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Negotiating Meaning Systems in Multi-stakeholder Partnerships Addressing Grand Challenges: Homelessness in Western Canada

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Abstract

While multi-stakeholder partnerships are emerging as an increasingly popular approach to address grand challenges, they are not well studied or understood. Such partnerships are rife with difficulties arising from the fact that actors in the partnership have different understandings of the grand challenge based on meaning systems which have distinct and often opposing assumptions, values, and practices. Each partnership actor brings with them their individual values as well as the values and work practices of their home organization’s culture, alongside the wider meaning systems present within the sectoral spaces in which each organization is situated—public, private, or nonprofit. Yet, there is little understanding of how actors in multi-stakeholder partnerships negotiate multi-level meaning systems to reach partnership goals. In this 16-month ethnographic study, we take up a negotiated culture perspective to holistically examine the negotiation of multi-level meaning related to a focal grand challenge in a multi-stakeholder partnership established to end homelessness in Western Canada. Based on our findings, we contribute a process model to explain the ongoing negotiation of multi-level meanings in multi-stakeholder partnerships working to address grand challenges.

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Notes

  1. See Pettigrew (2000) for a rationale concerning utilizing ethnographic and grounded theory methodology in concert.

  2. The full semi-structured interview guide is available from the authors upon request.

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Funding

This study, which grew out of the first author's dissertation research, was supported by University of Victoria.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Business Administration, Abilene Christian University, 281 Mabee Business Building, ACU Box 29300, Abilene, TX, 79699, USA

    Sarah Easter

  2. Gustavson School of Business, University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada

    Matt Murphy

  3. Copenhagen Business School, San Jose State University, San Jose, USA

    Mary Yoko Brannen

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  1. Sarah Easter
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Correspondence to Sarah Easter.

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Easter, S., Murphy, M. & Brannen, M.Y. Negotiating Meaning Systems in Multi-stakeholder Partnerships Addressing Grand Challenges: Homelessness in Western Canada. J Bus Ethics 183, 31–52 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-022-05064-7

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