Chapter 7 Building Multi-Stakeholder Sustainability Networks: The Cuyahoga Valley Initiative

Abstract

This chapter provides a rich and thick description of a collaborative, place-based, interorganizational process in the domain of social, ecological, and economic sustainability. Governmental agencies, businesses, philanthropic organizations, NGOs, consulting firms, and private citizens tried to move from an underorganized and tacit set of ineffective relationships toward a structural collaboration in service of a “place” known as the Cuyahoga River Valley. While the process built momentum and expectations among its participants and other stakeholders, an important outcome of the collaboration did not materialize as planned. The leading actors struggled with scaling a “negotiated order” and leveraging the high levels of commitment among the participants. Despite the setback, many of the aims of the collaboration continue to be achieved, albeit at a slower pace and without a high regional priority. The chapter explores whether the trans-organization development (Cummings, 1984) perspective is a useful model for intentionally intervening in a multi-stakeholder collaboration and the roles that negotiated order (Nathan & Mitroff, 1991) and referent organizations (Trist, 1983) play.

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