Built to Collaborate? Organization Design and Coalition Success

Abstract

Coalitions implementing health promotion initiatives are composed of organizations that collaborate with one another. However, organizations do not collaborate; rather it is people representing organizations that make partnerships happen, and some collaborators are more effective than others. The way organizations are designed markedly influences the manner in which collaborators represent their organizations in coalitions. In this study, we explore how organizations are designed to support effective collaboration. Using a mixed methods design, high-performing collaborators were identified through a survey. The top 25 participated in in-depth interviews. Interviews assessed organization design components including strategy, structure, processes, human resource systems, measurement systems, and culture. Findings revealed multiple design elements that supported the use of collaboration skills including strategies that explicitly acknowledged a reliance on interorganizational collaboration; nonhierarchical, informal, and flexible structures; processes that empowered collaborators to act on behalf of their organizations; human resource systems that included job descriptions, training, and performance appraisals that reinforced the use of collaboration skills; measurement systems that included performance data taken at the domain level; and cultures that supported diversity of thought, innovation, risk-taking and a “do-whatever-it-takes” attitude in accomplishing tasks. These findings can assist organization leaders in designing organizations to support effective multiorganizational collaboration.