by
bringing planning expertise, political savvy, and enthusiasm to the project.
Both sponsors and champions will need to see the problem as significant and
capable of solution or remedy, but they should not be too wedded to specific problem
definitions or solutions or they may not be able to engage in the collaborative problemsolving process required to enroll diverse stakeholders in the effort and set directions
likely to result in widely beneficial changes (Nutt, 2002; Huxham and Vangen, 2005).
Champions (or a set of champions as a group) are especially likely to need to be multilingual translators as they seek to bridge differing organizational and practice cultures
(Carlile, 2004), and will need to be seen as legitimate across camps (Maguire, Hardy, and
Lawrence, 2004). Randall Johnson had been a local planner and critic of MC projections,
so he could speak the language of local planners and be seen as a legitimate champion of
better regional solutions that addressed local needs and concerns. In short, he could work
well with policy makers, planners, and technical personnel. Will Craig brought
legitimacy as an academic GIS expert at the university who was able to translate
technical “GIS-speak” to more general audiences. Other champions also played important
translator roles across various boundaries.
In some ways this case represents a classic case of policy entrepreneurs taking
advantage of a window of opportunity (Kingdon, 1995; Roberts and King, 1996; Crosby
and Bryson, 2005). Demand for change was spreading among local governments,
technological advances made change attractive, and the right people were in positions
with the authority to provide needed approvals and resources, which they did.
Proposition 3: Cross-sector collaborations are more likely to succeed when one
or more linking mechanisms, such as powerful sponsors and champions, general
agreement on the problem, or existing networks are in place at the time of their
initial formation.
Integrative processes and practices
A process is a series of linked actions or proceedings. A practice incorporates
process, but is also a contextually situated, socially accomplished flow of organizational
20
action. Practices may be seen as “a flow of organizational activity that incorporates
content and process, intent and emergence, thinking and acting, and so on, as reciprocal,
intertwined and frequently indistinguishable parts of a whole when they are observed at
close range (Jarzabkowski, 2005, pp. 7 – 8, 11). Important integrative processes and
practices include: wise design and use of forums, arenas, and courts, including creating
effective boundary-spanning groups, boundary experiences, and objects; building
leadership capacity; forging agreements; building trust; and building legitimacy.
Wise design and use of forums, arenas, and courts. Forums, arenas, and courts
are the characteristic settings we humans use to create and communicate meaning (in
forums), make and implement decisions (in arenas), and enforce principles, laws, and
norms (in courts) in shared-power situations where no one person or group is fully in
charge (Crosby and Bryson, 2005, pp. 401-426). No one is wholly in charge in forums,
arenas, and courts, either, since they involve sharing power, albeit power that is hardly
ever shared equally (Flyvbjerg, 1998). Nonetheless, these settings have a huge impact on
action, because the ideas, rules, modes, media, or methods that are design features of the
settings serve to divide what is conceivable in terms of a set of potential decisions, issues,
conflicts, and policy preferences, into those that are actually observed, and those that are
sent off into a kind of public policy “never-never land” as non-decisions and non issues,
latent or covert conflict, and unsupported policy preferences (Bachrach and Baratz, 1962,
1963; Luke, 1974; Flyvbjerg, 1998). For example, if your issue or decision item does not
get on the agenda of a formal arena, the issue becomes a non-issue and the decision
becomes a non-decision, at least for the present. As practices, the three settings make it
possible for actors to draw on collective, structurally based rules and resources to produce
actions that (typically epiphenomenally) recreate the underlying rules and resources,
albeit often in modified form. In keeping with structuration theory, practices and
structures are created and recreated through action. Structures are only “instantiated”
through action and otherwise do not exist; there is thus a “duality” to structures as both
the product of action and the basis for further action (Giddens, 1984).
Our previous research indicates that the design and use of forums in which shared
meaning is created may be more important than the design and use of arenas or courts
when it comes to public problem-solving, because the design and use of forums
21
determines what is even considered a public problem, what solutions are viable, and what
public programs, projects, and policies are discussed by policy makers (Crosby and
Bryson, 2005). The creation and communication of shared meaning may be seen as the
primary work of visionary leadership. Integrative leaders will need to help stakeholders
within single organizations and from different organizations and sectors develop at least
partially shared meanings and understandings of past and present conditions and a
desirable future – in other words, a shared vision – if they are to agree on and implement
new projects, programs, and policies that advance the common good (Kouzes and Posner,
2007; Morse, this issue). We discuss below how wise design and use of forums in
different phases of a change effort provide cross-boundary groups with cross-boundary
experiences typically involving the creation and use of boundary objects.
Cross-boundary groups (boundary groups for short) are “collections of actors who
are drawn together from different ways of knowing or bases of experience for the purpose
of coproducing [cross-]boundary actions” (Feldman, et al., 2006, p. 95). Examples
include cross-boundary networks, task forces, and teams; coordinating committees; and
representative policy making bodies. MetroGIS is perhaps best understood as a set of
practices involving boundary groups. In other words, as a completely voluntary assembly
of over three hundred member organizations who, in theory, can walk away whenever
they wish, MetroGIS is essentially a “virtual organization” (Randall Johnson, interview,
2007; group interview, 2008). Members stay, in essence, because the benefits of
belonging to the cross-boundary groups exceed the costs. The Policy Board, Coordinating
Committee, and Technical Advisory Team are all boundary groups, operating mostly as
forums, with each member representing a different organization. As they become
formalized, structured and institutionalized, boundary groups become cross-boundary
organizations, which MetroGIS has essentially become, and in that regard belongs in the
structure category discussed below.
Adeptly designed forums allow boundary groups to have boundary experiences,
defined as “shared or joint activities that create a sense of community and an ability to
transcend boundaries among participants” (Feldman, et al., 2006, p. 94; Feldman and
Khademian, 2007). Boundary experiences are important for helping participants develop
a shared perspective that they then can act upon (Boland and Tenkasi, 1995). MetroGIS
22
was forged out of many such experiences involving diverse participants and elements and
continues because of the self-conscious design and use of such experiences. Indeed,
cross-boundary stakeholder involvement has been a hallmark of MetroGIS forums.
Johnson’s office has reached out to several businesses, including the major retailer
Target, land planning and engineering firms, software companies, and The Lawrence
Group (consultants that handle street data). Commenting on some of the forums, a
participant said, the “sessions really helped me to understand other people’s concerns and
needs and many of the major issues.”
Boundary objects are typically important in helping people create shared meaning
(Star and Griesemer, 1989). Boundary objects are “physical objects that enable people to
understand other perspectives” (Feldman, et al., 2006, p. 95). Beyond that, boundary
objects can facilitate the transformation of diverse views into shared knowledge and
understanding (Carlile, 2002, 2004). Of particular importance in the MetroGIS case is the
creation and use of shared strategy maps (Bryson, et al., 2004) by key stakeholders at the
two strategic planning forums. The strategy maps produced at both forums were viewed
by interviewees as extremely important for the development of MetroGIS.
Designing and using arenas and courts also mattered in the MetroGIS case. Each
participating organization’s decision makers, which often meant a decision-making body
(i.e., arena), had to authorize participation. The MetroGIS Policy Board does establish
policy and emphasizes consensus-based decision making. The MC members have
periodically had to formally endorse MetroGIS and allocate resources to the effort. By
emphasizing consensus-building and developing broad support, MetroGIS has sought to
make it easy for formal decision makers to say yes when necessary. Said differently,
throughout the creation and maintenance of MetroGIS, integrative leaders needed to
achieve desired decisions from policy-making arenas, such as the MC, county boards,
and city councils. Thus they were careful to link forums to arenas, so that consensusbased dialogue and deliberation preceded formal decision making, meaning that interests
were aligned in such a way that member organizations would continue to participate after
formal, authoritative decisions were made. Especially important was the inclusion of
local public officials in forums, because they ultimately had to approve their city’s or
county’s participation in the data-sharing system. The proposed system gained legitimacy
23
in these officials’ eyes because they were helping to shape it and because they had a
chance to know the MC staff who would implement it. Victoria Reinhardt, as Policy
Board chair and Ramsey County commissioner, and Randy Johnson (no relation to the
other Johnsons), as Policy Board member and Hennepin County commissioner, were
politically savvy and powerful as representatives of the region’s most populous counties.
(Hennepin is the county that contains Minneapolis.) Randall Johnson and Richard
Johnson also had honed their understanding of how to influence policy makers during
many years of experience in government agencies.
In terms of courts, MetroGIS obviously must abide by the law, and formal courts
have reinforced the MC’s authority when it has been challenged in lawsuits (Bryson and
Crosby, 1992). Perhaps the most important court has been the informal court of public
opinion. The guiding principles mentioned earlier act as strong norms guiding and
sanctioning behavior in relation to MetroGIS. As noted, many interviewees commented
on the importance of the norms for guiding MetroGIS’ work and the interactions among
participants in that work.
Another important role for formal and informal courts is helping integrative
leaders resolve residual conflicts that remain after policy makers have approved new
policies and projects that must still be implemented. Integrative leaders will need to
employ sanctions that reward those who act in accord with the new policies and penalize
those who don’t. In the MetroGIS case, the sanctioning process appears to have been
fairly informal. If a true cost-sharing system had been introduced, some means of
penalizing those who didn’t pay would have been important. The court of public opinion
could be important in bringing pressure to bear on local governments that fail to
participate in the system. Sanctions that could be imposed by the formal courts also are
important. For example, Metro GIS designers have had to make sure that data-sharing did
not violate privacy rights that would be enforced by formal courts.
Proposition 4: Cross-sector collaborations are more likely to succeed when
sponsors, champions, and other leaders pay careful attention to the wise design
and use of forums, arenas, and courts, including the creation of helpful boundary
groups, experiences, and objects.
24
Forging agreements. Informal agreements about the collaboration’s composition,
mission, and process can work (Donahue, 2004), but formal agreements have the
advantage of supporting accountability. The need for different types of initial agreements
and reworking of agreements are likely to increase as collaborations grow to include
more geographically dispersed partners and diverse actors within a problem domain
(Kastan, 2000).
Possible elements of formal agreements include: broad purpose, mandates,
commitment of resources, designation of formal leadership, description of eligible
members, decision-making structure, and built-in flexibility (such as allowing waivers)
for dealing with local conditions and changes (Crosby and Bryson, 2005; Arino and de la
Torre, 1998; Page, 2004). When partners do not completely agree on a shared purpose,
they may be able to agree on next steps (Huxham and Vangen, 2005). Studies of
collaboration highlight the importance of a drafting process that is highly participatory
and involves key stakeholders and implementers (Page, 2004, and this issue). Less
powerful partners may have more difficulty than others in advocating for their interests in
this process, though leaders can use several techniques to equalize power (Crosby and
Bryson, 2005; Ospina and Foldy, this issue).
In the MetroGIS case, there were a series of “initial” agreements. Randall
Johnson’s office organized two regional forums in 1995 simply to explore the need for a
multi-county GIS unit. The inclusion of the University’s Center for Urban and Regional
Affairs and the State’s Land Management Information Center as forum sponsors added
legitimacy to the gatherings and communicated the important message that this effort was
not just Randall Johnson’s or the MC’s initiative. As noted earlier, the forums attracted
numerous local government officials and staff, but also a broad array of people from the
sponsoring organizations and other interested parties. Johnson posed two main questions
to the participants: Should interested parties pursue a regional data-sharing system?
Should the MC take the lead? Participants said yes to both. The result was that Johnson’s
office had a general mandate to proceed with exploring creation of a metropolitan GIS,
many more stakeholders knew about its potential benefits, and some local officials were
primed to support it. Johnson emphasized that “asking for permission and getting buy in
25
at the beginning” were very important for laying the foundation for the ultimate success
of the GIS system.
Proposition 5: The form and content of a collaboration’s initial agreements, as
well as the processes leaders use to formulate them, will affect the outcomes of
the collaboration’s work.
Planning. Two contrasting approaches to planning have been associated with
successful collaboration. One emphasizes deliberate, formal planning that includes
careful articulation of mission, goals and objectives; roles and responsibilities; and phases
or steps, including implementation (Mattessich, Murray-Close, and Monsey, 2001). This
“deliberate” approach (Mintzberg, Ahlstrand, and Lampel, 1998) seems most likely when
collaboration is mandated. In the second approach, a clear understanding of mission,
goals, roles, and action steps emerges over time as conversations involving individuals,
groups and organizations grow to encompass a broader network of involved or affected
parties (Winer and Ray, 1994; Huxham and Vangen, 2005). This “emergent” approach
(Mintzberg, Ahlstrand, and Lampel,1998) seems most likely when collaboration is not
mandated. Regardless of approach, careful attention to stakeholders clearly is crucial for
successful planning (Bryson, 2004; Page, 2004), and the process should be used to build
trust and the capacity to manage conflict effectively (Bryson, 2004). Planning is more
likely to be successful if it builds on the competencies and distinctive competencies of the
collaborators, including those arising from the distinctive sectors in which they operate
(Bryson, Ackermann, and Eden, 2007).
The MetroGIS official history divides its development into three main phases
(www.metrogis.org/about/history/index.shtml): a definition phase from 1995 to 1996, a
design phase from 1997 through 2001, and an implementation and transition phase from
2001 to the present. (Note that even though MetroGIS put the implementation label on
the last phase, we should point out that some major implementation activities occurred
during the design phase, as is true of most strategy change efforts. In other words,
implementation rarely waits until all the planning has occurred [Mintzberg, 1994;
Bryson, 2004]). MetroGIS’s use of planning in the three phases exhibited characteristics
of deliberate as well as emergent planning, both of which seem to be needed in successful
cross-sector collaborations (Bryson, Crosby and Stone, 2006). While major forums
26
usually involved emergent thinking – in other words, consensus on directions and next
steps emerged from the forum activities – the Coordinating Committee did more
deliberate planning, for example, by adopting a mission statement and four goals for the
MetroGIS during the definition phase.
Early on, after the two large regional forums in 1995, Richard Johnson supported
Randall Johnson’s belief that the next step should be a visioning and strategic planning
process from which a possible vision, mission, and strategic options might emerge. The
exercise would involve a wide array of potential GIS stakeholders. So Johnson went
ahead in the face of some skepticism from vocal participants in the regional forums. The
first major event in this process was the December 1995 Strategic Planning Forum.
Participant numbers were at a level that easily permitted participation by all, and the
University of Minnesota facilitators used a method called “strategy mapping,” to help the
group reach consensus on strategic issues and an initial agreement on how to keep
working together. The group brainstormed and categorized a number of ideas in response
to three questions:
1. What might a metropolitan GIS do?
2. How might those things be done?
3. And, what would result, or what would the consequences be, if those things were
done?
The result was dozens of ideas written on cards, posted on a flipchart-sheet covered wall,
and linked by arrows indicating what might lead to what. Out of the array of possibilities,
the group agreed on a potential mission of a metro GIS, what its goals should be, and
what major strategies and actions should be pursued to achieve the goals. After further
discussion and refinement, the Coordinating Committee adopted by consensus a
MetroGIS mission statement, goals, guiding principles and a set of “strategic initiatives”
to guide subsequent work. The strategy map the group produced was a boundary object
that quite literally helped guide development of MetroGIS over the next decade and
more; a reduced version of the map was posted above Randall Johnson’s desk the entire
time.
Also important was the willingness of MetroGIS leaders to plan anew once the
system had been institutionalized. The 2007 Strategic Directions workshop, another
27
major boundary experience, laid the groundwork for potential expansion and
restructuring of the system.
Proposition 6: Leaders are more likely to guide cross-sector collaborations to
success if they help participants combine deliberate and emergent planning, with
deliberate planning probably being emphasized in mandated collaborations and
emergent planning probably being emphasized in non-mandated collaborations.
Proposition 7: Leaders of cross-sector collaborations are more likely to succeed
if they ensure planning processes include stakeholder analyses, emphasize
responsiveness to key stakeholders, use the process to build trust and the capacity
to manage conflict, and build on the competencies and distinctive competencies of
the collaborators.
Managing conflicts. Conflict in a collaboration emerges from the differing aims
and expectations that partners bring to a collaboration, from differing views about
strategies and tactics, and from attempts to protect or magnify partner control over the
collaboration’s work or outcomes. The mission of the collaboration may also affect levels
of conflict. For example, if the collaboration is mainly planning for systems change,
versus agreeing on how to deliver a service, the level of conflict may be higher (Bolland
and Wilson, 1994). Furthermore, Gray (1996) has found that power issues, as prime
sources of conflict, vary by phases. As groups try to agree on the nature of the problem
that concerns them, they are likely to argue about who gets to be at the table; as they
debate approaches to solving the problem, they compete to shape the collaboration
agenda and control information; once the implementation is underway, collaboration
members may seek to maximize their authority, influence. and control of resources.
Proposition 8: Because conflict is common in partnerships, cross-sector
collaborations are more likely to succeed if leaders use resources and tactics to
help equalize power, to avoid imposed solutions, and to manage conflict
effectively.
In the MetroGIS case, the forums provided opportunities for people with different
views of information-sharing problems and solutions to champion their ideas and come to
agreement. Some solutions were discarded and others survived. Probably the most
significant conflict that GIS advocates faced was the issue of which entities would fund
the system and to what extent. Various groups developed recommendations for how costs
would be shared among the MC, local governments, and other users. While
28
recommendations were being developed over several years, the system was funded by the
MC, which awarded grants to local governments to help cover their costs of participation.
(The GIS unit also obtained some federal grants for its work). At one point a federally
funded study produced a well-researched “fair-share” funding model that would have
introduced subscriber fees for government agencies and access fees for other users. Local
government partners resisted paying, however; they argued that paying for innovative
regional systems was really MC’s responsibility. Ultimately the Policy Board decided
that a shared funding model was not feasible, so the council continued to be the system’s
main funder. In effect, the Policy Board has decided that retaining local government
participation is far more important – because of its direct impact on the mission – than
making participants pay, a less important resource question related to implementation.
Thus the decision was smart given the interest of maintaining the partnerships and
pursuing its mission, but it has made the system over-reliant on continued support from
MC members and top administrators and posed barriers for charging business users.
Building leadership. Collaborations provide multiple roles for formal and
informal leaders (e.g., Agranoff and McGuire, 2003). Examples of formal leadership
positions are: co-chairs of a steering committee, coordinator of a collaborative, and
project director. To be effective, these people need formal and informal authority, vision
and long-term commitment to the collaboration, integrity, and relational and political
skills (Gray, 1989; Waddock, 1986; Crosby and Bryson, 2005). As noted earlier two key
leadership roles are “sponsors” and “champions” (Crosby and Bryson, 2005). The
parceling out of formal leadership positions is often a means of obtaining buy-in by
collaborating partners; partners that do not obtain these positions may require other
assurances their interests will be taken into account (Alexander et al., 2001). The
development of informal leadership throughout a collaboration is likely to be especially
important, since participants often cannot rely on clear cut, easily enforced, centralized
direction. To cope with the predictable turnover of leaders, collaborating partners should
prepare successors and build in ways to sustain the collaboration during changes in
leadership (Alexander et al., 2001; Merrill-Sands and Sheridan, 1996).
Proposition 9: Cross-sector collaborations are more likely to succeed if they have
committed sponsors and effective champions at many levels who provide formal
and informal leadership.
29
In MetroGIS, the multitude of forums provided settings in which many people
could exercise informal leadership, especially by contributing to the development of a
shared vision for MetroGIS. The creation of several cross-boundary governance and
working groups expanded opportunities for people to move into formal leadership roles.
Interviewees said staff, elected officials, and nongovernmental people provided
enthusiastic and persistent leadership. Said one, “People with various strengths and
experience all chipped in.” Another noted the importance of consistency over the long
term: “People stayed involved.” Victoria Reinhardt served as chair of the Policy Board
from its beginning through summer 2009. Randy Johnson, the commissioner representing
Hennepin County on the Policy Board, is another long-serving member and consistent
supporter. Several interviewees singled out the extended service of Randall Johnson as a
process champion who applied his expertise in planning methods and kept “energy
focused on the vision.” Randall Johnson described a high level of rapport among some of
the leaders, to the point that “[w]e’re able to finish each other’s sentences.” The
MetroGIS leaders also became active in federal efforts to build geospatial data systems.
They used the MetroGIS experience to contribute to and shape the national effort and
brought ideas back from the national forums they attended.
Building trust. Trusting relationships are essential to facilitating the work of
collaboration and they hold the collaboration together, but collaborating partners initially
may not fully trust each other. Thus trust-building is an ongoing requirement for
successful collaborations (Ring and Van de Ven, 1994; Huxham and Vangen, 2005).
Trust can comprise interpersonal behavior, confidence in organizational competence and
expected performance, and a common bond and sense of goodwill (Chen and Graddy,
2005). Collaboration partners build trust by sharing information and knowledge and
demonstrating competency, good intentions, and follow through; conversely, failure to
follow through and unilateral action undermine trust (Merrill-Sands and Sheridan, 1996;
Arino and de la Torre, 1998). For example, Huxham and Vangen (2005) emphasize the
effectiveness of achieving “small wins” together as a trust-building practice. Successive
accomplishments, large and small, over the course of MetroGIS’ history appear to have
been based in part on a certain amount of trust, but also appear to have built a substantial
30
amount trust in the organization, its leadership, its decision making, and its other
practices.
Proposition 10: Cross-sector collaborations are more likely to succeed if leaders
make sure that trust-building activities (including nurturing cross-sector
understanding) are continuous.
Building legitimacy. Any organization seeking to acquire resources necessary to
survive must build legitimacy through making use of structures, processes, and strategies
that are deemed appropriate within its institutional environment (Suchman, 1995). Yet
networks or organizations, especially newly formed ones, may have difficulty being
perceived as legitimate by external stakeholders and even partners. Human and Provan
(2000) argue that to be successful networks must have legitimacy as an organizational
form, as a particular entity and as a mode of interaction. Our data indicate that MetroGIS
appears to be viewed as legitimate by members on all three scores.
Proposition 11: Leaders of cross-sector collaborations are more likely to
succeed if they establish with both internal and external stakeholders the
legitimacy of collaboration as a form of organizing, as a separate entity,
and as a source of trusted interaction among members.
Structure and Governance
Structure typically refers to elements such as goals, specialization of tasks and
division of labor, rules and standard operating procedures, and designated authority
relationships. The need for organizations to both differentiate and integrate across
components is a common structural tension (see, for example, Scott 1987; Bolman and
Deal 2008). Within the collaboration literature, structure has not attracted the same
degree of interest as processes and practices, because researchers have mainly attended to
the process of collaborating, in contrast to more formal structural arrangements. Yet
structure and process typically do interact in collaborations, as is clear in the MetroGIS
case.
MetroGIS leaders worked to integrate new and existing organizational structures
into a network that encouraged and facilitated data sharing across participating
organizations. Key existing structures were the MC and local governments. Key new
31
structures were the MetroGIS Policy Board, Coordinating Committee, Technical
Advisory Team, and multiple working groups.
In accord with structuration theory, the new governing and operational structures
emerged somewhat organically from the various planning processes, but MetroGIS
leaders made sure that they were in tune with the existing local and regional government
decision-making structures. In other words, the action that created the new structures also
recreated the existing local and regional structures. Thus having local elected officials
constitute the membership of the Policy Board was wise. Rotating the chair of the
Coordinating Committee between information users and producers has been effective,
according to one interviewee. Creating a GIS unit within MC certainly helped
institutionalize the operation. Establishing the MC as the lead agency in the GIS network
also helped ensure resources would flow for the work and placed ultimate policy-making
authority at the regional level, where it made most sense.
Structural arrangements. Scholars point out that the structure of a collaboration
is influenced by context, including system stability and availability of resources (Van de
Ven and Walker 1984; Provan and Milward 1995; Human and Provan, 1997). For
example, changes in government policy often destabilize systems or alter resources in the
policy fields in which networks are embedded and hence re-arrange the structure of ties
among members (Sharfman, Gray, and Yan 1991; Stone 2004). For example, if the MC
chose not to continue core funding for MetroGIS, the collaboration’s survival would be in
question.
The strategic purpose of a network or partnership also appears to affect structure.
Agranoff and McGuire (1998) distinguish policy or strategy-making networks from
resource exchange and project-based networks. They find that differences in purpose are
related to the composition and size of networks. According to this schema, MetroGIS is
mainly a policy-making network that facilitates resource exchanges among member
organizations. Specific projects typically involve subsets of the network, although the
project’s results (e.g., a new dataset or application) will be shared with the entire
network. Membership in governance groups reflect these distinctions: Elected policy
makers and one appointed official make up the Policy Board, managers from member
32
organizations make up the Coordinating Committee, and technical specialists from
member organizations make up the Technical Advisory Team.
Randall Johnson calls MetroGIS a “virtual organizaton” consisting of voluntary,
rather than legally binding arrangements. Johnson noted that a consultant had
recommended using a formal joint powers agreement (i.e., a legal agreement among
governments allowing the signatories to exercise jointly powers that they are allowed to
exercise singly), but the Policy Board has decided against that option because negotiating
such an agreement with so many government partners would be cumbersome and such an
agreement would leave out non-governmental entities, which would become “stepchildren” in the enterprise. While the voluntary nature of the participation in MetroGIS
has had its strengths, at least one interviewee argued that a more formal joint powers
agreement might have helped overcome local governments’ reluctance to contribute
funds to the system. Regardless, MetroGIS demonstrates perhaps more dramatically than
most organizations how action is necessary to create and recreate the organizational
structure.
Proposition 12: Collaborative structure – and therefore leadership effectiveness –
is influenced by environmental factors, such as system stability and the
collaboration’s strategic purpose. Astute leaders will ensure that the structure of
the collaboration is flexible and adaptive enough to deal with system shifts and
accomplish strategic purposes.
Furthermore, structures are likely to fluctuate because of ambiguity and
complexity inherent in collaborations (Huxham and Vangen 2005). For example,
participants and outsiders may be unclear who the members of a collaboration are, and
whether these members represent themselves, their organization, or a particular identity
group. Membership turnover may be especially important when powerful players such as
top elected officials leave, join, or alter their level of involvement in the collaboration
(Crosby and Bryson 2005; Kastan 2000). This ambiguity is exacerbated when individuals
and organizations are members of multiple and overlapping partnerships.
Proposition 13: Collaborative structure – and therefore the effectiveness of
particular leaders – is also likely to change over time due to ambiguity of
membership and complexity in local environments. Astute leaders will recognize
these dynamics and plan for incorporation of new members and for leader
succession.
33
Governance. In order to survive and accomplish its goals, a collaboration must
have means of setting policies, coordinating activities, and monitoring outcomes. Provan
and Kenis (2005) have identified three main types of governance structures for
collaborations: 1) self-governing structures with decision-making through regular
meetings of members or through informal, frequent interactions; 2) a lead organization
that provides major decision-making and coordinating activities; and, 3) a network
administrative organization which is a separate organization formed to oversee network
affairs. Which form is appropriate depends on factors such as network size and degrees of
trust among members. MetroGIS is in some ways a combination of all three types: While
it is not completely self-governing, it certainly acts with considerable autonomy within its
broad remit from the MC, and there is a network administrative unit, though it is not
wholly separate from the MC, either.The unit also acts as something of a lead
organization and focal point for coordinating decision-making and activities.
Proposition 14: Leadership is crucial in matching governing mechanisms to
context appropriately; subsequently, governing mechanisms, at both formal and
informal levels, are likely to influence collaboration effectiveness, and
consequently the effectiveness of network leadership.
The effectiveness of collaborative structures and governance mechanisms islikely
to be affected by the process by which they are developed (Huxham and Vangen, 2005).
In the MetroGIS case, the phased nature of the planning process seems to have helped the
collaboration develop successfully. Early on, the Coordinating Committee adopted a set
of guiding principles, a mission statement, and goals that supplied a framework for the
system’s governance and operation. Additionally, MetroGIS leaders were very careful to
develop structured agreements about information-sharing, uniform standards, and costrecovery. Beyond that, the phased development of the various governance and operating
structures was a means of bringing in more and more stakeholders as well as providing
opportunities for many people to take on leadership roles. The phasing in of different
committees over time provided important flexibility, but stability stemmed from the
tendency of many key leaders to stay involved over many years. In other words, a set of
reasonably coordinated actions brought into being a new organization – now something
of an institution – that provides the base and resources for the next rounds of action.
34
Proposition 15: The process leaders follow to develop collaboration structures
and governance mechanisms is likely to influence the effectiveness of the
structures and mechanisms.
Contingencies and constraints
As they develop integrative processes and structures, leaders must contend with
several key contingencies. Four that seem to be particularly influential are: top-down
versus bottom-up collaboration (Himmelman, 2002), type or level of collaboration,
power imbalances, and competing institutional logics (Bryson, Crosby, and Stone, 2006).
Collaborations are usually initiated in a top-down way (e.g., as a result of a formal
government mandate, or as a condition of foundation funding) or in a bottom-up way
(e.g., as a grassroots initiative of nonprofit organizations and community groups).
Structures and governance mechanisms are more likely to be specified in advance in the
case of top-down collaborations, and are more likely to be emergent in the case of
bottom-up collaborations. MetroGIS was essentially a bottom-up collaboration in which
structures and governance mechanisms emerged organically from extensive discussions
in forums and strategic planning exercises.
Proposition 16: Collaboration leaders are likely to have more leeway in
designing structures and governance mechanisms in bottom-up collaborations, but
those structures and mechanisms are likely to emerge more slowly than in topdown collaborations.
Cross-sector collaborations can occur at several levels, including system-level
planning (as in the MetroGIS case), administrative activities (for example, shared staffing
arrangements), and service delivery (Agranoff and McGuire, 1998; Alter, 1990). Of the
three, system-level planning is likely to require the most negotiation between stakeholder
interests and modes of operating; thus MetroGIS leaders’ heavy investment in processes
and structures that helped carry out these negotiations made a lot of sense.
Proposition 17: Leaders in cross-sector collaborations should tailor investment in
negotiation among stakeholders to the level of the collaboration. Collaborations
involving system-level planning activities are likely to involve the most
negotiation, followed by collaborations focused on administrative-level
partnerships, followed by service delivery partnerships.
35
Significant power imbalances among collaborating partners are likely to breed
mistrust and thus prevent partners from easily agreeing on a shared purpose (Huxham and
Vangen, 2005). In addition, over time a collaboration is likely to experience shocks that
affect relations among partners, resources, and even the purpose of the collaboration.
Tactics like strategic planning, scenario development, and conflict management training
can help collaborations anticipate and shape future developments and manage shifts in
power effectively (Bryson 2004).
Clearly power imbalances were a factor in the MetroGIS case. The most populous
counties had more resources at their command than less populous counties and municipal
governments. Municipal governments varied tremendously in the size of their population
and tax base. The MC had authority to develop plans for the region, but little power to
force local governments and utilities to share their information about street addresses,
electrical or gas lines, location of emergency services, or the like. This situation of
fragmented and unequal power definitely required MC officials and staff to develop
decision-making structures that gave powerful stakeholders the opportunity to be very
influential while not excluding less powerful players. Meanwhile, GIS and planning
specialists had the power of technical expertise needed to help build MetroGIS.
MetroGIS leaders put some of these experts on staff, involved some in working groups,
and hired others as consultants.
The absence of a formal legal structure has de facto left considerable power with
the MC. The MetroGIS is a relatively small part of the budget, which, along with the
placement of the MetroGIS unit far down in the MC bureaucracy, can also make it a
likely target for budget cutters. At the outset, Randall Johnson negotiated an
understanding with Richard Johnson that allowed him direct access to the deputy
administrator and Richard Johnson agreed to keep MetroGIS prominent in the eyes of
council members. Such informal understandings, however, are vulnerable to changes in
personnel; over time as new deputy administrators have come and gone, MetroGIS has
had less access to the top.
Proposition 18: Cross-sector collaborations are more likely to succeed if leaders
build in resources and tactics for dealing with power imbalances and shocks.
36
Different institutions employ different meaning systems to establish formal and
informal rules of operating and interpreting events (Friedland and Alford, 1991; Thornton
and Ocasio, 1999). If leaders are to bring institutions from different sectors into effective
collaboration, they are likely to have to reframe issues in ways that can appeal to the
values and perspectives of the different institutions (Redekop, this issue; Morse, this
issue). Competing institutional logics do not seem to have been a highly significant factor
in the MetroGIS case, possibly because the bulk of the partners were from the
government sector. We detected some clash between the logic of local government on the
one hand and regional government on the other. Randall Johnson noted, for example, that
one of the challenges has been to stop the tendency of local governments to charge users
of parcel data as much as they could. MetroGIS-led negotiations finally helped local
government representatives see the benefit of a uniform minimal price used by all of the
region’s governments, because it increased the amount of data sharing and use across the
system. Meanwhile, businesses being asked to provide information are understandably
reluctant to share information that has market value and gives them a competitive
advantage. Thus businesses considering participation in MetroGIS projects may need
guarantees that they will control proprietary data bases and see direct benefits to their
bottom lines.
Proposition 19: Competing institutional logics are likely within cross-sector
collaborations and may significantly influence the extent to which collaboration
leaders can agree on essential elements of process and structure as well as
outcomes. Astute leaders will reframe disputes in ways that can appeal across
sectors.
Outcomes and Accountabilities
Ultimately, integrative leaders are concerned about outcomes, both tangible and
intangible. They want to be sure that their efforts actually result in sustainable projects
and systems that contribute to the common good and create public value (Moore, 1995;
Bozeman, 2007). In order to be sustainable, these projects or systems should build on
many individuals’ and organizations’ self-interest. They should take advantage of
different sectors’ strengths, while overcoming their characteristic weaknesses (Bozeman,
2007; Bryson and Crosby, 2008). For example, the government sector’s strengths in this
case included the ability to produce good public data and concern with community well
37
being; its weakness was fragmented authority. Business sector strengths included the
ability to produce good data for commercial purposes, as well as GIS software at
attractive prices; its weakness was the need to make a profit. The academic sector’s
strength was its research-based expertise; its weakness was a possible divorce from the
world of practice.
Proposition 20 Cross-sector collaborations are most likely to create public value
if leaders design them (or help them emerge) in such a way that they build on
individuals’ and organizations’ self-interests along with each sector’s
characteristic strengths, while finding ways to minimize, overcome, or
compensate for each sector’s characteristic weaknesses.
The success of cross-sector collaborations may be gauged at three levels: first-,
second- and third-order positive effects (Innes and Booher, 1999). First-order effects are
immediate results of the collaboration process. These would likely include the creation of
social, intellectual, and political capital; high-quality agreements; and innovative
strategies. Second-order effects are likely to occur when collaboration is well underway,
and might include: new partnerships, coordination and joint action, joint learning that
extends beyond the collaborative, implementation of agreements, changes in practices,
and changes in perceptions. Third-order effects may occur much later. These might
include new collaborations; more co-evolution and less destructive conflict between
partners; results on the ground, such as adaptations of services, resources, cities, and
regions; new institutions; new norms and social heuristics for addressing public
problems; and new modes of discourse (Lawrence, Hardy, and Phillips, 2002). Gray
(2000) offers a different, but complementary, list of outcomes: achieving goals,
generating social capital, creating shared meaning, increasing interaction, and shifting the
power distribution.
In the MetroGIS case, several evaluation studies produced evidence that users
valued and benefited from the system. One very important tangible outcome was the
award-winning DataFinder website. Intangible outcomes included trusting relationships
that could provide the basis for improved future collaboration among the partners. Also
leaders helped attract national and international recognition that built legitimacy with
local, regional, and possibly state decision makers. Today the MetroGIS also has an
intangible “taken-for-grantedness,” which is a sign of its institutionalization (Suchman,
38
1995). In general this is an asset for the system, but it may also cause supporters to forget
some of its vulnerabilities.
Proposition 21: Cross-sector collaborations are most likely to create public value
if leaders explicitly seek the production of positive first-, second-, and third-order
effects.
Research studies suggest that “cross-sector collaborations are more likely to
succeed when they have an accountability system that tracks inputs, processes, and
outcomes; use a variety of methods for gathering, interpreting, and using data; and use a
results management system that is built on strong relationships with key political and
professional constituencies” (Bryson, Crosby, and Stone, 2006, p. 52). MetroGIS leaders
oversaw implementation of a performance measurement plan that was put together by a
working group consisting of MetroGIS stakeholders. The purpose was to document
results and demonstrate prudent use of public resources. Measures focused on three main
types of outcomes: those related to data users, those related to data producers, and more
systemic outcomes – that is, improved decision making and better services.
In the MetroGIS case, users demand results and improvements and provide peer
pressure to ensure each other adheres to standards and does not undermine the system in
other ways. Additionally, Randall Johnson monitors the system and if need be turns to
members of the Policy Board to exert pressure on local governments that don’t follow
through on commitments. At one point an MC official who opposed the system insisted
that it be subjected to an audit aimed at demonstrating the system was a drain on MC
resources. Victoria Reinhardt said MetroGIS people would welcome the audit and
insisted that the process be transparent. Ultimately, the audit showed the MC was
receiving a substantial return on its investment, and the system’s future became more
rather than less secure.
Proposition 22: Cross-sector collaborations are more likely to be successful if
leaders insist that there be an accountability system that tracks inputs, processes,
and outcomes; use a variety of methods for gathering, interpreting, and using data;
and use a results management system built on strong relationships with key
political and professional constituencies.
39
Wise integrative leaders also will be sure to reassess the entire initiative once
outcomes are clear. If the number of failures exceeds successes, they logically should
consider substantial redesign or direct their energies elsewhere. To salvage as much from
their efforts as possible, including relationships, they should be resilient, celebrate the
successes, highlight learning from both successes and failures, and rally partners for
future endeavors (Crosby and Bryson, 2005). In this case, the outcomes included many
successes, but by 2007 MetroGIS leaders realized that enough shifts had occurred in the
metro region that some redesign was merited and they organized the Strategic Directions
Workshop.
Proposition 23: Cross-sector collaborations are most likely to create public value
if leaders demonstrate resilience and engage in regular reassessments.
Conclusions
Viewing the above propositions as a set leads to the unmistakable conclusion that
creating and maintaining cross-sector collaborations presents a major integrative
leadership challenge – because so much has to be in place or work well for them to
succeed. This conclusion leads to a possibly unwelcome summary proposition:
Proposition 24: The normal expectation ought to be that success will be very
difficult to achieve in cross-sector collaborations, regardless of leadership
effectiveness.
That said, success appears to depend in large part on leadership of many different
kinds. We have highlighted in particular the leadership roles of sponsors and champions,
but Huxham and Vangen (2005) argue that leadership – in the sense of what “makes
things happen” (pp. 202-212) – also occurs through structures and processes. The
leadership challenge in cross-sector collaboration may therefore be viewed as the
challenge of aligning initial conditions, processes and practices, structures and
governance mechanisms, contingencies and constraints, and outcomes and
accountabilities such that good things happen in a sustained way over time – indeed, so
that public value is created.
Additional conclusions emerge both for theory, methodology, and practice. In
terms of theory, the reasonable support in the literature for each of the propositions
40
presented implies some utility to using the proposed framework for understanding
integrative leadership in cross-sector collaborative settings. A focus on leadership in
relation to the framework categories seems to capture much that is of interest to
understanding leadership and the creation and maintenance of cross-sector collaborations.
The MetroGIS case illustration helps ground this assertion, but certainly does not provide
a test of the framework’s utility.
Future researchers who apply and test the framework might also make use of two
social theories that appear particularly well-suited to the task of understanding the
dynamics of leadership and cross-sector collaboration. Already mentioned is structuration
theory, which provides a useful way of thinking about how actions and practices create,
recreate, and stabilize the structures that then provide rules and resources to draw on and
guide further action and collaboration (Giddens, 1984; Phillips, Lawrence, and Hardy,
2000; Sydow and Staber, 2002; Crosby and Bryson, 2005, pp. 401 – 426). As we have
tried to show using the MetroGIS example, action and structure appear to be closely tied,
with action creating and recreating structures that provide the base for action.
Actor-network theory (ANT) is also particularly relevant. Latour (2005) offers the
best introduction to ANT and contrasts ANT, or the “sociology of associations,” with the
“sociology of the social.” As noted previously, Latour asserts that ANT takes as its
challenge accounting for new associations – i.e., “the tracing of associations” (5, italics
in original) – without a priori assuming any fixity to social aggregations, which he says
the “sociology of the social” does. The “social” (e.g., existing and new networks,
communication patterns, or cross-sector collaborations) thus is what must be explained,
not assumed. Further, tracing associations also means accounting for connections among
“things that are not themselves social” (loc. cit.); for example, strategy maps, Internetbased data networks, and software applications of GIS data. Note also that “association”
includes far more than, for example, a communication link between nodes in a network.
Associations may also embody understandings, affective responses, identity-based or forming linkages; agreements, commitments, resource flows, and host of other possible
connections. Further, the associations may be emergent, ongoing, or ending. In terms of
methodology, ANT thus: (1) focuses on performances, (2) includes associations or
connections with non-human elements or aspects of the situation, and (3) helps account
41
for how the ostensive aspects of any set of associations are produced, become stabilized
and legitimized, or change, through strengthening or weakening associations, respectively
(Feldman and Pentland 2008, 306). An application of ANT to MetroGIS and related
leadership concerns is presented in considerable detail in Bryson, Crosby and Bryson
(2009).
Boundary experiences, groups or organizations, and objects also appear to be
particularly useful categories for helping understand how cross-sector collaborations
emerge and stabilize. The two MetroGIS strategy maps developed in 1996 and 2007, in
particular, appear to have been actors in their own right, in the sense that they made a
great deal of difference (Latour, 2005, p. 54 – 55). Regarding the 1995 strategy mapping
effort, Randall Johnson would go so far as to claim, “We would be in a different place—
maybe dead—without the mapping exercise. It enabled us to lock in very quickly on
vision, goals, strategies and actions; get four teams organized and working right away;
get the Coordinating Committee . . . It really helped people see the possibilities at a time
when things easily could have fallen apart” (Randall Johnson 2008, personal
communication). Other interviewees also commented on the importance of the
strategy mapping session and the resulting map; they agreed it was a ‘‘turning point’’
(Group interview, 2008). Regarding the 2007 mapping exercise, Johnson and the group
interviewees agreed that the mapping process and map (as an agent) led them to a new
understanding that they had not started with, which consequently led to a new mission
and set of strategic initiatives. Beyond that, MetroGIS itself may be thought of as a
heterogeneous assembly of human and non-human actors and objects (Law, 1987;
Latour, 2005). The role of non-human “actors” in collaboration clearly merits further
study.
Finally, while not explicitly a focus of our research into MetroGIS, the case
interviews do indicate that at the individual level integrative leadership would seem to
require cognitive, social, and behavioral complexity (Crosby and Kiedrowski, 2007;
Mumford et al. 2000; Hooijberg, Hunt, and Dodge, 1997). MetroGIS leaders seemed to
demonstrate such complexity, assisted by tools like mapping. One interesting aspect of
MetroGIS is that its aim is to increase cognitive complexity of policy makers, planners,
and service providers. It also increases social complexity – by forging stabilized and
42
expanding relationships. It may logically lead to behavioral complexity – that is, it may
expand the users’ behavioral repertoire through helping them choose actions that are
based on more complete and locally accurate knowledge, while recognizing impacts on
other individuals, groups, and organizations in the network. This sometimes intentional,
sometimes emergent drive toward increased complexity of many sorts may be
characteristic of cross-sector collaborations and yet another explanation of why they can
be so difficult to establish and maintain.
In terms of methodology, the quest to understand and promote integrative
leadership would benefit from carefully constructed comparative case study research that
is longitudinal and includes qualitative and quantitative data. The complicated, multilayered, multi-faceted, multi-actor, multi-sector nature of cross-sector collaboration
probably will not reveal many of its secrets – and particularly those useful for practice –
without more of this sort of research (Agranoff, 2007; Weber and Khademian, 2008; Yin,
2009).
In terms of practice, the framework implies that successful integrative leadership
for cross-sector collaboration should be thought of as a collective achievement.
Integrative leadership at individual, group, organizational, and inter-organizational levels
is required if cross-sector collaboration is to succeed. Our hope is that the framework,
along with research that it may inspire, will lead to improved cross-sector collaborative
practice and – through integrative leadership – the pursuit of the common good and
creation of real public value.
Endnotes
1
Maps may also be of conceptual space, as in “strategy maps” (Kaplan and Norton, 2004; Bryson, et al.,
2004). While in this paper we are focused on geographic space, note that two MetroGIS strategy mapping
sessions discussed below apparently provided very important “boundary experiences” for participants and
produced “boundary objects” – the strategy maps, which are of conceptual space – that helped guide
subsequent collaboration efforts.
2
Information on MetroGIS is drawn from a variety of sources: A history of MetroGIS written by Timothy
Delmont; archival records; the MetroGIS website; participant-observation; Bryson, Crosby and Bryson
(2009); and especially from several interviews of Randall Johnson, MetroGIS staff coordinator for the MC,
43
and a lengthy, facilitated group interview of key actors over the course of MetroGIS’s existence: Victoria
Reinhardt, Ramsey County (MN) commissioner and chairperson, MetroGIS; Terry Schneider, City of
Minnetonka (MN) councilmember and member of the MetroGIS Policy Board; Nancy Read, technical
coordinator of the Metropolitan Mosquito Control District and member and former chair of the
Coordinating Committee; Jane Harper, principal planner for Washington County (MN) and member and
former chair of the Coordinating Committee; and William Craig, associate director of the Center for Urban
and Regional Affairs at the University of Minnesota and member and former chair of the Coordinating
Committee.
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Figure 1. A Framework for Understanding Leadership and the Creation and
Maintenance of Cross-Sector Collaborations (adapted from Bryson, Crosby, and
Stone, 2006, p. 45).
INITIAL CONDITIONS
GENERAL ENVIRONMENT
 Turbulence
 Institutional and competitive forces
SECTOR FAILURE
DIRECT ANTECEDENTS
 Initiators, sponsors, and champions
 General agreement on the problem
 Existing relationships or networks
PROCESSES AND
PRACTICES







STRUCTURE AND
GOVERNANCE
Formal and Informal
Design and use of forums,
arenas, and courts
Forging initial (and
subsequent) agreements
Planning
Managing conflict
Building leadership
Building trust
Building legitimacy







Formal and informal
Membership
Structural arrangements
Governance mechanisms and
structures
CONTINGENCIES AND
CONSTRAINTS
Top-down or bottom-up
collaboration
Type or level of collaboration
Power imbalances and shocks
Competing institutional logics
OUTCOMES AND ACCOUNTABILITIES
OUTCOMES



Public value
First-, second-, and third-order effects
Resilience and reassessment
ACCOUNTABILITIES



Systems to track inputs, processes, outputs, and outcomes
Results management system
Relationships with political and professional constituencies
58