Should I stay or should I go? An empirical study on collaboration continuance factors in a goal-directed social impact network

Purpose driven organizational networks intend to create impact. These consciously created networks are goal-directed (Raab & Kenis, 2009) and increasingly adopted to provide public services (Chen, 2008), such as co-reliance in social housing. KwilT is such a network, composed of five organizations, aiming to strengthen the overall well-being of their respective target groups (older persons and youngsters with disabilities). The goal is to enhance co-reliance through a unique concept in which living at home and providing care is combined within a specially designed co-living neighborhood in Tilburg (KwilT). Research has been conducted on becoming part of interorganizational networks (Chen, 2008; Thomson & Perry, 2006; Ebers, 1997) or exiting networks (Rowley et al., 2005; Greve et al., 2010), but knowledge on why organizations remain in a network is limited. Greve et al. (2010) extended theory by studying whether and how alliance formation factors affect the withdrawal of organizations by taking a look at the joint function of embeddedness and friction. This study analyzes collaborative network processes. They can work as determinants to prevent network withdrawal by acting as indicators to remain in the network. Thomson and Perry (2006) and Chen (2008) both identified five variable dimensions that construct such collaborative processes. This research combines the dimensions into the following identified collaborative processes: (1) governance, (2) reciprocity and trust building, (3) organizational autonomy and (4) mutuality and sharing resources. Our study aimed to explore the influence of the four collaborative processes on intentions of organizations to remain in the network by answering the following research question: “How do the collaboration processes among organizations in the network influence the intention of these organizations to remain part of that network?”.