Catalytic alliances (CA) are temporary network organizations created to effect long-term social change through media-based "campaign" efforts to increase public awareness and commitment to action on social problems. Two CA organizations - Hands Across America and the Partnership for a Drug-Free America - are profiled in this paper. Each illustrates the catalytic alliance phenomenon and delineates a number of critical management dimensions. The paper then uses these examples to more precisely define the organizational features and characteristics of catalytic alliances, and to develop a process model of how such alliances are formed.
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