Governance Arrangements of Cross-Sector Collaboration and Its Effectiveness

Leaders’ perceptions of the effectiveness of their organization’s collaborations are critical as they determine current and future collaboration. This article examines perceived collaboration effectiveness—the extent to which targeted goals are achieved—based on an organization’s role in that collaboration’s governance arrangements (initiation, funding, coordination, and decision-making). Findings suggest that governance arrangements have modest association with perceived effectiveness of collaborations between nonprofits and local governments in Lebanon. Perceived effectiveness increases when an organization is directly engaged in coordinating the collaboration’s work, activities, resources, and partners, but decreases when an organization has the responsibility for decision-making. Perceived effectiveness also appears to be related to trust, relationship effectiveness, service category, and the organization’s sector.