Mobilizing diverse actors in organizing collaboration: cases from the energy transition

Addressing societal challenges often requires collaboration across organizational boundaries. Yet, when no clear orchestrator is present and incentives to collaborate are low, initiating such collaboration can be difficult. This study investigates how actors mobilize towards inter-organizational collaboration in dispersed and uncertain contexts. Using a comparative case study of five Dutch business parks facing electricity grid congestion, we identify three practices—preliminary structuring, changing coordination activities, and cultivating a group of the willing—that foster early collaboration. Our findings contribute to the literature on network orchestration by highlighting how consensus-based approaches can enable collaboration in the absence of formal leadership or urgency.