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Does Service Category Matter for Cross-Sectoral Collaboration?

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VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Scholarly literature on cross-sectoral collaboration is rich, but incomplete as most studies tend to overlook nuances across different service categories. Though many studies confirm that collaboration may vary by specific service type, very few ask how and why? This study contributes to this area of inquiry by exploring these questions in the context of nonprofit-local government collaboration in a developing country in which nonprofit organizations play a major role in public service delivery, expanding analysis beyond the traditional western settings that dominate current scholarship. Analyzing a unique dataset of survey responses from 223 Lebanese nonprofit managers, we find that local-nonprofit collaboration likelihood does indeed vary by the nonprofit’s service focus. This is consistent with existing scholarship. Further, we extend the analysis to examine whether and how a set of underlying features that shape collaboration vary by service category. Patterns emerge to explain the association between the service category and perceptions of weak institutional features in the collaboration landscape. We offer explanations for these findings, drawing on specific characteristics of selected services and the mechanisms through which they could influence collaboration and its dynamics.

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Fig. 1

Adopted from AbouAssi and Bowman (2018)

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Notes

  1. We ran the analysis using the budget as the measure of structural arrangement instead of staff numbers, based on the argument that the budget is another measure of capacity. The results are not far off, indicating that the current model is robust.

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Funding

This research was supported by the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M and American University’s School of Public Affairs’ The Helfat Fund for Faculty Development Initiative and Metropolitan Policy Center.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Public Administration and Policy, School of Public Affairs, American University, 4400 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC, 20016, USA

    Khaldoun AbouAssi, Tianyu Chen, Kathryn L. Grossman & Jocelyn M. Johnston

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  1. Khaldoun AbouAssi
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Correspondence to Khaldoun AbouAssi.

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AbouAssi, K., Chen, T., Grossman, K.L. et al. Does Service Category Matter for Cross-Sectoral Collaboration?. Voluntas (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-023-00626-3

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