Citation

Sparf J. Safety Sci. 2019; 118: 702-708.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.ssci.2019.05.043

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

To address increasingly complex social problems and provide more effective public goods, governments turn to multi-organizational arrangements, often with a limited life span. Carrying out work in project form allows public bureaucracies flexibility and gives space for innovative and experimental solutions to long-standing problems. Temporary multi-organizations (TMOs) are common in the construction and building industries but more opaque are the mechanisms governing them in the public sector. This is a case study of such a TMO in the broader Stockholm region in the field of emergency management. The research questions guiding this study are: (i) what added value does the TMO contribute to the provision of routine emergency management; and (ii) what are the organizational consequences for each constituent member of the TMO? Finally, (iii) how do participants organizations balance the collective benefit of the TMO vs the costs individually incurring to each of them? I construct an analytical framework of perceived added value of the TMO on the one hand and organizational consequences on the other.

FINDINGS suggest that the TMO is insulated, with the knowledge produced in it staying within the confines of the project. The participating organizations, though recognizing the high normative value of collaboration, tend to focus more on the consequences the TMO has on each of them, rather than the added value it conveys to them and the provision of emergency management as a whole.

Language: en