Communication · Executive Insight Brief · 251
A shared mission does not assign authority
Provan and Kenis show that collaboration needs an explicit authority architecture fitted to trust, size, goal consensus, and network-level coordination demands
Premise
A coalition can agree on a mission and still remain unable to act as one network. Collaboration does not answer who convenes, sets agendas, owns shared data, resolves disputes, represents the whole, or closes a network-level decision. Keith Provan and Patrick Kenis turn that ambiguity into a governance design problem.
Across multi-organization networks, repeated communication failures may signal structural mismatch rather than poor messaging. If nobody has legitimate authority to decide for the network, clearer messages only document the ambiguity. The question is which governance form can carry the coordination burden with sufficient member legitimacy.
What the model is: Modes of Network Governance in Knowledge →
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- FamilyModel
- CategoryAnalytical Frameworks, Typologies & Heuristics
- DomainOrganization & Structure
What these mean
Editorial orientation · Family
Model
In this series, Model names the editorial family primarily used to understand and explain communication: theories, frameworks, effects, traditions, principles and other conceptual resources. It is an umbrella for a route into the field, not a claim that every included object is a predictive model.
Editorial orientation · Category
Analytical Frameworks, Typologies & Heuristics
Organizes dimensions, distinctions, types or questions so that a situation can be examined systematically. A framework supplies structure, a typology distinguishes forms, and a heuristic offers a usable way to orient judgment.
- KnowledgeModes of Network Governance