The Evolution of Dyadic Interorganizational Relationships in a Network of Publicly Funded Nonprofit Agencies

Abstract

This article addresses a gap in the extant literature on networks by assessing how interorganizational relationships evolve in a public sector network setting. The context for the research was a network of publicly funded health and human service agencies involved in service delivery to people with serious mental illness. Longitudinal data were collected from a single community. The analysis suggests that public and nonprofit sector relationships evolve differently than private sector partnerships, providing an alternative perspective to the prevailing view in organization theory.

This research was supported by a grant from the Nonprofit Sector Research Fund of the Aspen Institute (No. 99-NSRF-19), Keith G. Provan, P.I. Isett would like to thank the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research for the resources to finish this article. Thanks also go to Brint Milward for his contribution to earlier phases of this research project.