Structuration processes in an interagency collaboration: enabling and constraining participation and efficiency

ABSTRACT

Participants in interorganizational collaborations must manage tensions between the competing goals of efficiently accomplishing their objectives and creating participatory decision-making. For this study, structuration theory provided a lens for examining how collaboration members communicatively created initial structures and then used their agency to modify those structures. Findings from observations and interviews examined how the initial and modified communication structures both enabled and constrained group members. As members produced and reproduced the system, they modified the balance of participation and efficiency. These findings emphasize the need for members of collaborations to carefully manage their communication to maintain the desired balance of participation and efficiency.

KEYWORDS:

• Structuration theory
• decision-making
• interorganizational collaboration

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Although this quotation is included in this source, this and similar advice has been offered in various places prior to 2013.

Additional information

Funding

The authors wish to thank the US National Safety Council for funding awarded to Eric Anthony Day and Michael W. Kramer in support of this research (DTNH22-09-H-00240).