Boundary-spanning strategies for aligning institutional logics: a typology

Figures & data

Table 1. Boundary-spanning strategies.

	Entrepreneurial strategy	Mediating strategy	Hierarchical strategy
Goal	Avoid barriers	Avoid and overcome barriers	Overcome barriers
Focus	Working around rules and contacts	Search for shared meanings to facilitate compromises	Using the power of managers to pave the way
Activities	Framing issues to match interests of receiver, splitting up issues in smaller parts, using political knowledge to pick right policy agendas, seeking opportunities, avoiding inflexible colleagues	Talking with colleagues to find common ground and a solution, using charms and/or arguments to change viewpoints	Taking the issue to a higher managerial level by involving public managers and/or politicians.
Competences and skills	Creativity, courage, political sensitivity, proactivity	Listening, openness, negotiation, persuading	Prioritising, perseverance, delegating, result-orientedness
Mechanism	Policy windows	Communication and personal relations	Formal hierarchy
Applied	All barriers	All barriers, but mostly standardisation and result orientation	All barriers, but mostly standardisation and internal orientation
Effectiveness	Yes, if applied well	Mixed results	Yes, but 1 respondent

Table

Open coding	Axial coding	Final code
Frame issues to match interest receiver	Issue formulation	Entrepreneurial strategy
Splitting up issues in small parts
Using political knowledge to pick right policy agendas	Seeking collaborative and resource opportunities
Avoid inflexible colleagues
Collaborate with colleagues with decision-power
Taking advantage of circumstances	Opportunism
Learning about each other’s culture	Empathy	Mediating strategy
Listening
Togetherness and trust
Exploring common ground	Collaboration
Bringing people together
Organising commitment
Influencing choices	Persuasion
Debating choices
Arguing
Change or force decision	Decision power	Hierarchical strategy
Seeking power
Power over resources
Involve supervisors	Higher managerial level
Supervisors will deliberate
Managers use hierarchy
Involve executive politicians	Higher political level
Threatening with politics
Collaborating with politicians

Table

Category	Quotes
Standardisation	‘’All kinds of objections are raised. Whilst as you explain it the way I do, everyone is like: this is beneficial for all parties. The municipality reduces maintenance costs and citizens have more fun. But the rules say that the area has to adjacent your own property, and that is not the case here. So it is not possible.’’ (Respondent 6)
	‘’It is a hard and sluggish process. General solutions are employed, while you have specifically asked for custom solutions. They then come up with a policy measure that is not quite what we need in our district. This happens often.’’ (Respondent 8)
Internal orientation	‘’This is, for example, making sure the organization is run smoothly and all questions are answered properly.’’ (Respondent 8)
	‘’[Policy officials say] We do not handle complaints in this way. You should tell [the citizens] that they should report it again. For us [district managers], this is a very sluggish, administrative, annoying way of working.’’ (Respondent 11)
Functional specification	‘’Somewhere in the organization an asset manager sees in his/her system that other streets should be handled first. So I hear that there is no money.’’ (Respondent 1)
	‘’I spent 1.5 years (!) negotiating with two governmental clusters, boys, we suffer from it and get reports of angry citizens, and rightly so, you have to renovate this field. Well, cluster 1 said the space was the responsibility of cluster 2, while cluster 2 said: no it’s theirs…’’ (Respondent 5)
Result orientation	‘’For the civil servant working on urban development it makes no difference that we have a district plan, because he is judged on realizing his own program. So if he has to build 30 houses, and he built 30 houses, he did a good job. However, it could well be that the 30 houses were quite unnecessary for the area.’’ (respondent 5)
	‘’Yes, that [achieving the policy program] is of course not something [that they are judged upon], you know, that is not part of the result-oriented way of working, which is required here.’’ (Respondent 7)
Entrepreneurial strategy	‘’At a certain point you know which colleagues to approach for a fruitful dialogue, and which ones to avoid.’’ (Respondent 3)
	‘’You can try different persons.’’ (Respondent 4)
Mediating strategy	‘’They have to get that there is a problem in the neighborhood, and simultaneously I have to get that there are certain policy assignments at stake. In the organization there should also be scored.’’ (Respondent 3)
	‘’I invest in relationships. Whether it is a colleague or inhabitant, I invest in them. I notice that these people… Well, of course I am not always nice, but in general these people are willing to do things for you.’’ (Respondent 11)
Hierarchical strategy	‘’Present it to the managers, like, listen, it doesn’t work. Your employees repeatedly say: these are the rules. I want to have these rules adjusted.’’ (Respondent 6)
	‘’Cooperation is hardly possible. This [co-creation process] is so beyond all conventions. In this process I have direct contact with the mayor. Which of course is very weird if you take into account all the managers and advisors. They are non-existent here.’’ (Respondent 7)