Legitimization of cross-sector partnerships: Actor strategies within the institutional complexity of state, economy, and civil society

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Cross-sector partnerships are collaborative arrangements in which actors from different sectors of society (state, economy, civil society) share resources and information in order to work on societal problems with a common goal. A central driver of the promotion of these forms of governance is the assumption that partners from different sectoral backgrounds dispose of diverse resources and capabilities and that societal problems are solved more effectively if these complementarities are used with the goal of economic, social, and ecological added value.In current research, a structural perspective predominates on the conditions of formation and success as well as on the structure and impact of cross-sector partnerships. An interactionist perspective on the micro level of individual actors that cooperate in partnerships, however, is not well developed yet. These actors are not passive recipients of different sectoral frameworks and normative structures of state, economy, and civil society, but they can actively and strategically engage with these frameworks to secure legitimacy. However, the legitimization of cross-sector partnerships should be subjected to further research as their success is not only dependent on their functional efficiency but also on their societal legitimacy though being a diffuse target for the attribution of legitimacy because of their institutional ambiguity.Our research project contributes to theoretically and empirically record the level of individual action in cross-sector partnerships and to explore the interrelations with superordinate organizational and sectoral contexts. We focus on the following research questions:1) How are sectoral logics of state, economy, and civil society as well as organizational logics of public, private, and nonprofit organizations manifested in identity claims and interpretation patterns of actors who cooperate in cross-sector partnerships?2) What action strategies do actors use to address the potentially conflicting logics of their sectors and organizations?3) How do these action strategies affect the development and maintenance of internal and external legitimacy of the partnership; and what are the dynamic interactions between internal and external legitimacy?The theoretical background of this project is the concept of institutional logics, which has recently been developed within sociological institutionalism. The research project is based on process-tracing and analyzes tri-sectoral partnerships within the scope of three in-depth case studies.