Failing into cross-sector collaboration successfully

In the United States and elsewhere, collaboration among government agencies, businesses, and nonprofits to handle community or societal needs has become commonplace. Unfortunately, at the present time the use of cross-sector collaborations is proceeding at a faster pace than our research ability to understand what contributes to the formation of cross-sector collaboration and to its effective or ineffective operation. While there is considerable research on antecedents to interorganizational relationships more generally (e.g., Oliver 1990) and the dynamics of specific collaborations (e.g., Huxham and Vangen 2005), an overarching theory has yet to emerge.1.