Relational Collaboration Among Spatial Multipoint Competitors

Uncertainty and the Permeability of Organizational Boundaries: Hypotheses, Models, and Empirical Tests

We study how uncertainty affects the permeability of organizational boundaries to interorganizational collaboration. We make two related preductions. First, organizational-specific uncertainty increases the propensity of organizations to collaborate by involving other organizations in joint problem-solving activities. This happens because organizaiton-specific uncertainty makes it easier for organizations to learn from the experience of partners facing similarly uncertain internal contingencies. Second, market or domain-specific uncertainty reduces the propensity of organizations to collaborate by making them less likely to look for partners to involve in joint problem-solving activities. This happens because market-specific uncertainty makes it more difficult for organizations to identify potential partners within changing set competitors, and to assess their quality and trustworthiness. Evidence from a study of patient-transfer relations within a regional community of hospital organizations supports our predictions. The estimates of newly derived Exponential Random Graph Models (ERGM) reveal important connections between how individual organizations respond to uncertainty and the global structure of interorganizational networks.

Keywords: Interorganizational networks; Uncertainty; Partner selection; Exponential Random Graph Models (ERGM); Hospitals; Collatoration