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This paper reports on a study that explored the user-driven inter-organisational professional learning that teachers from two education systems collectively engaged in via social media. A dedicated Facebook group was established to enable Australian early childhood teachers (sector one) and primary school teachers (sector two) to engage in collaborations that would support children's transition to school. Using an Activity Theory framework, findings showed that the site was mainly used by early childhood teachers to seek peer support in meeting reporting requirements, and that school teachers rarely posted. As such, the capacity of the Facebook group to support inter-organisational cross-sector collaboration and learning was challenged as determined by the most active participants within the site, while reinforcing the group's capacity to support 'just in time' intra-organisational professional learning. This highlights a need for further research to explore the ways and means by which social media may best facilitate cross-sector collaboration between education systems, such as a more focussed and integrated use of social media during face-to-face cross-sector professional learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Cross-sectoral collaborations are considered necessary to address detrimental health, social, educational and economic outcomes that impact marginalised and disadvantaged populations. There is a strong relationship between the health of children and their educational attainment; good health promotes positive learning. This paper reports cross-sectoral executive and senior management level systems changes required to enable the design of a collaborative primary healthcare service model for children and young people in rural Australia. Methods: A descriptive qualitative design was used. Data were collected from executive and senior managers from three organisations (Education, Health and a University Department of Rural Health [ n = 6]) through individual semi-structured interviews. Data were analysed using an inductive, thematic approach. The study draws on Lewin's Model of Change. Results: Three overarching themes were generated from the data: an embedded challenge and experimental solutions; building a shared language and understanding; and the role of relationships and trust. Despite the unique geographical and social context of the study area, strategies emerged from the data on how a solution to an embedded challenge, through design of a primary healthcare model, was established and how the strategies described could be transferred and scaled to other rural and remote communities. Conclusion: Contextual differences make each rural and remote area unique. In this study, strategies that are described in the managing change literature were evident. The authors conclude that drawing on strong management of change principles could mean that a service model designed for one remote community might be transferrable to other communities. There is a strong relationship between children's health and their educational attainment. Poorer health, educational and social attainment are experienced by children and young people residing within the study area. Despite unique geographical contexts and demography, strategies that align strong leadership and effective management of change across three organisations were key and may make it possible to transfer a primary health care model designed to improve health and education outcomes for children and young people to other rural and remote communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Duwamish River Floating Wetlands project designed, built, and deployed constructed floating wetlands in the estuary of the urban Duwamish River in Seattle, Washington, during the 2019 and 2020 outmigration seasons for juvenile salmon. Using a "safe‐to‐fail" methodology and adaptive management strategies, these innovative floating wetland prototypes were custom designed to provide the native plants, invertebrates and slow water habitat that juvenile salmon require during their transition from fresh to salt water, and were monitored for these outcomes. This paper will provide insight into the prototype designs, adaptive management strategies and plant performance, and unique public‐private‐academic‐community partnerships that supported 2 years of design and research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Appreciative Inquiry is a theory of intentional collective action which provides a model of communication processes for recognizing existing organizational strengths, as opposed to problems, as the basis for action plans. This paper reports on a case where Appreciative Inquiry was improperly applied to an all-day workshop that was aimed at initiating a new interorganizational collaboration (IOC) among 18 different agencies from public transportation and health sectors. We analyze why and how the workshop participants could not envision their potential IOC. The analysis reveals several issues related to the design elements of the workshop, caused in part by the facilitator's overreliance on Appreciative Inquiry's 4D model and lack of consideration of the communicative needs in the specific context (i.e. pre-IOC interactions among unfamiliar organizational representatives that have not worked together previously). The paper concludes with suggestions for applying Appreciative Inquiry in IOCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the moniker non-governmental organization (NGO) connotes distance from the state, it is widely recognized that civil society in a range of political contexts is in fact characterized by close ties across the public-private divide. Scholars of Chinese social organizations have noted that proximity between the state and NGOs is even more pronounced in the context of China. What is less clear is why this is so. Why do grassroots NGOs overwhelmingly pursue engagement with the state? This paper presents findings that enumerate a number of motivating forces that drive state-NGO collaboration, particularly with respect to small, grassroots NGOs that do not have preexisting ties to elites or to the state. Most notable among these is that NGOs seek engagement with state agencies primarily in order to secure public trust. Public trust is found to be key to the ability of such groups to run programs, mobilize citizens or raise funds. These findings therefore have implications for how we understand the critical role of public support and legitimation—in addition to state control—in the enabling of civil society under authoritarianism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the largely undocumented dimensions of public housing transformation in the United States is the multi-sector, multi-organizational collaborations whose charge is to manage the local implementation of mixed-income developments. In Chicago, private real estate developers entered into partnerships with the Chicago Housing Authority to finance, design, build, and manage the new developments. Key topics considered in this paper include the structures and processes of new organizational working relationships that have been established, how they are evolving over time, and the key operational challenges confronted in creating and sustaining them. We argue that these cross-sector collaborations within the context of the privatization of public housing generate complex organizational roles and dynamics that would benefit from far greater intentionality, clarity, and support to promote effectiveness and accountability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vulnerable groups are found to be over-represented in fire fatalities statistics. In official Norwegian documents vulnerability is described as related to factors such as old age, reduced mobility or cognitive abilities, mental health problems, and substance abuse. As vulnerability to fatal fire is frequently related to residents’ health and life situations, prevention work often exceeds the competencies and responsibilities of the fire department. Cross-sector collaboration is therefore required in order to reach the groups that are at risk. This paper reports from a qualitative interview study with representatives from municipal fire services, property management, housing administration, health and social care. The study explores the challenges experienced by service providers in achieving cross-sector collaboration on fire prevention for vulnerable groups. The findings describe challenges at three levels: 1) the national regulatory level represents an obstacle to local cross-sector collaboration, 2) the municipal level lacks strategies and arenas for cross-sector collaboration for fire safety, and 3) the professional level experiences conflicting values and norms, including uncertainties about professional boundaries. Organizational measures that support the fire services in their efforts to reach vulnerable groups must be targeted to all three levels and go beyond the boundaries of the fire services. The study contributes with a social scientific approach to fire prevention and contributes with new perspectives on fire safety for vulnerable residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract 1 [1] Based on a presentation at ANZAM 2011. McDonald, S., Young, S. 2011. Mapping the path of a sustainable cross-sector partnership, ANZAM 2011: 25th Annual Australian And New Zealand Academy of Management conference: the future of work and organisations, ANZAM, Wellington, N.Z. : Changing environmental conditions, heightened stakeholder expectations and resource demand pressures have forced the mining sector to continually improve their operational practices whilst engage in Corporate Social Responsibility practices. Closer inspection of these practices within the mining sector reveals a level of differentiation with regard to innovative practices which seek to improve operational practice, modify organizational behaviours and redress environmental impacts. This paper explores the 30-year journey taken by mining giant, Alcoa of Australia, as they addressed their social and environmental responsibilities. In particular, the focus is on the collaborative relationship between Alcoa of Australia and the environmental nonprofit organization, Greening Australia. Testing partnership lifecycle and continuum models, this paper offers a model of Corporate Social Responsibility enacted through cross-sector partnerships. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

A collaborative approach to care of parents with a mental illness is essential to address the needs of the whole family. However, a number of constraints within adult mental health and child-focused services prevent a unified approach to the care of families where a parent has a mental illness (FaPMI). This paper reports on a cross-sector workforce development initiative aimed to build skill and knowledge in practitioners to work with FaPMI. The initiative included training in the 'Keeping Families and Children in Mind' e-resource to mental health, child and family services. The resource was combined with face to face training and small group meetings over six weeks, to help develop emerging champions/practice leaders to promote FaPMI-focused practice. A significant decline in the perceived ability to engage in FaPMI-focused practice emerged immediately post-training. The lack of perceived organisational supports was the major barrier to the implementation of FaPMIfocused practice across sectors. However following continued support of practitioners, a significant increase in FaPMI-focused practice across sectors, and a return to pre-survey levels of perceived organizational support, was observed at six-month post-training. The importance of providing additional implementation supports and time to consolidate practice change following training is highlighted. Recommended implementation and training strategies that will improve FaPMI-focused cross-sector approaches to better meet the need of FaPMI are described. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Collaboration between public sectors is often understood as a way to manage the complex care challenges society faces [1-4]. However, it is also widely recognized as problematic due to the complexity involved with collaboration across organizational boundaries [5-7]. Paradoxically, intersectoral collaboration is thus seen as both problem and solution for care challenges. Thus far, research into intersectoral collaboration does not detail the micro-dynamics of organizational actors entering into, establishing, maintaining, altering or abandoning collaborative relations. More research is required to better understand the processes that take place when collaborating across sectoral boundaries [8,9] and the frictions involved with the establishment of new roles for the stakeholders involved. In 2015, the Dutch healthcare system was reformed and care tasks that used to be the responsibility of the central government were localized and transferred to healthcare insurers medical care and decentralized to municipalities social care. The government then required municipal actors and healthcare insurers to negotiate about the funding of integration between the social and medical domains [10]. Theory/methods: This paper draws upon a case in which care responsibilities are distributed between healthcare insurers and municipalities. The study methods comprised of participant observation of meetings and in-depth interviews with key informants. Analysing the collaborating stakeholders' boundary work [11-13], i.e. the discursive practices people deploy in order to organize interaction across boundaries, can provide insight into micro dynamics involved in establishing cross-sector collaboration. Results: The analysis of the stakeholders' discourse identified three interaction patterns actors deploy to organize this interaction across boundaries: 1 opposing patterns, 2 negotiating patterns, and 3 aligning patterns. Conclusion/discussion: This research elucidates the process of building collaboration about responsibilities in the health and social care fields that stakeholders did not enter voluntarily. The paper demonstrates how the involved actors shift from opposition towards each other to negotiating boundaries and eventually come to a strategic alignment, which includes new forms of opposition towards other stakeholders. Limitations/future research: This is a study of a single case of intersectoral collaboration. Future research could include more and different stakeholders such as healthcare providers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collaboration between nonprofit and business sectors is widely regarded as a value creation process that benefits society, business, and nonprofit organizations (NPOs). This process, however, has rarely been considered from a nonprofit perspective. In this paper, we discuss a new framework to assist NPOs in developing strategic collaborations with businesses. We argue that, by being strategically proactive rather than reactive to what businesses might offer, NPOs can increase the scale of their cross-sector collaborations and thus enhance their sustainability. Implications for research and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is growing interest in the potential for business to make proactive contributions to food security, particularly as part of some form of cross-sector collaboration. Such collaboration can improve value chain efficiency and may also begin to address some of the 'wicked problem' characteristics of food insecurity. Our interviews conducted during the food price crisis in 2008 confirm that a broad cross-section of stakeholders agree that the crisis has cyclical and systemic causes and that it has serious implications for business. We also describe a range of related initiatives already being implemented by companies. There is a degree of ambivalence about the feasibility of improved collaboration, given competitive pressures and concerns about compliance with competition laws. Nevertheless, a number of respondents emphasised the need for improved collaboration on particular issues and the paper identifies a number of these, some of which have since been targeted in a multi-stakeholder initiative, the Southern Africa Food Lab, that builds on this (and other) research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]