Knowledge transfer and organizational effectiveness from collaborative relations in multi-relational networks

This dissertation seeks to answer two important questions related to collaboration. The first question is concerned with collaboration outcomes, both financial and non-financial, for participant organizations within a network of public service-oriented organizations. To answer this question, this dissertation integrates three prominent theoretical perspectives---resource-based view, which focuses on the resource characteristics of the organization, the institutional perspective, which focuses on the organizational need to attain legitimacy, and social network theory, which focuses on the relational structures of the organization's environment---to deepen our understanding of economic and non-economic gains of collaboration within a network of public service-oriented organizations. I argue that resource characteristics of an organization, reflected through its scopes of services and funding sources, by themselves should influence economic benefits. Moreover, resource abundant organizations with high centrality augment the benefits they derive from entering into exchange relationships. Further, I propose that an organization can leverage its reputation in the network, reflected through its own status and the status difference with its partners, for non-economic gains from such collaborative relationships. Finally, I posit that structural holes that an organization bridges have different predictive powers for the type of collaboration outcome under consideration. Analyses of data from a network of 58 organizations generally support arguments that relate to the first research question.;The second question posed in this dissertation relates to the role of different network relations in the transfer of knowledge. Specifically, this dissertation proposes that formal, informal, or semi-formal relations in a network can have a unique impact on the transfer of codified, tacit, or semi-tacit knowledge. In this segment of my dissertation it is argued that the type of knowledge transferred between organizations will depend on both the structure and nature of the network relations, as well as the extent of connections with the institutional environment. My findings show that the ability to exploit structural hole positions in informal interpersonal network relations enables the diffusion of tacit, marketing knowledge while redundant ties in the formal administrative network relations ease the exchange of codified, managerial procedures. Centrality in staff supported semi-formal service network relations facilitates the transfer of semi-tacit, technical knowledge. This piece of my dissertation advances the research on knowledge transfer by viewing knowledge as a multi-dimensional construct, the transmission of which can be facilitated by distinctive network relations and influenced by the institutional environment.