Duos and Duels in Field Evolution: How Governments and Interorganizational Networks Relate

Abstract

We live in an era where models of governing are changing rapidly under multifaceted evolutionary pressures and where, at the same time, organizational fields are becoming increasingly networked. With this paper, we add to the field dynamics literature, focusing on the space where these evolutionary pressures coincide – the interactions of Governments and interorganizational networks. We examine the roles that interorganizational networks play in relation to Government actors under particular long- and short-term institutional and governance conditions. We articulate four roles that networks may play in relation to Government: advocate, technology, judge and ruler. We argue that long-term institutional logics, combined with short-term Government action in response to a particular field evolution, may predict the role that the interorganizational network will assume in relation to Government in that particular field scenario. We discuss flows through the typology as conditions change and we conclude by presenting an agenda for future research in the field dynamics and interorganizational networks research domains that leverages our proposed network role typology.