Inter-organizational collaboration: addressing the challenge

Abstract

9/11 and Hurrican Katrina exposed the United States' vunerabilities within and across organizational and jurisdictional boundaries. A number of breakdowns in collaboration were evident: a lack of information sharing among agencies, confused inter-organizational relationshiips, competing roles and responsibilities, and shortcomings in leadership. In response to these inadequacies in collaboration, scholars have engaged in theoretical and empirical work in hopes of preventing another 9/11 and enhancing overall national security. Studies about the need to collaborate have been the most prevalent. Less prevalent are studies about the "how" of collaboration. To address the "how" of collaboration, we wanted to better understand the enablers and barriers to effective inter-agency collaboration, To address this question, we queried and conducted surveys with homeland security managers across a broad range of organizations and agencies to find out what factors contribute to effective collaboration and what factors inhibit collaboration. The resulting model of collaborative capacity is presented here.