Let’s Start From the Beginning: Examining the Connections Between Partner Selection,Trust,and Communicative Effectiveness in Voluntary Partnerships Among Human Services Nonprofits

Abstract

The increasing popularity of interorganizational collaboration among human services nonprofits has generated significant interest and research from a variety of disciplines. However, the current literature has not sufficiently addressed the factors that shape trust and communication in human services nonprofit partnerships. As such, this study proposes that partner selection shapes trust and communication and, using data on 202 human services nonprofit partnerships in the state of Illinois, examines the relationship between partner selection factors and communication and trust in human services nonprofit partnerships. The results from the hierarchical regression analyses suggest that two partner selection factors, reputation and homophily, are significantly positively related to trust. Regarding the factors that shape communication, the results suggest that prior experience and trust are significantly positively related to communicative effectiveness.

Keywords

nonprofit interorganizational collaboration partner selection trust communication

In the United States, human services nonprofit organizations have long played an important role in the administration and delivery of social and human services to the people (Sowa, 2008). In fact, among the millions of nonprofit organizations in the United States, human service organizations “stand out as the quintessential expression of the nation’s benevolent spirit” (Boris, De Leon, Roeger, & Nikolova, 2010, p. 3). They are the organizations that most people think of when they hear the term nonprofit. They are a diverse group that includes local direct service providers such as child care, soup kitchens, and youth mentoring organizations, as well as large national organizations such as the Boys & Girls Clubs of America and the American Red Cross. In essence, human services nonprofits feed the hungry, provide housing to the homeless, provide job training and placement to unemployed, assist crime victims and offenders, help people prepare for and recover from disasters, and offer numerous other programs and services to assist individuals, especially the needy ones, in their daily lives (Boris et al., 2010). Due to the shrinking of government services in recent decades, these organizations now account for the majority of social or human services that are delivered in the country (Boris et al., 2010). That increase in the role of human services nonprofits has given rise to concerns over issues of duplication and fragmentation of services, as well as concerns about the logics, the efficiency, and the effectiveness of nonprofit organizing in the provision of such services (Gazley & Brudney, 2007; Sowa, 2008). As a way of addressing these concerns, policy makers, community leaders, and scholars have long advocated for more collaboration and coordination among these organizations (Gazley & Brudney, 2007; Longoria, 2005; Sowa, 2008).

As a result, over the past three decades, interorganizational collaboration among human services nonprofits has dramatically increased to the point where collaborative partnerships among these organizations have become one of the hallmarks of the new millennium (Atouba & Shumate, 2015; Gazley & Brudney, 2007; Heath, 2007; Longoria, 2005; Sowa, 2008). Although they form for a variety of reasons, human services nonprofit partnerships have often been credited as having “powerful and lasting effects on communities” (Heath, 2007, p. 146) by facilitating the emergence of new leaders (Innes & Booher, 1999), generating alternative and innovative solutions to community problems (Lawrence, Hardy, & Phillips, 2002; Zoller, 2000), and shaping “new civic cultures” (Chrislip & Larson, 1994, p. 123). Partnerships among human services nonprofits can have powerful and lasting effects on communities because they enable more holistic approaches to clients and individuals’ needs. Indeed, solving problems in communities can seem daunting at times because problems with health, jobs, the environment, education, housing, and crime are complex and interconnected. As such, organizations working in isolation are not likely to be effective in addressing such issues. For instance, in the health care field, collaboration among human services nonprofits is crucial to preventing fragmentation of services and reducing the likelihood of clients “falling through the cracks” between disparate and unconnected organizations. Therefore, collaboration among human services nonprofits can make a significant difference in the quality of services provided as well as their cost effectiveness.

The increasing popularity of interorganizational collaboration among human services nonprofits has generated significant interest and research from a variety of disciplines. Indeed, scholars have become increasingly interested in the emergence, evolution, and outcomes of these collaborative endeavors to deliver human services (Hill & Lynn, 2003; Provan & Milward, 2001; Sandfort, 1999; Selden, Sowa, & Sandfort, 2006; Sowa, 2009). However, too many unanswered questions still remain about why human services nonprofits work better with or trust certain partners as opposed to others, why certain human services nonprofit partnerships are more effective than others, or, more generally, how the ways in which human services nonprofit partnerships form shape the organizing processes within them (Sowa, 2008). Thus, although the literature on nonprofit relationships is growing and has made significant contributions to our understanding of these phenomena, the current literature on nonprofits offers very little in terms of examination or explanations of how the “why(s)” of nonprofit partnerships influence the “doing” of these partnerships. The lack of such investigation is especially troubling when considering the various reports of the high rates of collaborative failure among human services nonprofits (Bardach & Lesser, 1996; Huxham & Vangen, 2005).

Moreover, communication has not received much attention as an important process in nonprofit partnerships. Despite the fact that all interorganizational relationships are, at least partly (Wigand, 1976), if not essentially (Keyton, Ford, & Smith, 2008), communicative phenomena and that information exchange, conversations, and ideas sharing are critical interorganizational collaborative resources (Eisenberg et al., 1985), previous nonprofit collaboration literature (Atouba & Shumate, 2015; Cooper & Shumate, 2012; Heath, 2007; Kasouf, Celuch, & Bantham, 2006; Shumate, Fulk, & Monge, 2005; Thomson & Perry, 2006; Zoller, 2004) has not sufficiently considered the factors that shape communication in nonprofit partnerships.

The present study aims to contribute to the filling of those gaps in literature. As such, the general purpose of this study is to investigate the connections between antecedents and processes of nonprofit collaboration. More specifically, this study examines the relationship between partner selection factors or motives (the antecedents) and trust and communication (the processes) in voluntary human services nonprofit partnerships. As such, this study seeks to investigate how the ways in which nonprofits select partners are related to their trust for and communication with those partners. Additionally, the study also examines the relationship between trust and communication in human services nonprofit partnerships.

This study makes three main contributions to current communication and nonprofit literatures and practice. First, it contributes to the nonprofit literature by examining if and how partner selection influences partnership processes among nonprofits. Second, this study contributes to the communication literature by examining how antecedents of nonprofit partnerships—that is, partner selection motives—and trust relate to communication in those partnerships. Effective communication is key to the success of nonprofit partnerships; as such, it is important to examine the factors that predict communicative effectiveness in these partnerships. Third, this study provides valuable insights to nonprofit practitioners or managers on how to build trust in collaborative relationships, thereby improving the “doing” of collaboration.

The remainder of the article is organized into five main parts. In the literature review, the phenomena of partner selection, trust, and interorganizational communication are reviewed. After that, the hypotheses for the study are derived. The last three parts of the article consist of the methods, the results, and the discussion section.

Literature Review

Partner Selection Among Nonprofits

Partner selection is a critical process in any collaborative endeavor. In fact, after an organization has made the decision to engage in a collaborative relationship, assuming that it is not coerced or mandated to do so by a third party (Stephens, Fulk, & Monge, 2009), its selection of an appropriate partner is the next critical decision. Partner selection, which refers to the process of searching, evaluating, and eventually selecting a collaborative partner, is generally regarded as an important control choice in managing collaborative relationships (Ireland, Hitt, & Vaidyanath, 2002). Partner selection is viewed as critical process because interorganizational partnerships are inherently risky endeavors (Atouba & Shumate, 2015).

Although the research on partner selection is rich in factors explaining why and how organizations select partners, that research has mostly focused on the investigation of strategic alliances and partnerships among firms or business organizations (Beckman, Haunschild, & Phillips, 2004; Li & Rowley, 2002; Wuyts & Geyskens, 2005). As such, the phenomenon of partner selection among nonprofits has rarely been investigated. Nevertheless, there is some nonprofit research (for example, Atouba & Shumate, 2015; Graddy & Chen, 2006; Guo & Acar, 2005; Shumate et al., 2005; Sowa, 2008; 2009) that has suggested a number of factors that may be important in partner selection among nonprofits. These include prior experience with the partner, homophily, social or interpersonal networks, reputation, resource complementarity or dependency, and institutional mandates. Although institutional pressures or mandates are heavily discussed in the nonprofit literature as important factors or motives for working with certain partners, they do suggest a constrained choice (Stephens et al., 2009) or a very limited degree of freedom in partner selection (Longoria, 2005), and, thus, fall out of the scope of this study.

While previous research (Ireland et al., 2002; Lambe & Speckman, 1997; Shah & Swaminathan, 2008) has suggested that the proper functioning and success of a collaborative relationship are both heavily dependent on partner selection, few studies, if any, have empirically examined the relationships between partner selection and partnership functioning or outcomes. This is especially true in the case of nonprofit partnerships. Examining the relationship between partner selection and partnership functioning could shed some lights regarding what constitutes appropriate partner selection. Two important elements of a partnership functioning include trust and communication among the partners (Austin, 2000; Keyton et al., 2008; Linden, 2002; Sowa, 2008).

Trust

According to Thomson and Perry (2006), trust is an important dimension of the interorganizational collaboration process. Trust refers to the belief that each partner in a collaborative endeavor (1) will make “good-faith efforts to behave in accordance with any commitments both explicit and implicit,” (2) will “be honest in whatever negotiations preceded such commitments,” and (3) will “not take excessive advantage of another even when the opportunity is available” (Cummings & Bromiley, 1996, p. 303). In other words, interorganizational trust refers to the mutual confidence that no partner in an interorganizational partnership will exploit another’s vulnerabilities or weaknesses, because opportunistic behavior would violate principles, norms, values, and standards of behavior that have been internalized by all parties involved (Bierly & Gallagher, 2007).

According to Ganesan (1994), trust consists of two dimensions: benevolence and competence. Benevolence-based trust has to do with the motives and intentions of the alliance partners. It exists to the extent that partners in a collaborative endeavor will behave and act in a way that shows their reliance on their partner’s goodwill and avoidance of opportunistic behavior (Ganesan, 1994). Competence-based trust, on the other hand, exists to the extent that partners in a collaborative endeavor consistently exhibit characteristics such as credibility and expertise (Ganesan, 1994). As such, competence-based trust reflects the degree to which partners respect and are willing to rely on each other’s expertise, capabilities, and judgments.

Trust is a central component of interorganizational collaboration because it reduces complexity, opportunism or free riding, and transaction costs more quickly than other organizing mechanisms (Bierly & Gallagher, 2007; Chiles & McMackin, 1996; Ireland et al., 2002; Ostrom, 1998; Smith, 1995). As a result, trust has been a central concept in interorganizational research for many decades (Gulati, 1995; Mohr & Spekman, 1994). Trust in interorganizational partnerships has been linked to innovation, competitiveness, stability, and many other positive outcomes (Bachmann & Zaheer, 2006; Dyer & Chu, 2003; Nooteboom, 2002). However, trust has rarely been examined in the context of nonprofit partnerships. In other words, the factors that influence trust in nonprofit partnerships are not known. This study proposes that partner selection factors or motives may influence trust in nonprofit partnerships.

Communicative Effectiveness

Communication constitutes or underlies most, if not all, aspects of interorganizational partnerships, and is thus critical to partnership success (Kapp & Barnett, 1983; Keyton et al., 2008; Lawrence et al., 2002; Mohr & Spekman, 1994). Indeed, in order for a partnership to function properly, and be beneficial and trustworthy, effective communication between partners is essential (Cummings, 1984; Jablin, Putnam, Roberts, & Porter, 1987). Communicative effectiveness, also sometimes referred to as communication quality (Jablin et al., 1987), refers to a partner’s perception of the quality of communication within a partnership, and includes such aspects as the adequacy, accuracy, credibility, completeness, and timeliness of information exchanged between partners (Daft & Lengel, 1986; Mohr & Spekman, 1994; Stohl & Redding, 1987). Communicative effectiveness is thus indispensable to partnership effectiveness.

Despite the importance of effective communication in interorganizational relations, it has not received much attention, especially from nonprofit scholars. Perhaps one of the main reasons why interorganizational communication is rarely studied as the focus or as a central dimension in collaboration research is that in most empirical studies of interorganizational relationships in general, researchers have typically considered communication as a facet of a broader construct or dimension, such as supply management (e.g., Chen, Paulraj, & Lado, 2004), marketing (e.g., Schultz & Evans, 2002), governance (e.g., Provan & Kenis, 2008), or mutuality (e.g., Thomson & Perry, 2006), or they have examined the extent to which the use of select communication (marketing, and public relations) strategies by firms enhances operational performance (e.g., Prahinksi & Benton, 2004). Although the study of these aforementioned constructs or dimensions is important, it is equally as important, if not more important, to examine communication in its own right and investigate the factors that shape the effectiveness of communication in interorganizational partnerships. Such an investigation is necessary to determine why certain nonprofit partnerships work or function better than others. This study proposes that partner selection is connected to communicative effectiveness in nonprofit partnerships.

Partner Selection, Trust, and Communicative Effectiveness

When a nonprofit is not mandated to work with another organization, it has the option of selecting its own partners when deciding to collaborate. Previous research (Ireland et al., 2002; Lambe & Speckman, 1997; Shah & Swaminathan, 2008) has suggested that partner selection influences partnership functioning. This study puts that suggestion to the test by using the dyadic partnership as the unit of analysis and examining the relationship between partner selection factors—that is, the “whys” of partner selection—and trust and communicative effectiveness. Prior research suggests that key partner selection factors in voluntary nonprofit collaborations include prior experience, social networks, reputation, resource complementarity, and homophily.

Partner selection is a complex process (Ireland et al., 2002), and, depending on the partnership, the importance of each of those five factors may vary for each organization. As such, two organizations working together in a given partnership may have selected each other as partners for different reasons or through emphasizing different factors. Which of these five partner selection factors are associated with trust and communicative effectiveness, and how is trust related to communicative effectiveness in human services nonprofit partnerships? This study examines these questions through a survey of human services nonprofits about their partnerships.

The Role of Prior Experience

Prior experience with an organization can be an important factor in selecting that organization as a partner in subsequent collaborations. This is especially the case when the prior experience was assessed positively by the parties involved in the collaboration. Previous research on nonprofits alliance partner choice (Shumate et al., 2005) suggests that prior experience can play an important role in predicting future partnerships among nonprofits.

Prior experience can play an important role in shaping the process and effectiveness of a collaborative relationship. Indeed, the extent to which an organization trusts its partners is based not only on the partners’ characteristics but also on the trusting organization’s collaborative experiences (Bierly & Gallagher, 2007). Organizations are affected by their past experiences when making decisions about partnerships (Shumate et al., 2005). An organization’s propensity to trust is dependent, in part, on the outcomes of its prior partnerships (Ansell & Gash, 2008; Margerum, 2001). A prehistory of positive experiences with a partner can positively increase an organization’s propensity to select and trust that partner in the future. Indeed, an organization that has had a good collaborative experience with a partner in the past is more likely to select that partner in the future (Gulati & Sytch, 2008; Shumate et al., 2005). As such, one would expect a nonprofit that selects a partner based on prior experience is more likely to also trust that partner.

Hypothesis 1a (H1a): There is a positive relationship between partner selection based on prior experience with partner and trust.

Prior experience can also affect interorganizational communication among two nonprofits. Indeed, prior experience constitutes a direct way for an organization to learn about a partner (Gulati & Sytch, 2008). Through prior experiences, organizations accumulate knowledge about their past partners’ behaviors, preferences, styles, cognitive frameworks, and other important organizational attributes and characteristics (Gulati & Sytch, 2008). Such knowledge is valuable for future interactions or collaborations with that partner as it can be used to make communication with that partner more effective (Ansell & Gash, 2008).

Hypothesis 1b (H1b): There is a positive relationship between partner selection based on prior experience and communicative effectiveness.

The Role of Social Networks

Interorganizational partnerships often emerge from the shared connections or social networks (for example, friendship, family ties, co-memberships in certain groups or clubs) between members of various organizations (Uzzi, 1997). These shared connections among members of organizations constitute repositories for information about potential organizational partners that enable a thorough evaluation of that partner and decrease uncertainty in their future behavior (Bierly & Gallagher, 2007). Social networks or shared connections among members of organizations can facilitate the communication process, provide social norms and standards to guide behavior, and provide opportunities for the institutionalization of commonly accepted practices and other relevant commonalities (Gulati, 1995). Social networks, therefore, may enable trust by allowing opportunism and uncertainty to be minimized because the consequences of such behavior could also affect numerous other relationships (Gulati, 1995). Additionally, these networks among the individuals in the organizations are likely to lead to higher communicative effectiveness because of the familiarity between the members of both organizations. As such, it is reasonable to expect that social network-based partner selection will be positively associated with trust and communicative effectiveness in nonprofit partnerships.

Hypothesis 2a (H2a): There is a positive relationship between partner selection based on social networks and trust.

Hypothesis 2b (H2b): There is a positive relationship between partner selection based on social networks and communicative effectiveness.

The Role of Reputation

Reputation represents another important partner selection factor that could affect the functioning of a collaborative relationship among nonprofits. An organization’s reputation is “a socially constructed concept and is the outcome of the process of legitimization” (Bierly & Gallagher, 2007, p. 141). Organizations develop a general reputation based on their past actions and strategies that demonstrate their capabilities, integrity, and conformity to institutionalized norms, standards, and practices. In general, an organization’s reputation influences the extent to which it is trusted by other organizations in two ways. First, a strong reputation will increase the visibility of an organization, which in turn will increase its trust capital because other organizations will know more about it (Bierly & Gallagher, 2007). Second, the more positive the reputation, the more likely it is to increase trust because of the “likeability” of the organization (Bierly & Gallagher, 2007). As such, it is reasonable to expect partner selection based on reputation to be positively associated with trust and communicative effectiveness.

Essentially, the reputation of a focal organization affects the behavior of other organizations toward that focal organization (Bierly & Gallagher, 2007). Thus, if an organization has a great reputation, its partners are likely to not only commit to the partnership, but also “be on their best behavior.” Indeed, an organization’s reputation is developed and maintained over time through interactions between that organization, its partners, and its other stakeholders. As such, when a focal organization selects and works with a reputable partner, it is in fact also investing in its own reputation, and is likely to improve or enhance its reputation if the partnership functions properly or is evaluated favorably by the reputable partner. A positive evaluation by a reputable partner not only increases the chances of future partnerships with that partner, but it also enables the focal organization to obtain endorsements, recommendations, references, or letters of support from the reputable partner. Collaborating with a reputable partner, therefore, is likely to encourage an organization to communicate effectively in order to increase the chances of partnership success and positive evaluation by the reputable partner. In sum, a partnership with a reputable organization is likely to be characterized by effective communication because it is in the interest of both the focal organization and its partner.

Hypothesis 3a (H3a): There is a positive relationship between partner selection based on reputation and trust.

Hypothesis 3b (H3b): There is a positive relationship between partner selection based on reputation and communicative effectiveness.

The Role of Resource Complementarity

Resource complementarity is another important factor of partner selection (Shah & Swaminathan, 2008). Complementarity occurs when one organization has unique resources (skills, capacities, or assets) that another organization needs or could benefit from. Such exchange relationships are well documented in interorganizational relations research (Thomson & Perry, 2006) and supported by resource dependence theory (Pfeffer & Salancik, 1978).

When a potential organizational partner has access to resources, assets, or capabilities that a focal organization needs, the focal organization may have to work with that potential partner to gain access to those resources (Hitt, Ahlstrom, Dacin, Levitas, & Svobodina, 2004; Shah & Swaminathan, 2008). Resource complementarity is especially important as a partner selection factor when the resources sought are rare or unique. Although such situations are fairly rare in the human services nonprofit field, they nevertheless exist (Thomson & Perry, 2006).

Resource complementarity is based on the logic of need or dependency (Pfeffer & Salancik, 1978). Such logic may or may not result in the development of a partnership characterized by trust or effective communication. Indeed, an organization that selects a partner based on resource complementarity may or may not trust that organization or have effective communication with it. Unlike the partner selection factors examined so far, possession of a desirable resource does not provide much information to a focal organization about the character or the behavior of a potential partner. Because possession of a desirable resource does not provide any information about the behavior of a potential partner, it is therefore not likely to influence variations in trust or communicative effectiveness. As such, there appears to be no clear relationship between partner selection based on resource complementarity and either trust or communicative effectiveness.

Hypothesis 4a (H4a): There is no relationship between partner selection based on resource complementarity and trust.

Hypothesis 4b (H4b): There is no relationship between partner selection based on resource complementarity and communicative effectiveness.

The Role of Homophily

Homophily, or the “selection of others who are similar” (Monge & Contractor, 2003, p. 223), suggests that contact between similar entities occurs at a higher rate than among dissimilar entities (Kossinets & Watts, 2009; McPherson, Smith-Lovin, & Cook, 2001). Homophily has been frequently used in social science research to explain why actors form relationships with certain partners and not others (Atouba & Shumate, 2010, 2015; Bierly & Gallagher, 2007; Kossinets & Watts, 2009; McPherson et al., 2001; Monge & Contractor, 2003; Shumate et al., 2005). This previous research suggests that homophily is an important factor of partner selection among organizations and that it could affect the processes and effectiveness of interorganizational partnerships. This is so because similarity breeds trust (Gulati, 1995), as organizations tend to have more trust and confidence in other organizations if they share common important characteristics such as visions, values, status, cohort, operating systems, and so on (Atouba & Shumate, 2015; Bierly & Gallagher, 2007). Tacit understanding is facilitated by having similar characteristics. As such, partner selection based on homophily is likely to result in collaborative partnerships characterized by high trust and high-quality interorganizational communication. Indeed, the existence of key organizational similarities—such similar visions and values—between partners in a collaborative endeavor facilitates the process of working together.

Hypothesis 5a (H5a): There is a positive relationship between partner selection based on homophily and trust.

Hypothesis 5b (H5b): There is a positive relationship between partner selection based on homophily and communicative effectiveness.

Trust and Communication

The relationship between trust and communication in interorganizational relationships has received some attention in the business literature (Dirks & Ferrin, 2001; Panteli & Sockalingam, 2005). Trust has been found to have a positive relationship with openness in communication (Smith & Barclay, 1997), information sharing (Dirks, 1999; Panteli & Sockalingam, 2005), accuracy of information (Mellinger, 1959), and knowledge exchange (Davenport & Prusak, 1998) among firms. According to Panteli and Sockalingam (2005), there is a positive relationship between trust and communication, and high levels of trust are key to effective communication. Trust positively affects communication by improving the quality of dialogue and discussions, which in turn facilitates the sharing of ideas, knowledge, and information, and the development of committed relationships (Dirks, 1999; Panteli & Sockalingam, 2005). However, communication also plays an important role in enhancing and sustaining trust in interorganizational partnerships (Hardy, Phillips, & Lawrence, 1998). As such, although initial levels of trust in a partnership may be largely determined by partner selection factors, effective communication is necessary to sustain or increase that trust over the course of the partnership, as it enables or fosters the creation of shared meaning between parties.

Unfortunately, the relationship between trust and communication has rarely been studied in the context of nonprofit partnerships. This may be due to the fact that communication is rarely recognized as an important dimension of collaboration in the nonprofit literature. For instance, in the five key processes or the dimensions of the “doing” of collaboration identified by Thomson and Perry (2006), communication is absent. Despite the absence of previous studies on communication in nonprofit partnerships, based on previous research on inter-firm relations, one should reasonably expect trust to be positively related to communicative effectiveness in partnerships among human services nonprofits.

Hypothesis 6 (H6): There is a positive relationship between trust and communicative effectiveness.

Method

Population

The population for this investigation consists of human services nonprofits—more specifically the collaborative partnerships among them—in the state of Illinois. These are nonprofits that are involved in the provision or administration of human services in the state of Illinois. Human service organizations comprise one of the major categories of nonprofit organizations under the National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE). The list of human services nonprofits in the state of Illinois for the fiscal year 2010-2011 was obtained from the urban institute. That list is compiled based on the yearly tax filings of nonprofits. The list comprised 1,787 human services nonprofits. All the human services nonprofit from the target population for this investigation are categorized as P under the NTEE classification system.

Participants

In order to get data about the human services nonprofits in the state and their collaborative partnerships, key informants from those organizations were targeted. As such, the participants or respondents in this study were key organizational representatives from the human services nonprofits. Because this study relies on self-reported responses about organizations and interorganizational partnerships and most respondents depend on memory, there is a risk of inaccuracy. In order to reduce this inaccuracy, this study defines the time period of collaborations as “in the past year.”

In addition, in order to reduce another possible inaccuracy from differences between unit of analysis (human services nonprofits’ collaborations) and unit of observation (individuals), it was required that the surveys be completed by individuals who were leaders (CEO, director, executive board member) or senior personnel members of their nonprofits and could therefore meaningfully act as representatives of the organizations involved in the collaborations. Thus, this study, in consistency with previous research on interorganizational relationships (Galaskiewicz, 1985; Provan, Fish, & Sydow, 2007), assumes that the organizational leader or CEO equivalent who acts as key informant and completes the survey “in fact has knowledge of the information being sought” (Wasserman & Faust, 1994, p. 57).

Two hundred thirty-six respondents attempted the online survey in Qualtrics. One hundred seven of those respondents had received the survey via email, and the remaining respondents (129) received the survey via postal mail. Of the 1,787 organizations in the target population, 656 were contacted via emails, four organizations were removed because they were duplicates, and the remaining organizations (1,127) were contacted via postal mail. The organizations that were contacted via emails are organizations whose leaders’ or official email addresses could be obtained through online public searches of organizations’ websites and Facebook profiles. Of the 1,127 organizations that were contacted via postal mail, 94 could not be found based on their postal addresses from the NTEE database. In sum, the effective human services nonprofit population target consisted of 1,693 organizations. That means that the survey response rate (236 out 1,693 possible) was approximately 13.94%.

To assess nonresponse bias, characteristics of the organizations in the sample were compared with both characteristics of the organizations that did not participate in the study and characteristics of organizations in the general population. When comparing nonprofits represented in the sample with nonprofits that did not take part in the study, based on financial data from the fiscal years 2009-2011, the results of the independent samples t tests for equality of means show that the two groups do not differ significantly in terms of their total revenues (t = −.94, p = .35), their expenditures (t = −.94, p = .35), and their net incomes (t = −.27, p = .79). Additionally, after comparing sample averages with population averages through one sample t tests, there were no significant differences between organizations in the population and organizations in the sample in terms of total revenues (t = −1.36, p = .18), total expenditures (t = −1.31, p = .19), and net incomes (t = −.83, p = .41). In sum, the sample of organizations in this study appears to be representative of the population of human services nonprofits in the state.

Procedures

This study used an online survey through Qualtrics to gather data about the nonprofits and their collaborative partnerships from the informants. The survey asked the respondents to answer a variety of questions about themselves, their organizations, and two of their organizations’ partnerships with other human services nonprofits in the state.

Regarding collaborative partnerships, the survey asked respondents to list up to 10 nonprofits with which they collaborated in the previous year. Then the survey asked the respondents whether or not some of their organizations’ partnerships (the ones they listed) were mandated (required or arranged by a third party). There were three possible answers to that key question: (1) All the organizations’ partnerships are mandated, (2) some of the organizations’ partnerships are mandated and some are not, and (3) none of the organizations’ partnerships are mandated. Depending on the respondents’ answers to that question, they were exposed to different sets of questions moving forward. For this study, the focus is on respondents who chose Option 3. Out of the total 236 respondents who took part in the study, 125 reported that none of their organizations’ partnerships was mandated (all were voluntarily established).

The 125 respondents who reported that none of the organizations’ partnerships was mandated were then asked to select and focus on two organizations (partners) in answering subsequent questions: (1) the nonprofit that their organization had the best partnership with in the past year and (2) the nonprofit that their organization had the worst partnership with in the past year. Thus, each respondent provided data on two partnerships (good and bad) their organization had in the previous year. This dichotomy about the quality of the collaborative experience was introduced in part to ensure adequate variability in the dependent variables, given that in their recall and selection, respondents may have a natural bias toward selecting only positive or only negative experiences (Brewer & Webster, 2000; Zwijze-Koning & de Jong, 2005). For each of the two partnerships selected in each option, the respondents were asked questions pertaining to factors of partner selection, trust, and communicative effectiveness.

Measures

The measurement items in the survey have been designed after a careful examination of the information gathered during the background research and a thorough review of the network, collaboration, and alliance literatures. Table 1 presents the items for the variables of the study.

Table 1.

Variables and Survey Items.

Variable	Item
Prior experience (α = .92)	Our organization has worked well with that organization in the past
	Our organization has had a successful collaboration with that organization in the past
	Our organization has had a good relationship with that organization in the past
Social/communication networks (α = .85)	Members of our organization are very familiar with members of that organization
	Members of our organization have friends/acquaintances in that organization
	Members of our organization frequently interact with members of that organization
Reputation (α = .92)	That organization does good work
	That organization has a good reputation
	That organization works well with other organizations
Resource complementarity/dependency (α = .88)	That organization has resources that our organization need
	That organization has assets that our organization needs
	That organization has capabilities that our organization needs
Homophily (α = .89)	Our organizations both have similar visions
	Our organizations both share the same values
Trust (α = .95)	We can rely on our partner to abide by the collaboration agreement
	There is a high level of trust in the working relationship with our partner
	We trust that our partner’s decisions will be beneficial to the collaboration
	We trust that our partner’s decisions will be beneficial to our organization
Communicative effectiveness (α = .97)	Communication with this Partner is untimely/timely
	Communication with this Partner is inaccurate/accurate
	Communication with this Partner is inadequate/adequate
	Communication with this Partner is incomplete/complete
	Communication with this Partner is not credible/credible

Partner selection

In order to examine factors of partner selection, respondents were asked to rate how important various factors were in influencing the formation of collaborative relationships by the organizations they represent. More precisely, a 7-point Likert-type scale (with 1 representing “not at all” and 7 representing “very important”) was used to ask the representative of each organization in the sample to select the number that best indicate how important each reason or criterion was in its choice of specific organizations as a partners. Partner selection reasons or motivations in this investigation include (1) social networks, (2) reputation, (3) resource complementarity, (4) homophily, and (5) prior experience.

Each of those partner selection factors was initially measured by three items. As such, the partner selection measure initially had a total of 15 items. However, after conducting a factor analysis, one item measuring homophily was eliminated because it led to cross loadings and it contributed to less total variance explained. The reliabilities of each of the factors of partner selection, namely, social networks (α = .85), reputation (α = .92), resource complementarity (α = .88), homophily (α = .89), and prior experience (α = .92), were all good or excellent.

Length of collaboration

The length of collaboration represents the number months that the collaboration has lasted. That number can vary between 0 (for less than a month) and 120 months (10 years). This variable was primarily used as a control variable.

Quality of collaboration

The quality of collaboration is a dichotomous variable, which measures whether a respondent characterized a partnership as good (1) or bad (2).

Trust

Trust here represents the belief that an organization’s word, action, and behavior are reliable and that the organization will fulfill its obligation in the collaborative partnership. Trust was measured using a four-item measure from Norman (2002). The four-item scale was unidimensional and exhibited excellent reliability (α = .95)

Communicative effectiveness

Communicative effectiveness simply measures the quality of communication among the partners involved in the collaboration, as perceived by the informant. Communicative effectiveness was measured using Mohr and Spekman’s (1994) communication quality five items inventory. The five-item inventory, which is designed as a semantic differential, measures the timeliness, the accuracy, the adequacy, the completeness, and the credibility of communication among the partners. The communicative effectiveness scale was unidimensional and exhibited excellent reliability (α = .97).

Analysis

The unit of analysis in this study is the collaborative relationship between each organization and each of its two partners. Given that each respondent had to provide data about two of their organizations’ partnerships, the 125 respondents whose organizations only had voluntary partnerships provided data for 250 partnerships. Thus, it is on those 250 partnerships data that the analysis was conducted.

In order to analyze the partnerships data, hierarchical regression analysis was used. One of the main assumptions of regression analysis is that observations should be independent (i.e., independence of residuals). However, in this study, each respondent provided data on two partnerships. To determine if the independence assumption was violated and how severely, the Durbin-Watson statistic (Durbin & Watson, 1971) was used. The Durbin-Watson statistic is a test statistic used to detect the presence of first order autocorrelation in the residuals from a regression analysis (Durbin & Watson, 1971). The Durbin-Watson statistic ranges in value from 0 to 4. A value toward 0 indicates strong positive autocorrelation, a value near 2 indicates non-autocorrelation, and a value toward 4 indicates strong negative autocorrelation (Wooldridge, 2009). Thus, in order for the regression analysis assumption of independence of residuals to not be violated, the Durbin-Watson statistic should be close to 2 (Savin & White, 1977). For all the regression analyses in this study, the Durbin-Watson statistics varied between 2.08 and 2.20. Thus, the observations were sufficiently independent to reasonably conduct regression analyses.

Results

Tables 2 and 3 present the descriptive statistics and the correlation matrix of the main study variables. From Table 2, of all the partner selection factors examined, social networks between members of organizations were rated by the nonprofits as the least important reason for selecting a partner. On the other hand, reputation was generally rated by the nonprofits as the most important factor in selecting a partner. Table 3 shows that all the partner selection factors are significantly correlated with each other and with trust and communicative effectiveness.

Table 2.

Descriptive Statistics of the Major Study Variables.

Variable	n	M	SD	α	Minimum	Maximum
Age of collaboration (1)	202	52.20	43.93	—	1	120
Prior experience (3)	193	5.58	1.32	.92	1	7
Social network (3)	193	4.80	1.53	.85	1	7
Reputation (3)	193	5.80	1.31	.92	1	7
Resource complementarity (3)	193	5.29	1.67	.88	1	7
Homophily (2)	193	5.54	1.44	.89	1	7
Trust (4)	191	5.46	1.47	.95	1	7
Communicative effectiveness (5)	188	5.61	1.38	.97	1	7

Note. The variation in sample size is due to missing data. The number of items used to compute each measure is in parentheses.

Table 3.

Correlation Matrix of Study Variables.

Variable	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
1. Prior experience	—	.55** (193)	.68** (193)	.24** (193)	.57** (193)	.54** (191)	.56** (188)
2. Social networks		—	.54** (193)	.39** (193)	.45** (193)	.41** (191)	.40** (188)
3. Reputation			—	.44** (193)	.64** (193)	.62** (191)	.56** (188)
4. Resource complementarity				—	.28** (193)	.34** (191)	.20** (188)
5. Homophily					—	.53** (191)	.46** (188)
6. Trust						—	.72** (188)
7. Communicative effectiveness							—

Note. N of respondents is in parentheses.

p < .05. **p < .01. (two-tailed)

Table 4 presents the results of the hierarchical multiple regression analysis testing the relationships between partner selection factors and trust. These results reveal that adding the partner selection factors in the second step of the hierarchical regression—after controlling for quality and length of collaboration—resulted in significant improvements in variance explained in the dependent variable, trust (ΔF = 18.91, df = 182, p < .00). In other words, the manner in which human services nonprofits select their partners influences the degree of trust they have in those partnerships. However, not all partner selection factors have a relationship with trust. Although Table 3 showed that all partner selection factors are correlated with trust, after accounting for the quality of collaboration and other partner selection factors, only reputation (β = .28, p < .01) and homophily (β = .15, p < .05) are still significantly positively related to trust. As such, of all the hypotheses predicting trust, only H3a, H4a, and H5a were supported.

Table 4.

Hierarchical Multiple Regression Analyses Predicting Trust From Partner Selection factors.

Variables	Model 1			Model 2
Variables	B	SE B	β	B	SE B	β
Quality of collaboration	−1.64	.18	−.56**	−1.05	.16	−.36***
Length of collaboration	−.01	.01	−.03	−.01	.01	−.04
Prior experience				.15	.08	.13
Social network				.01	.06	.01
Reputation				.32	.09	.28**
Resource complementarity				.06	.05	.07
Homophily				.15	.07	.15*
R ²	.31			.54
F	41.42***			31.01***
ΔR²				.24
ΔF				18.91
Durbin-Watson d				2.16

Note. N = 190.

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Table 5 presents the results of the hierarchical multiple regression analysis testing the relationships between partner selection factors and communicative effectiveness. The results from Table 5 reveal that adding the partner selection factors in the second step of the hierarchical regression—after controlling for quality and length of collaboration—resulted in significant improvements in variance explained in the dependent variable, communicative effectiveness (ΔF = 15.70, df = 179, p < .00). Thus, the partner selection factors that human services nonprofits emphasize when selecting their partners influence the quality of communication within those partnerships. However, not all partner selection factors have a relationship with communicative effectiveness. Among the partner selection factors, only prior experience (β = .26, p < .01) and reputation (β = .25, p < .01) are significantly positively related to communication effectiveness. Those results initially suggest that H1b, H3b, and H4b were supported.

Table 5.

Hierarchical Multiple Regression Analyses Predicting Communicative Effectiveness From Partner Selection Factors and Trust.

Variables	Model 1			Model 2			Model 3
Variables	B	SE B	β	B	SE B	β	B	SE B	β
Quality of collaboration	−1.26	.18	−.46**	−.74	.17	−.27***	−.21	.16	−.08
Age of collaboration	−.01	.01	−.08	−.01	.01	−.10	−.01	.01	−.08
Prior experience				.27	.09	.26**	.19	.08	.19*
Social network				.05	.06	.06	.05	.06	.05
Reputation				.26	.09	.25**	.11	.08	.10
Resource complementarity				−.05	.05	.06	−.07	.05	−.09
Homophily				.06	.07	.06	−.01	.06	−.01
Trust							.50	.07	.53***
R ²	.21			.45			.58
F	24.56***			21.04***			30.80***
ΔR²				.24			.13
ΔF				15.70			54.84
Durbin-Watson d				2.20			2.08

Note. N = 187.

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

However, when controlling for trust in the third step of the hierarchical regression, only prior experience (β = .19, p < .05) remains significantly related to communicative effectiveness. Moreover, trust is positively related to communicative effectiveness (β = .53, p < .00), thereby providing support for H6. These results may suggest an indirect relationship between reputation-based partner selection and communicative effectiveness through trust. To more directly test for indirect effects—that is, mediation—through trust, an SPSS script developed by Preacher and Hayes (2008) was used. That approach to estimating indirect effects, which is consistent with recommendations by Hayes (2009, 2013) about new techniques for investigating statistical mediation, is very advantageous because it uses bootstrapping methods to generate confidence intervals for estimates for the indirect or mediated effects, and it makes any violations of the assumption of normal distributions of scores less problematic (Hayes, 2009). The results of the indirect effect tests, outlined in Table 6, support the suggestion that trust does mediate the relationship between reputation-based partner selection and communicative effectiveness. Additionally, these results also show that although homophily-based partner selection is not directly related to communicative effectiveness, it is indirectly related to it through trust.

Table 6.

Mediation Analyses Results (Test of Indirect Effects Through Trust).

	Effect	SE (boot)	LLCI	ULCI
Prior experience	.08	.05	−.01	.19
Reputation	.16	.06	.06	.31
Social networks	.01	.04	−.07	.08
Homophily	.07	.04	.01	.18
Resource complementarity	.03	.03	−.03	.08

Note. Lower Level Confidence Intervals (LLCI) and Upper Level Confidence Intervals (ULCI) are bootstrap percentile confidence intervals for indirect effects. Effects with no zero in the intervals indicate significant indirect effects. Number of samples used for indirect effects confidence intervals: 5,000. Level of confidence for indirect effects: 95%.

Discussion

The general purpose of this study was to examine the connections among partner selection factors, trust, and communicative effectiveness in voluntary human services nonprofit partnerships. When nonprofits are not mandated to work with specific partners, they still have to decide which partners to select if they decide to collaborate. As such, partner selection is a crucial process in nonprofit collaboration. The results of the study, summarized in Table 7, show that partner selection factors, trust, and communicative effectiveness are related.

Table 7.

Summary of Hypothesis Testing for Direct Relationships.

Hypotheses	Statement	Support (yes/no)
H1a	There is a positive relationship between partner selection based on prior experience with partner and trust.	No
H1b	There is a positive relationship between partner selection based on prior experience and communicative effectiveness.	Yes
H2a	There is a positive relationship between partner selection based on social networks and trust.	No
H2b	There is a positive relationship between partner selection based on social networks and communicative effectiveness.	No
H3a	There is a positive relationship between partner selection based on reputation and trust.	Yes
H3b	There is a positive relationship between partner selection based on reputation and communicative effectiveness.	No
H4a	There is no relationship between partner selection based on resource complementarity and trust.	Yes
H4b	There is no relationship between partner selection based on resource complementarity and communicative effectiveness.	Yes
H5a	There is a positive relationship between partner selection based on homophily and trust.	Yes
H5b	There is a positive relationship between partner selection based on homophily and communicative effectiveness.	No
H6	There is a positive relationship between trust and communicative effectiveness.	Yes

Partner Selection and Trust

The results from the analysis revealed that partner selection does indeed influence trust in human services nonprofit partnerships. Specifically, nonprofits that emphasized reputation and organizational similarities in visions and values (homophily) in selecting their partners were more likely to trust those partners. A common thread or link between reputation and similarities in visions and values is that they both constitute important sources or repositories for strategic information about an organizational partner’s identity, interests, priorities, and legitimacy.

An organization’s reputation represents an important source of strategic information about a potential organizational partner because it constitutes a “legitimacy marker” (Bierly & Gallagher, 2007; Eisenhardt & Schoonhoven, 1990). Indeed, given that an organization’s reputation is generally based on its past actions, behavior, and strategies, it serves to demonstrate the capabilities, integrity, and conformity of that organization to institutionalized norms, standards, and practices in an organizational field or domain. In other words, having a good reputation, in a field or domain, means that one is a “proven commodity” or “good bet” for collaborative partnerships and that encourages trust. Having a bad reputation, on the other hand, is likely to reduce opportunities for future collaborative partnerships. In general, an organization’s reputation, especially when it is positive or favorable, is a good predictor of future behavior and can be a deterrent to the threat of opportunism because reputation is an asset that organizations are constantly trying to maintain and enhance. As such, they are unlikely to deviate from norms, standards, practices, or behaviors that have earned them their reputation, legitimacy, or special standing in their field (Bierly & Gallagher, 2007).

Similarity in organizational vision and values is also an important source of strategic information and trust because it indicates to a potential partner that a focal organization values the same things as the potential partner and operates in a way that is familiar to the potential partner (Atouba & Shumate, 2015). This result is consistent with the “similarity breeds trust” argument (Gulati & Gargiulo, 1999; Gulati & Sytch, 2008). The importance of vision and values in organizing cannot be overemphasized as they constitute “identity markers” for organizations. They are essential elements of an organization’s strategy because they serve as foundational guides for organizational decision making. That is why many organizations devote considerable time and resources to articulate and communicate their visions and values to stakeholders and potential partners. Similarity in visions and values between two organizations is therefore a good indicator or predictor of trust between them because it not only reduces uncertainty or anxiety about the partner and the partnership, but it also creates a sense of affinity with the partner.

Contrary to expectations, prior experience with a partner was not a significant predictor of interorganizational trust. Thus, although prior experience was positively correlated with trust, when accounting for other partner selection factors in the regression model, its influence was not significant. This result may be explained by the fact that, although prior experience provides a nonprofit the opportunity to know and evaluate a partner (Bierly & Gallagher, 2007; Gulati & Sytch, 2008), it does not necessarily offer strong guarantees against the threat of opportunism. Indeed, while knowledge of a partner or how to work with a partner can facilitate the collaboration process with that partner, it does not necessarily entail that an organization trusts that partner, especially when it comes to the partner’s willingness to make decisions that will be beneficial to that organization or the collaboration. Partnership decisions are often characterized by structural inertia (Shumate et al., 2005), or the tendency to keep selecting the same partners over time. Such structural inertia in partner selection, however, is mostly due to convenience, habit, or unwillingness to incur search costs and to deal with the risks and uncertainties of selecting a new partner (Shumate et al., 2005), rather than trust in the habitual partner.

Social networks among members of human services nonprofits were not a significant predictor of trust in human services nonprofit partnerships. This lack of significance may be due to the fact that, when compared with other factors for selecting partners, social networks just are not that important. Of the five factors of partner selection examined in this study, social networks were also the lowest rated reason for selecting a partner. The lack of significant importance of organizational members’ social networks may be due to the fact that these networks simply do not generate any more valuable information than other sources (prior experience, reputation, organizational similarity). However, these networks may still play an important role as it is, at least in part, through them that information from prior experiences are stored and information about organizational similarities are accessed. In that sense, they may constitute the channels through which other sources of valuable information are accessed.

Resource complementarity was also not a significant predictor of trust within human services nonprofit partnerships. This result was expected because resource endowment does not necessarily say anything or provide any valuable information about the behavior or the “character” of an organization.

Partner Selection and Communicative Effectiveness

The results revealed that partner selection was also linked to communicative effectiveness in human services nonprofit partnerships. However, of the two partner selection factors—prior experience and reputation—that were significantly related to communicative effectiveness, only partner selection that emphasized prior experience was directly related to communicative effectiveness. Indeed, after controlling for trust, reputation-based partner selection no longer had a significant relationship with communicative effectiveness.

The positive relationship between partner selection based on prior experience and communication effectiveness is understandable because prior experience allows organizational partners the opportunity to know each other directly (Dyer & Chu, 2000; Gulati & Sytch, 2008; Uzzi & Gillespie, 2002). High interorganizational communication quality between two partners is more likely to occur when the partners have a good understanding of each other’s preferences, cultures, and interpretive frameworks (Paulraj, Lado, & Chen, 2008). As such, high communication quality between two organizations is more likely to occur if the two partners have had a prior experience of working together. Indeed, the knowledge capital that is accumulated through the prior experience makes communication easier and better in the future.

Aside from prior experience, reputation was the only other partner selection factor that was significantly linked to communicative effectiveness, although its effect disappeared after the addition of trust to the regression model. These results suggested an indirect relationship between reputation, which was a significant predictor of communicative effectiveness before the addition of trust, and communicative effectiveness through trust. A test of indirect effect of reputation through trust supported that suggestion. Overall, these results may be explained by the fact that, unlike prior experience, none of the other partner selection factors really allows a direct knowledge of an organization’s preferences, culture, and cognitive and interpretive frameworks (Paulraj et al., 2008). Indeed, the reputation of an organization may signal that that organization does many things well, but it does not socialize a potential organizational partner about that organization’s culture, communication preferences, or collaborative habits.

The three other partner selection factors, social networks, resource complementarity, and organizational similarity in values and vision also do not necessarily allow a potential organizational partner the opportunity to know how to properly communicate when collaborating with an organizational partner. Such knowledge, it seems, is best acquired through direct experience. However, the results of indirect effect tests through trust suggest that trust fully mediates the relationship between those two partner selection factors and communicative effectiveness. As such, although reputation and similarity in organizational vision and values (the basis for homophily in this study) have no direct effect on communicative effectiveness, they do indirectly positively influence communication quality in nonprofit partnerships.

Trust and Communication

The results revealed that interorganizational trust has a direct positive relationship with interorganizational communicative effectiveness. In fact, trust was the biggest predictor of communicative effectiveness and fully mediated the relationships between two partner selection factors—reputation and similarity in organizational vision and values—and communicative effectiveness. These results not only signify that human services nonprofits that trusted each other were more likely to communicate more effectively with each other, but they also underscore the important or essential role that trust plays in shaping the functioning of nonprofit partnerships. In fact, this study essentially suggests that partner selection matters in or influences partnership functioning primarily and most importantly because of its relationship to trust, and only secondarily because of its relationship to communicative effectiveness.

The positive relationship between trust and communication is consistent with previous results from the study of inter-firm alliances where trust has been found to have a positive effect on openness in communication (Smith & Barclay, 1997), information sharing (Dirks, 1999; Panteli & Sockalingam, 2005), accuracy of information (Mellinger, 1959), and knowledge exchange (Davenport & Prusak, 1998). Trust positively affects communication in nonprofit partnerships by improving the quality of meetings, negotiations, and discussions, which in turn facilitates the sharing of ideas and information.

However, the results may also signify that communicative effectiveness positively influences trust. Indeed, communication plays an essential role in nurturing or sustaining trust in interorganizational partnerships (Hardy et al., 1998). As such, although this study suggests that initial levels of trust in a partnership may be largely determined by partner selection factors, over the course of the partnership, perceptions of trust are likely to vary or change depending on perceptions of communicative effectiveness within the partnership. In sum, the direct positive relationship between trust and communicative effectiveness revealed through the results may simply reflect the mutual influence they both have on each other in partnerships.

Contributions

This study makes three main contributions to current communication and nonprofit literatures and practice. First, it examines if and how partner selection influences partnership processes among nonprofits. The results suggest that partner selection factors influence communication and trust within nonprofit partnerships. Second, this study contributes to the communication literature by examining how antecedents of nonprofit partnerships—that is, partner selection motives—relate to communication in those partnerships, and how communication relates to trust in those partnerships. Although most scholars generally agree that communication plays an important role in interorganizational relations, what is much less known are the factors that influence communication in those relationships, and how communication is related to trust in those relationships. Third, this study provides valuable insights to nonprofit practitioners or managers on how to improve communicative effectiveness in collaborative relationships, thereby improving the “doing” of collaboration.

Limitations and Future Research

Despite the important findings and contributions of this research, there are also some limitations. First, this study was cross-sectional, but it dealt with phenomena (communication and trust) that unfold, evolve, or change over time. Future research would do well to examine interorganizational collaboration from a process perspective to account for the fluctuations or changes in conditions over time. Moreover, since the analysis was conducted on cross-sectional data, readers should be careful or cautious about inferring causality from the results.

Third, this research relied on self-reports by key organizational informants. Although that is customary in organizational and interorganizational research, such ways of measuring variables relating to macro-level phenomena have often been criticized for the difficulty in determining how accurate they are. The communicative effectiveness measure used in this study, for instance, is a perceived effectiveness measure, that can be fairly subjective. However, there is also much evidence that effectiveness in the nonprofit sector is socially constructed and that outcome indicators can sometimes be limiting (Herman & Renz, 1997, 1999).

Finally, future research should also examine how well the variables examined in this study predict collaborative effectiveness. Given the various reports of the high rates of collaborative failure among human services nonprofits (Hassett & Austin, 1997; Huxham & Vangen, 2005), such an investigation is needed.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I am very thankful to Michelle Shumate, Scott Poole, John Lammers, and Matthew Kraatz for their guidance, comments, suggestions, and support in the completion of this study. In addition, I am very thankful to Katherine Cooper and Elizabeth Carlson for their help in the collection of the data for this study.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biography

Yannick C. Atouba (PhD, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2013) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Texas-El Paso, where he teaches courses on organizational communication, conflict communication, leadership, and quantitative research methods. His research focuses on (1) interorganizational forms, processes, and outcomes, especially among nonprofits, and (2) the examination of organizational stakeholders’ behaviors and attitudes, and their impact on organizations and organizing. He is currently investigating the connections between antecedents, processes, and outcomes of nonprofit networks.

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