Journal of Business Ethics (2023) 183:31–52

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-022-05064-7

ORIGINAL PAPER

Negotiating Meaning Systems in Multi‑stakeholder Partnerships

Addressing Grand Challenges: Homelessness in Western Canada
Sarah Easter1 · Matt Murphy2 · Mary Yoko Brannen3

Received: 16 February 2021 / Accepted: 1 February 2022 / Published online: 23 February 2022
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2022

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 partner-
ship 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.

Keywords Grand challenges · Multi-level meaning negotiation · Multi-stakeholder partnership · Negotiated culture

Introduction (e.g., Ferraro et al., 2015; Selsky & Parker, 2005; Westley &
Vrendenburg, 1991). As a result, cross-sector partnerships—
The world today is rife with societal grand challenges that inter-organizational collaborations that extend across sec-
are multi-faceted (Ferraro et al., 2015) and necessitate the tors—have surfaced as the key organizational form utilized
concerted efforts of numerous and diverse stakeholders to tackle a myriad of grand challenges (e.g., Koschmann
(George et al., 2016; Olsen et al., 2016). Grand challenges et al., 2012; Selsky & Parker, 2005; van Tulder et al., 2016;
require collaborative problem solving, as they extend beyond Manning & Roessler, 2014) such as poverty (e.g., Sharma
the influence of individual organizations and necessitate & Bansal, 2017), health care (e.g., Hardy et al., 2006), and
multi-dimensional sets of skills and resources to tackle them climate change (e.g., Jay, 2013). In this article, we focus
specifically on one type of cross-sector partnership: multi-
stakeholder partnerships, which are voluntary collaborations
* Sarah Easter
sarah.easter@acu.edu involving multiple partners from the public, private, and
nonprofit sectors (Clarke & McDonald, 2019; Rühli et al.,
Matt Murphy
mmurph@uvic.ca 2017). As businesses, nonprofits, and governmental actors
participate in multi-stakeholder partnerships, they extend
Mary Yoko Brannen
maryyoko@me.com their activities beyond their economic and legal obligations
to consider voluntary ethical responsibilities to contribute to
1
College of Business Administration, Abilene Christian addressing grand challenges in a collaborative manner (Car-
University, 281 Mabee Business Building, ACU Box 29300, roll, 2016; Clarke & Crane, 2018; MacDonald et al., 2019).
Abilene, TX 79699, USA
The rising phenomenon of large multi-stakeholder partner-
2
Gustavson School of Business, University of Victoria, ships as the organizational form of choice for addressing
Victoria, Canada
grand challenges, and the lack of empirical studies investi-
3
Copenhagen Business School, San Jose State University, gating how such partnerships function over time, indicates
San Jose, USA

13
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32
that more research in this area is critical (Clarke & Mac-
Donald, 2019; Klitsie et al., 2018; MacDonald et al., 2019).
Sustained collaboration in multi-stakeholder partnerships
is daunting, as they must operate within an amalgam of dis-
tinct meaning systems related to the focal grand challenge
that extend across multiple and differentiated organizational
and professional boundaries. By “meaning system,” we refer
to the basic assumptions around work values and norms that
inform day-to-day practices (Barkema et al., 1997; Bran-
nen & Salk, 2000; Selsky & Parker, 2005). Each partner-
ship actor brings with them their individual values as well
as the values and work practices of their home organiza-
tion’s culture, alongside the wider meaning systems present
within the sectoral spaces in which each organization is situ-
ated—public, private, or nonprofit (e.g., Murphy et al., 2012;
Rivera-Santos et al., 2012). Partners often face fundamental
stumbling blocks around differing conceptualizations of both
the nature of, and ideation, regarding solutions to the grand
challenge (Dentoni et al., 2018; Fan & Zietsma, 2017; Fer-
raro et al., 2015). Inaction is often a result of such contrast-
ing meaning systems (Gillett et al., 2019; Koschmann, 2013;
Powell et al., 2018). And yet, it is this very diversity that,
when understood and leveraged, can allow new approaches
to tackling grand challenges to emerge and lead to sustained
engagement among the seemingly disparate actors involved
(Ferraro et al., 2015). However, we lack an understanding of
how actors in multi-stakeholder partnerships navigate multi-
level meaning systems in an ongoing manner while work-
ing to address partnership goals (Gillett et al., 2019). Even
as scholars have investigated sources of different meaning
systems in partnerships (e.g., Murphy et al., 2014; Selsky
& Parker, 2005; van Tulder & Pfisterer, 2014), much of the
literature focuses on meaning systems within one level of
analysis (e.g., Jay, 2013; Quelin et al., 2017). More empiri-
cal exploration is needed to elucidate multi-level meaning
dynamics and how they affect collaboration in multi-stake-
holder partnerships (Gillett et al., 2019; Quelin et al., 2017).
To investigate this lacuna, we employ a negotiated cul-
ture perspective (e.g., Brannen & Salk, 2000; Clausen, 2011;
Yagi & Kleinberg, 2011). We do so for two reasons: (1)
meaning systems are deeply rooted and it is ultimately the
degree to which they can be negotiated among the partners
that determine whether cross-sector collective action can be
sustained (Brannen & Salk, 2000; Gillett et al., 2019; Powell
et al., 2018; Van Maanen, 1988); (2) the insider–outsider
nature of the actors involved in such partnerships, who are
at once members of the partnership as well as of their home
organizations, necessitates ongoing adjustments in their
stances vis a vis the partnership challenge (Bishop & War-
ing, 2016; Maguire & Hardy, 2005). Thus, we use the term
“negotiate” intentionally as an important means of “getting
things accomplished” when actors from distinct home organ-
izations with different views and partner interests regarding
13
S. Easter et al.
the nature of the grand challenge must work together to take
collective action (Brannen, 1994; Brannen & Salk, 2000;
Ferraro et al., 2015). Negotiation can involve explicit strate-
gies such as arguing and debating as well as implicit tactics
such as power brokering and gaining tacit understanding
(Brannen, 1994; Strauss, 1978:2).
We investigated multi-level meaning negotiation in
a multi-stakeholder partnership established to eradicate
homelessness in Western Canada. The coalition to end
homelessness (referred to as the “Coalition”) involved over
forty partner organizations and associations from the public,
private, and nonprofit sectors. Individual actors within the
Coalition, who functioned as insider–outsider actors, held
a plethora of distinct and largely implicit understandings
of the grand challenge of homelessness that the Coalition
sought to address. Their understandings of the grand chal-
lenge were influenced by the different, multi-level, meaning
systems that each partnership actor brought into the partner-
ship, and these differing perspectives created challenges to
sustained collaboration. By documenting and analyzing the
ups and downs in the process of ongoing meaning negotia-
tion in the partnership via a 16-month ethnographic study,
we offer a process model to explain the negotiation of multi-
level meanings in multi-stakeholder partnerships working to
address grand challenges.
For ease of understanding and presentation on the part of
the reader, we present this research study in a conventional
manner with sections organized in sequence: theoretical
background, methodological overview, data collection, data
analysis, findings, and discussion. Nevertheless, in an itera-
tive fashion the data collection and analysis processes were
carried out in concert as we reflected on emergent patterns
and themes arising from the data as well as in the associated
literature (Mantere & Ketokivi, 2013; Suddaby, 2006).
Theoretical Background
Grand Challenges and Multi‑stakeholder
Partnerships
Grand challenges, such as homelessness, have the follow-
ing characteristics: (1) they are complex, involving a multi-
tude of interdependencies and interactions; (2) they present
organizations with radical uncertainty, meaning the conse-
quences of current actions are unpredictable; and (3) they
entail multiple criteria for evaluation that span across mul-
tidisciplinary boundaries, resulting in a variety of ways to
understand them (Dentoni et al., 2018; Ferraro et al., 2015:
364). Due to their multi-faceted nature, research suggests
that multi-stakeholder partnerships provide an effective
approach for addressing grand challenges (Austin, 2000;
Kolk et al., 2008; Vayaliparampil et al., 2021; Warner &
Negotiating Meaning Systems in Multi‑stakeholder Partnerships Addressing Grand Challenges:…
Sullivan, 2004 in Kolk, 2014:15). Rather than focusing on
the welfare of a focal organization, as is common in stake-
holder theory (Reypens et al., 2019; Tantalo & Priem, 2016),
we follow Roloff (2008) and Ferraro et al. (2015) by shift-
ing the emphasis from a focal organization to the variety of
stakeholders, or partners, who have an interest in working to
address a grand challenge by collaborating together.
By combining diverse resources and expert knowledge
from multiple sectors, multi-stakeholder partnerships hold
the potential to transcend the limitations of any one sector
and, therefore, to achieve multifocal, holistic, and sustain-
able solutions to grand challenges (Dentoni et al., 2018;
Kuenkel & Aitken, 2015; van Tulder & Pfisterer, 2014).
However, empirical evidence shows that realizing this mul-
tifocal advantage is fraught with significant inter-organiza-
tional challenges. The more complex the grand challenge
being addressed, the more multi-dimensional the partnership
is likely to be, and the more difficult it will be to collabo-
rate with diverse partners to pursue potential solutions in an
ongoing manner (Clarke & MacDonald, 2019; van Tulder &
Keen, 2018). Stagnation often results from the presence of
multiple viewpoints and conflicting interests about the grand
challenge (e.g., Koschmann, 2013; Powell et al., 2018). In
other words, addressing multi-level meaning-related differ-
ences is both inherently difficult and critical for ongoing
collaboration (Ferraro et al., 2015; San-Carranza & Longo,
2012; Villani et al., 2017). Our study, therefore, focuses on
advancing a better understanding of how insider–outsider
actors in multi-stakeholder partnerships navigate multi-level
meanings of grand challenges.
The Challenge of Navigating Multi‑Level Meaning
While the cross-sector (including multi-stakeholder) partner-
ship literature has explored sources of conflicting interests
in partnerships (e.g., Murphy et al., 2012; Selsky & Parker,
2005; van Tulder & Pfisterer, 2014), there is a dearth of stud-
ies focused on how partners negotiate different viewpoints
about the grand challenge in working to achieve partnership
goals (Gillett et al., 2019). For multi-stakeholder partner-
ships to function effectively, it is necessary for actors to
negotiate the multiple viewpoints regarding the grand chal-
lenge that originates from different organizations embedded
within distinct sectors (see Brannen & Salk, 2000; Dentoni
et al., 2018; Waddock et al., 2015). The process of negotiat-
ing meaning in such partnerships is likely to be continuous
(Dentoni et al., 2018; Jay, 2013) and to involve conflicting
interests (Powell et al., 2018) and ongoing issues related to
the grand challenge, both within and outside of the partner-
ship (Dentoni et al., 2018). The emergent literature on this
phenomenon that does exist is largely conceptual (e.g., Den-
toni et al., 2018) or focused on dyadic partnerships involv-
ing two sectors (e.g., Bishop & Warring, 2016; Caldwell
33
et al., 2017). A study by Klitsie et al. (2018) which examines
tensions between different frames and the maintenance of
‘optimal’ frame plurality in a multi-stakeholder partnership
is a notable exception. However, while the authors contrib-
ute to our understanding of the ways that meaning plays out
within the partnership from a rhetorical standpoint (Klitsie
et al., 2018), they stop short of elucidating the mechanisms
by which actors work through tensions between the different
frames present.
Furthermore, researchers have tended to focus on a sin-
gle level of analysis to investigate meaning negotiation in
partnerships, rather than considering the multi-level mean-
ing systems at work. Much of the scholarly work in this
area has focused on sectoral-level meaning systems and how
they play out within partnerships (e.g., Gray & Purdy, 2014;
Klitsie et al., 2018; Villani et al., 2017). For example, Jay
(2013) details how sectoral-level meaning systems, or log-
ics, play out within a multi-stakeholder partnership focused
on energy efficiency; transitioning the identity of the part-
nership from a client service business, to a public service
nonprofit, and finally to a complex hybrid organization.
Scholars have also focused on meaning negotiation at the
organizational level (e.g., Caldwell et al., 2017; Dahan et al.,
2010; Murphy et al., 2012). For instance, Gillet et al. (2019)
examine how meaning-related differences, such as growth
goals, are mitigated in a collaboration focused on restor-
ing the use of uninhabited houses. Although some research
exists related to individual-level meaning systems (e.g.,
Sloan & Oliver, 2013), there has been much less focus on
this level of analysis. Overall, the lack of emphasis on multi-
level meaning negotiation in partnerships is problematic as it
leads to under-specification and/or misspecification of levels
of analysis; this is particularly so given that these levels of
meaning-making are characterized by continuous permeable
boundaries with actors who function as insider–outsiders
(e.g., Hardy et al., 2006; Lawrence et al., 2002) and who
carry assumptions about work, values, and practices that are
tied to individual, organizational, and sectoral meaning sys-
tems (e.g., Murphy et al., 2012; Rivera-Santos et al., 2012).
More empirical work is, therefore, necessary to understand
the multi-level meaning dynamics of partnerships with pri-
vate, public, and nonprofit sector influences, and how these
dynamics affect inter-organizational collaboration (Athana-
sopoulou & Selsky, 2015; Quelin et al., 2017).
In sum, there is emerging evidence that multi-stake-
holder partnerships are the organizational form best suited
to address grand challenges. And yet, such partnerships are
not well understood empirically, especially in comparison
to dyadic partnerships, indicating a need for a deeper explo-
ration of the multi-level dynamics of meaning negotiation
within such partnerships. To investigate multi-level meaning
negotiation in multi-stakeholder partnerships, we turn to the
negotiated culture literature.
13
34 S. Easter et al.

Negotiated Culture and Meaning Negotiation I have been doing this work for years, and I have never
seen a community rally behind a cause in the way
Negotiated culture refers to the process by which people [our community] has responded to the Mayor’s Task
from distinct cultures socially construct functional work- Force action plan. Our community is on a roll and this
related meaning systems while interacting in and enacting (Coalition) is the key to keeping the right people and
their shared work environments (Brannen & Salk, 2000; the money focused on this issue. We’re on the cusp of
Clausen, 2011; Yagi & Kleinberg, 2011). The negotiated something great here.
culture perspective (e.g., Brannen & Salk, 2000; Clausen,
The Coalition is funded by community foundations,
2011; Yagi & Kleinberg, 2011) extends the concept of nego-
municipal government agencies, and a regional business
tiated order to the domain of international business. This
association, with investments in housing provided by the
perspective, originally developed by Strauss (1978) and
provincial and federal government agencies. Since inception,
further elaborated by Fine (1984) in interpretive sociology,
the Coalition has developed annual business plans that guide
views meaning construction and re-construction in complex
and focus the partnership’s efforts to address homelessness
cultural contexts as the dynamic, ongoing, and changing
in the region for a given timeframe.
subtotal of interpersonal negotiations around daily organi-
Organizationally, the Board of Directors—comprised of
zational issues (Brannen, 1994). The key tenet of the negoti-
partner organizations/associations from the public, private,
ated culture perspective is that organizational arrangements
and nonprofit sectors—provides governance and strategic
are in a continual state of flux, and seldom stable, as a result
oversight and is responsible for all key decisions involving
of constant negotiations occurring in the day-to-day encoun-
the Coalition. The Executive Director obtains operational
ters of actors embedded in different meaning systems, each
and strategic direction from the Board of Directors and
with its own set of assumptions about work and associated
provides operational leadership to the rest of the Coalition
practices (e.g., Brannen, 1994; Kaghan et al., 1999).
staff. Initially, the Coalition staff was composed of a full-
Of relevance to our study within the context of multi-
time Executive Director and an Administrative Coordinator;
stakeholder partnerships is an emphasis on understanding
as the Coalition has matured, the staff team has grown to
how multi-level meaning is constructed and reconstructed
include a Housing Manager, a Manager of Stakeholder Rela-
over time. By incorporating negotiated culture, we consider
tions, and an Experiential Coordinator. Operational support
how meaning negotiations occur at multiple levels and play
is provided to the Coalition staff via an operations Manage-
out holistically. Even as this definition includes active and
ment Committee comprised of partner organizations/asso-
overt negotiation tactics, it also incorporates subtle and
ciations from the public and nonprofit sectors. Five working
informal strategies stemming from tensions between par-
groups—comprised of partner organizations/associations
ties that are worked out via ongoing interactions among
from the nonprofit, public, and private sectors—focus on
actors. Thus, we explore how meaning is negotiated in a
particular priority areas of the Coalition such as housing and
multi-stakeholder partnership in an ongoing manner, includ-
service integration. In 2013, an experiential advisory com-
ing the subtle and informal aspects of negotiation in addition
mittee was established to give voice and agency within the
to more formal means.
partnership to those experiencing homelessness. Given the
variety of partners involved within a complex structure, the
Coalition offered an ideal setting in which to investigate how
Methodology multi-level meaning systems are negotiated in a multi-stake-
holder partnership seeking to address a grand challenge.
Empirical Context
Methods Overview
The Coalition was established in 2008, following a mayor’s
120-day task force in 2007 to develop a plan to address pat-
We undertook this ethnographic study from November 2014
terns of addictions, mental illness, and homelessness in the
to February 2016 to understand how the Coalition navigated
region. Spearheaded by the municipal government, the Coa-
different values, histories, and visions in working to address
lition brought together over forty partner organizations and
a grand challenge. Specifically, we focused on the different
associations from the governmental, business, and nonprofit
meanings related to the focal grand challenge of homeless-
sectors to collaboratively increase awareness and commit-
ness that insider–outsider actors held by employing a holistic
ment to end regional homelessness.
ethnographic approach (Moore, 2011) to capture the broad
The founding of the Coalition was considered a signifi-
variety of Coalition voices and the intergroup dynamics
cant landmark in addressing homelessness in the region.
involved in multi-level meaning negotiation.
As one Coalition partnership actor and director for a major
homelessness service provider noted:

13
Negotiating Meaning Systems in Multi‑stakeholder Partnerships Addressing Grand Challenges:…
Generally following the grounded theory approach articu-
lated by Gioia et al. (2012), we iteratively juxtaposed the
existing multi-stakeholder partnership and negotiated culture
literatures with the ethnographic data collected, allowing
for new and emergent themes to arise (see also Brannen
& Salk, 2000; Suddaby, 2006). While data collection and
data analysis procedures were carried out concurrently until
no new discoveries emerged, we present the major steps in
each process separately for ease of understanding and pres-
entation.1 The various data sources and uses in the analysis
process are summarized in Table 1.
Data Collection
Our ethnographic approach focused on conducting semi-
structured interviews and participant observation, supple-
mented by secondary data and ongoing methods triangula-
tion. The first author carried out semi-structured interviews
with 47 Coalition partnership actors. Involving current and
past partners, these included 18 from the board of directors,
10 from the management committee, 7 from the Secretar-
iat, 4 from the experiential advisory committee, and 8 from
working group members. From a sectoral perspective, of the
partnership actors interviewed who did not work within the
Secretariat, 6 worked for business organizations, 13 worked
for governmental organizations, and 21 worked for nonprofit
organizations. Interview questions were designed to provide
insight into each actor’s views on his/her home organization,
the Coalition, and his/her involvement in the partnership.
Sample questions2 included “How would you describe your
organization?,” “How would you describe the Coalition?,”
and “What is an experience in the Coalition that particularly
sticks out in your mind?” As actors responded to questions,
we were able to capture their individual views on the Coali-
tion, some of which differed from the organizations and/or
sectors they represented. Additional questions were often
asked based on how each actor answered opening questions.
Interviews averaged 43 min and were typically scheduled
in each actor’s “home” organization, allowing us to better
grasp the cultural environment in which each partner was
situated. Interviews were recorded and transcribed in all but
one case where a partner declined based on her employer’s
wishes. The first author asked interviewees about others to
contact, which helped us to capture a breadth of perspectives
over time. In doing so, we employed a purposeful sampling
strategy, following Spradley (1979). Additionally, the first
author conducted 11 follow-up interviews—with some of the
1 1997). To navigate the large volume of data, we started
See Pettigrew (2000) for a rationale concerning utilizing ethno-
graphic and grounded theory methodology in concert.
2
The full semi-structured interview guide is available from the
authors upon request.
35
same participants initially interviewed, and representative
of a range of partners—to clarify and obtain feedback about
emergent findings.
Monthly Management Committee meetings were
observed over a period of 6 months, as well as a Board of
Directors meeting and the Coalition’s annual general meet-
ing. Collecting data in this manner allowed us to directly
observe the interactions among actors and how they worked
to negotiate multi-level meaning systems in a more nuanced
manner. It also allowed us to further flesh out and compare
what actors relayed during interviews with their actual inter-
actions in formal meetings. We also compiled a variety of
archival documents, dating back to the 2007 mayor’s task
force which served as inspiration for the Coalition’s forma-
tion, as detailed in Table 1. The archival documents provided
additional information about the empirical context and deep-
ened our understanding of homelessness in the region as
well as the Coalition’s role in tackling it from 2007 to 2016.
Data Analysis
Initially, we utilized a first-order coding process (Gioia et al.
2012) where we incorporated the terms used by partner-
ship actors. While making sense of embryonic themes, we
regularly reviewed the data collected to make comparisons
within and between data sources. For example, we realized
early on that there were many different meaning systems
related to the grand challenge of homelessness and we
looked within and between actor responses to begin to form
patterns. We used the interviews and observation notes as
anchors in developing initial first-order themes; then, we
triangulated emerging concepts with archival meeting min-
utes, annual reports, and other documents available, which
we reviewed in chronological order. All of our thoughts and
questions about the initial themes surfacing and their sug-
gested relationships were kept in field notebooks, so that
we could continually jot down ideas as they struck us. The
author team regularly met to discuss emerging ideas and
patterns related to our initial sensemaking. Concurrently,
we developed a detailed timeline of events related to the
Coalition’s formation, development, and growth to better
understand how the partnership evolved.
Once initial grounded themes were articulated, we met
with Coalition staff to review nascent ideas, clarify issues
that emerged, and obtain feedback on our sensemaking.
As patterns emerged, first-order codes were combined into
higher order themes (Gioia et al., 2012). We then imported
our data (2500 + pages of text) into the textual analysis
software program Atlas/ti for further analysis (Muhr 1991,
with interview and observational data. Once we had a bet-
ter understanding of theme salience, we triangulated by cod-
ing secondary data sources, focusing on archival meeting
13
 36

Table 1  Data sources and use in analysis

Data types and dates Amount Use in analysis

13
Primary data 571 Pages of text (verbatim transcriptions from audiotape) Insight into multi-level meaning systems and strategies of Coa-
Interviews lition partners over time
47 Semi-structured interviews, averaging 43 min (March–July
2015)
11 Follow-up interviews with key stakeholders, averaging 62 Pages of text (typed up from detailed, handwritten notes Additional insight into key preliminary empirical findings and
56 min (September–October 2015) taken at time of interview) clarification as to working findings to ensure they were reflec-
tive of partners' “lived experiences” in the Coalition
Participant observation 3 Pages of text (typed up from detailed, handwritten notes Initial insight into Coalition's inner workings and goals from
2 Initial meetings with third Executive Director, 30 min each taken at time of meetings Executive Director's perspective
(November 2014, January 2015)
46 Field notes taken at time of semi-structured interviews 206 Pages of text (typed up from detailed, handwritten notes Participant observation to provide a more holistic understanding
(March–July 2015) taken at time of meeting) of each interviewee interaction
8 Coalition meetings attended, averaging 1.5 hrs (June– 55 Pages of text (typed up from detailed, handwritten notes Participant observation yielding insight into interactions among
November 2015) taken at time of meetings) Coalition partners as they negotiated multiple understandings
of grand challenge
3 Community events attended (February, June, October 2015) 13 Pages of text (typed up from detailed, handwritten notes Participant observation yielding insight into homelessness situa-
taken at time of meetings) tion in Greater Victoria and how Coalition was perceived in
the community
5 Additional meetings with Secretariat staff, averaging 39 min 15 Pages of text (typed up from detailed, handwritten notes Provided ongoing clarification as to the Coalition's inner work-
(June–September 2015) taken at time of meetings) ings and obtained feedback on initial themes that surfaced
3.5 Journals of handwritten notes (January 2015–January Ongoing thoughts, reflections, questions, comparisons across
2016) cases and sources, and comparisons to the literature as we
worked to make sense of phenomena over time
2 meetings with multi-stakeholder- partnership experts (Janu- 1 hr each (one by phone & one in person) 5 pages written Opportunity to triangulate the findings with practitioners out-
ary–February 2016) notes side of the research site
Secondary data
Coalition operational documents
Board of Directors meeting minutes (July 2008–August 2015) 242 Pages of text and 55 documents Insight into meaning systems present and how partners inter-
acted over time
Management Committee meeting minutes (September 2008– 228 Pages of text and 80 documents Insight into meaning systems present and how partners inter-
October 2015) acted over time
Annual business plans (October 2008–April 2015) 158 Pages of text and 7 documents Identify Coalition's stated formal goals and how they evolved
over time; Utilized in constructing initial timeline of events
Coalition research and policy documents (March 2009– 417 Pages of text and 17 documents Insight into inner workings of the Coalition and partnership
November 2015) mandate expressed via research documentation
Coalition operations and planning documents (July 2010–June 125 Pages of text and 5 documents Insight into inner workings of the Coalition and its operational
2013) and formal planning processes over time
Coalition annual reports (June 2009—September 2015) 131 Pages of text and 8 documents Insight into Coalition's expressed goals from a public stand-
point; Utilized in constructing initial timeline of events
2007 Mayors task force documents 273 Pages of text and 11 documents Insight into events leading to formation of Coalition and key
perspectives at the onset of the partnership
S. Easter et al.
 Negotiating Meaning Systems in Multi‑stakeholder Partnerships Addressing Grand Challenges:… 37

minutes as they allowed us to see how actors interacted over

and role of Coalition over time; Yielded insight into how Coa-

Provided understanding as to Coalition partners' understandings

Contextualize insight to deepen understanding of homelessness
Determine how homelessness is perceived in community over
time. Utilizing Atlas.ti enabled us to code passages within

Contextualize understanding of grand challenge of homeless-

Contextualize understanding of homelessness situation in the
Contextualize insight to better understanding Coalition's per-

British Columbia region (Vancouver based documentary)

documents and examine the frequency in which codes

lition partners utilize media to convey their perspectives

appeared. Throughout this process, we iterated between
emergent themes and relevant literature to determine if and
how data corresponded to extant theory, or if new concepts
spectives and roles in tackling homelessness
time and the public perception of Coalition

were arising. This analysis revealed additional patterns in

as it relates to the partnership mandate

the data and facilitated our understanding of each theme’s
salience. It also served as a mechanism for generating theo-
retical memos, helping to ensure theoretical sensitivity (Gla-
ser 1978:83). We coded for data passages related to each
theoretical memo to ascertain the robustness of each notion
expressed in the memos. One example of a memo can be
seen below:
ness in Canada
Use in analysis

It is interesting that many individuals involved

describe the Coalition as having a pretty clear mandate
(i.e., ending homelessness in the region) but then they
emphasize different aspects such as targets (narrow
versus wide targets), what is meant by homelessness
30 Videos (approximately 5 min each) about individuals' per-
sonal stories, those experiencing homelessness and support

and how it should be addressed (e.g., housing, part

of complex system, prevention). This was particularly
interesting because the Executive Director emphasized
that the most important thing is being on the same
page in terms of the mandate.
Our emergent data structure is shown below in Fig. 1.
450 Pages of text and 45 documents

7 Audio recordings accessed online

Our analysis revealed relationships between events and

emergent relationships forming between themes. For exam-
ple, there were key differences related to how partnership
actors viewed the Coalition’s mandate to end regional home-
Over 150 media stories

lessness. This included differences in what was meant by

regularly reviewed

“homelessness” as well as what would constitute its “end-

35 min Video

ing.” In other words, different meaning systems existed in

workers

relationship to the nature of the grand challenge and how

Amount

it could be addressed. From previous research on negoti-

ated culture, we were aware that these differences could be
attributable to multi-level contextual factors (e.g., Brannen
Digital media stories related to homelessness and/or Coalition

At home project (Mental Health Commission of Canada &

Radio interviews with Coalition players (February–August

& Salk, 2000; Clausen, 2011; Yagi & Kleinberg, 2011).

Therefore, with this new literature stream in mind, which
Social media posts (January 2015–December 2015)

was incorporated due to the emergent data analytic process,

Press releases (December 2010–September 2015)

we returned to our data to look for multi-level factors that

could influence different meaning systems at work in the
partnership. By utilizing negotiated culture as a theoretical
lens (e.g., Brannen & Salk, 2000), we identified different
Something to Eat, A Place to Sleep

National Film Board of Canada)

(January 2015–December 2015)

strategies and resources that partnership actors utilized in

order to influence meaning construction in the partnership.
Coalition communications

To flesh out emergent relationships between themes, we

constructed an initial process model focused on meaning
Data types and dates
Table 1  (continued)

Documentary films

negotiation in multi-stakeholder partnerships. This emergent

model was further refined as we consulted the literature and
Online media

collected additional data.

2015)

We shared our findings with two practitioners outside

of the homelessness realm to ensure they had relevance for

13
38 S. Easter et al.

First Order Codes Higher Order Themes Aggregate Dimensions

Partners referred to the values and expectations of their professional backgrounds Sectoral
within the public, private, and/or nonprofit sectors when discussing homelessness Differences
Multi-Level Meanings of
Partners referred to the goals and values of their organizations when discussing Organizational Grand Challenge Held by
homelessness Differences Actors

Partners demonstrated a wide range of opinions and beliefs in terms of how Individual
invested they were personally when discussing homelessness Differences

Coalition enacted regular strategic planning process with extensive input from
partners; the result was an annual business plan to focus and carry out goals of
Formalized
Coalition. Coalition enacted regular meetings to share information and help ensure
Planning
partners were on the same page
Negotiation Tactics
Partners utilized resources at their disposal during formal planning as well as in Influencing
regular meetings and conversations after strategic priorities were finalized Resources

Variety of partners involved on behalf of organizations and associations from the

public, private, and nonprofit sectors; partners continually cycling in and out
without a great deal of socialization or formal introduction to partnership Structural Features of Negotiation
Context
Multiple perspectives of homelessness present in Coalition’s annual reporting and
ongoing initiatives to address it at any given point in time

Partners reflected on how their views about homelessness are shaped by their Multivocality of Ongoing Negotiation of
backgrounds; partners acknowledged that their perspectives have evolved over Grand Challenge Multi-level Meanings
time due to their involvement in partnership

Partners discussed successes related to the partnership working to address Emergent

homelessness in the region; annual reports document partnership outcomes for Partnership Outcomes
each year of operations

Fig. 1  Emergent data structure

other types of multi-stakeholder partnerships. In addition, a
multitude of different data sources collected and analyzed
throughout this study allowed for further within-method
triangulation (Brannen & Peterson, 2009) of emergent
findings.
Findings
We first detail the multi-level meanings that partnership
actors held concerning the grand challenge of homelessness.
Then, we discuss how actors sought to negotiate the mean-
ing of homelessness and associated tactics to address this
grand challenge in an ongoing manner primarily via formal
planning and the use of influencing resources, involving both
overt and subtle forms of negotiation.
Multi‑level Meanings of Homelessness Held
by Actors
The Coalition’s expressed mandate was seldom modified
since it was created in 2008. Publicly available annual
reports consistently describe the Coalition as a partnership
involving actors from multiple sectors focused on address-
ing regional homelessness as highlighted below.
[The Coalition] is a partnership of all levels of gov-
ernment, service providers, business members, the
faith community, post-secondary institutions, the
experiential community and private citizens dedi-
cated to ending homelessness in [the region].
2015 Annual Report
Similarly, the quote below is reflective of how partner-
ship actors would often talk about the Coalition in both
formal and informal conversations:
“I would say it’s a group—a multi-faceted group—
of government agencies, private agencies, individual
people, etc. who are working together with the goal
of ending homelessness in [the region] within the
next 4 years.”
“- board of directors member”
In talking with partnership actors, even though it was
emphasized that there were a variety of perspectives, they
communicated that the mandate was relatively clear and
well understood. As one former co-chair for the board of
directors emphasized:
I think everyone was always clear about what (the
Coalition) represented
In spite of the appearance of a unified mandate, actors
held a variety of perspectives related to homelessness and
tactics to end it (Easter & Brannen, 2016; Easter & Schultz,

13
Negotiating Meaning Systems in Multi‑stakeholder Partnerships Addressing Grand Challenges:… 39

Fig. 2  Multiple meanings of Narrow Wide Net

homelessness Viewpoint Viewpoint

Chronic Homelessness Many Faces of

Homelessness Homelessness

Housing First Ending Homelessness Diverse Initiatives

Initiatives

Table 2  Multiple meanings of homelessness—illustrative data

Narrow viewpoint Wide net viewpoint

View of homelessness Chronic homelessness Many faces of homelessness

Initiatives to address homelessness Housing first initiatives
Commonly associated actors
“So the focus of the organization has almost always
been chronic homelessness, and how many people
are experiencing chronic homelessness and what
the definition of chronic homelessness is. That
has almost from the get go been the focus of our
organization and it remains our top priority."
"And, you know, as you have run into I’m sure a
great deal of homeless people that are needing the
help have mental health issues.”
“We know the solution to ending homelessness –
it’s building housing and that’s the biggest piece
of what we’re trying to do here.” “There are big
structural issues, but we’re not talking about that
we’re talking about that. Someone has nowhere
to go and they need somewhere to go with some
supports there, which is very much the view of
the coalition. It’s a housing first model and all the
stuff that comes along with that.”
Business professionals, government representatives, Researchers, health professionals, experiential com-
community foundations
“We need to define the problem of homelessness in
a way that looks at it from the perspective of the
social determinants of health as opposed to a prob-
lem of individuals misbehaving or
something in our streets.”
“I have a long-standing interest in poverty and you
know action to address poverty and concerns with
equality and inequality and I mean that’s my long-
standing interest in anthropology is
kind of the anthropology of inequality and power and
so that to me homelessness is sort of the end result
of those larger processes.”
Systemic and prevention based initiatives
“I don’t think I’ve seen as much as I would want to
have seen in terms of increased emphasis on youth
and prevention of homelessness”
munity, front line service providers, community
advocates, faith community, community nonprofits,
municipal government, social workers

2017). As Fig. 2 and Table 2 illustrate below, the various
meanings actors ascribed to defining and ending homeless-
ness tended to fall on a continuum ranging from narrow (i.e.,
concretely defined) to wide net (i.e., multiple and holistic)
understandings. Concerning the meaning of homelessness,
some emphasized focusing on those experiencing chronic
homelessness, or repeated episodes of homelessness, as this
group is the most at risk. Consider the Executive Director’s
comment:
Our focus is on the chronic piece because that is, as
you know, the best practices in other communities. If
you want to end homelessness you have to deal with
that piece first
Those holding this view focused on housing-first pro-
jects as the principal tactic to end homelessness; within
such a framework, individuals are placed in independent
housing units without any preconditions being met and
then are provided with additional supports, as necessary,
to combat ongoing challenges such as addictions (Gaetz
et al., 2013).
Others, though, discussed the many faces that homeless-
ness can take, including those without access to affordable
housing, who are couch surfing, etc., alongside those who
visibly experience homelessness on the streets. Those with
this perspective tended to focus on a multitude of tactics,
in addition to housing-related efforts, such as initiatives
to minimize the effects of homelessness, or prevention-
related efforts. Consider the following statement:
Homelessness is anybody that’s without a home, expe-
riencing life without a home. So those are people that
are living rough on the street, those are people that

13
40
are living in shelters, those are people that are couch-
surfing, those are people that are living in their cars,
those are people that are in jail, those are people in
hospitals, I mean it’s far bigger than the numbers that
we see published.
Sectoral Differences
When talking about the Coalition’s mandate, actors often
referred to the values and expectations of their professional
backgrounds within the public, private, and/or nonprofit sec-
tors. For example, actors with professional experiences in
the nonprofit sector, such as social workers and frontline
homelessness service providers, tended to perceive home-
lessness in terms of a wide net view. Consider the follow-
ing statement from an actor in the nonprofit sector, with
experience providing direct services to those experiencing
homelessness, who believed that a wide variety of circum-
stances needed to be taken into account when identifying
those experiencing homelessness:
…you are better able to manage expectations when
your numbers are more reflective of what we see on the
ground [referring to homelessness estimates reflect-
ing a variety of circumstances]. So, I think it’s a little
harder for people who are removed from the issue...
people working in offices like you and I, to really
understand what’s going on and the real needs of peo-
ple
This wide net view had ramifications for how Coalition
financial resources would be allocated as many felt it was
crucial to deal with short-term challenges, such as ensur-
ing there are enough emergency shelter beds, in addition
to focusing on long-term solutions to homelessness such as
building housing.
By comparison, many actors with professional experi-
ences in the private and/or public sectors stressed the need
for concrete priorities and pushed for the focus of the Coali-
tion to be narrower, emphasizing chronic homelessness. As
one governmental actor noted:
When you study homelessness, you recognize that it’s
the chronic homeless people who are the major chal-
lenge. We’ve seen the studies throughout the states—
we did the same sort of study here—and we recognize
that in numbers ultimately…it was like 12% of the
people who go to shelters eat up 85% of the beds. So,
if you could actually deal with those 12%, then emer-
gency shelters would function like they should.
Those with this view pushed for the Coalition to increas-
ingly focus on housing-first initiatives as a key solution to
address chronic homelessness in the community. A frequent
argument made in favor of this approach is an economic one
13
S. Easter et al.
focused on cost savings associated with providing the hard-
est to house with housing (Culhane, 2008). As one business
actor noted:
...it is at least as cost-effective or cheaper to provide
supportive housing to people than to deal with them
through the other systems that we have, which are pri-
marily police, prison systems and the health system.
So, the economic argument is quite sound.
Organizational Differences
Partnership actors frequently mentioned the goals and val-
ues of their respective organizations when discussing their
understandings of the Coalition’s mandate. They described
the challenges associated with juggling organizational goals
alongside those of the Coalition. As the Executive Director
relayed:
They know what their own organizational mandates
are and they’re sitting [at the Coalition table] because
they have a stake in what the Coalition does. So, I
think they’re sometimes balancing a couple of differ-
ent hats when they’re there. They are representing the
organization—they have to make sure that the deci-
sions they’re making are compatible with the goals of
the organization they represent.
One example can be seen in the way actors discussed
views of homelessness and goals of their organizations in
comparison to what they perceived to be the focus of the
Coalition. While some viewed the Coalition’s mandate as
similar to that of their organizations, others viewed them as
being further apart. Consider the following statement:
The difference in values was that the Coalition was
created to target and deal with the fire that was hap-
pening downtown…but, our belief is that you have to
get to the base of the issue or all you’re going to do is
continue to put out fires at the tip of that pyramid. So,
it’s a difference in values and it’s come up a couple
of times.
In the above scenario, the director on the Coalition board
of directors believed the partnership was formed primarily
to deal with those experiencing chronic homelessness, the
resulting goal being to focus on providing supported hous-
ing. Yet, she perceived her home organization as concerned
with providing preventative measures in addition to housing
to address homelessness in a more holistic sense.
We also observed in meetings and in the archival meeting
minutes that partners would often explicitly bring items to
the table that their organizations/stakeholder groups deemed
important. The minutes of a 2009 board meeting, for exam-
ple, detailed a municipal governmental actor expressing the
Negotiating Meaning Systems in Multi‑stakeholder Partnerships Addressing Grand Challenges:…
need for more inclusion of homelessness issues for other
regions in the area, in addition to the city. Further, we
observed at meetings that individuals would often respond
to motions being put forward by others by stating that their
organization agreed or disagreed with what was being put
forth.
Individual Differences
Partnership actors demonstrated a wide range of opinions
and beliefs in terms of how invested they were personally
with homelessness. Some felt deeply connected to home-
lessness and passionately discussed the need to address it.
These actors often relayed stories about personal encounters
with homelessness, such as living in a neighborhood where
they were directly confronted by homelessness, having a
long history of working with those experiencing homeless-
ness, or even finding themselves experiencing homelessness
themselves at some point. Others mentioned very little about
personal connections to homelessness and instead spoke pri-
marily in terms of the organizations/associations they rep-
resented. One Coalition partnership actor put it this way:
I think everybody cares about homelessness but every-
body in there represents their organizations, too. So...
we have to be [at the Coalition table]. We can’t say
we’re not going be on it or it wouldn’t be very smart.
But, we’re quite committed to it, too
Some even discussed their personal views on homeless-
ness as being different than those of the organizations they
represented in the partnership. Consider the following state-
ment from an actor representing a university:
Well, I think everybody comes with their own view as
well as their organization’s view or not. Like my view
might be very different from the university’s official
view because, of course, I think that the university is a
prime contributor to homelessness [in the region] and
that isn’t something that goes over really well. We are,
though, because the students take up all of the cheap
housing, right?
In sum, each partnership actor brought to the partnership
their own views of homelessness as well as the mission and
values of the organizations/associations they represented,
which are situated in different sectors. This resulted in multi-
dimensional, socially constructed meanings of the Coali-
tion’s mandate to end regional homelessness. Consider, for
example, the illustrative actor profile below.
Partnership Actor Profile
David (pseudonym) has been involved in the Coalition since
2008. David’s professional background consisted of working
41
as a case manager for a service provider as well as an opera-
tional officer for a major governmental health agency. He
believed it was important to remember the many different
faces that homelessness can take in addition to working to
address visible forms of homelessness. While David empha-
sized that it was important to focus on long-term solutions to
homelessness such as building housing, he felt it was crucial
to deal with the challenges that those experiencing home-
lessness are faced with in the short term, such as ensuring
there are enough emergency shelter beds. As well, David
emphasized the importance of incorporating preventative
measures alongside housing focused priorities in order to
attack homelessness from multiple angles, and thus enact a
more holistic approach to solving the issue. David was even
quite critical of the notion of “ending homelessness” and felt
that it would not be possible to do so unless major systemic
changes were made in society to alter social and economic
inequalities.
David relayed that his organization, a major health
agency, is most focused on the high needs group within the
homelessness realm and desires for the Coalition to think
outside the box in terms of generating housing resources
beyond new capital projects in order to ensure that resources
are used effectively and efficiently. He also described the
health organization’s culture, “…revolv(ing) around flow
and getting people out of the beds and the people from emer-
gency into those beds,” which informs how he approaches
the Coalition as an organizational representative. Personally
speaking, David expressed that the Coalition should advo-
cate toward governmental agencies such as his own for more
to help solve the issue, a viewpoint that did not represent the
official stance of his organization.
Tensions and Tactics in Negotiations
among Multi‑stakeholder Partners
In this multi-stakeholder partnership context characterized
by blurred boundaries, the insider–outsider actors held dif-
ferent views concerning the level of influence that other
actors had on the Coalition’s mandate. These different views
had an impact on how actors would seek to negotiate within
the multi-stakeholder partnership. As one example, some of
the governmental actors felt that the service providers were
overly exerting influence beyond the Coalition’s mandate.
They believed the service providers were concerned with
growing their organizations and influencing the Coalition to
increase the housing supply and associated support services,
thus expanding their organizations’ reach rather than work-
ing to truly eliminate homelessness. Consider the following
comment from a director on the board:
I just think we have to be mindful that when you’re
dealing with homelessness and you’re dealing with a
13
42
lot of money that’s going out the door to deal with the
homelessness issue you’ve got service providers whose
agenda, and I get it, is to provide more and more ser-
vices to [those experiencing homelessness] but their
agenda isn’t to bring down any of their services and to
extinguish homelessness. To extinguish it they could
extinguish their organization.
In regard to a 2015 Coalition report outlining the num-
ber of housing units and associated supportive services
needed to serve the most vulnerable populations, a few gov-
ernmental representatives expressed that they believed the
service providers had overly influenced the report, result-
ing in higher estimations of housing and supports needs.
They believed it was important to carefully plan how limited
finances could be used in the most efficient manner rather
than simply committing to build a significant amount of new
capital housing projects. By contrast, many service providers
expressed that they truly wanted to work to end homeless-
ness and were not trying to “further their own empires.”
...[other partners] think that there’s some kind of con-
flict of interest whereas there’s not—because [our
organization] is a public organization. We’re not out
to create our own little empire but it seems like there’s
some thinking that we’re trying to get ahead...not-for-
profit organizations—when they’re coming together,
it’s not because they want further their own interests...
they really do care about the community at large.
At the same time governmental actors perceived that ser-
vice providers held a great deal of power, many service pro-
viders and other partners such as researchers believed that
it was actually the governmental entities who held the most
power and influence over the organization’s activities since
they were committing the most from a financial standpoint.
They believed government representatives were trying to
“pacify” or “satisfice” other partners in the Coalition versus
truly to work to eradicate homelessness. As one partner from
a service provider noted:
...government has useful things to say, too, but I think
the issue for me is balance and an imbalance in the
Coalition overall...too weighted in favor of govern-
ment who ultimately hold the solutions to the issue
and who ultimately hold the responsibility for the
situation being as it is today. So, they kind of have a
vested interest in painting a rosy picture and not shak-
ing things up too much.
The above example illustrates views that partners held of
each other in the Coalition, often in stark contrast. A busi-
ness actor described this “creative friction” process between
funders, such as governmental entities, and other partners,
13
S. Easter et al.
such as service providers, trying to impact where Coalition
dollars were allocated:
Some of the organizations around that table have
money and actually contribute to this problem...And,
then there’s others...who are advocating for funding of
certain things. So, there’s a little bit of creative friction
that goes on between the people that hold the money to
help solve the problem and the people who are advo-
cating for things.
Formalized Planning
In an effort to formally negotiate the multiple meaning
systems related to homelessness present in the multi-stake-
holder partnership, the Coalition enacted a regular business
planning process (The authors, 2017). In essence, this pro-
cess consisted of garnering feedback from partnership actors
over a number of months. Based upon this input, which was
informed by the multi-level meaning systems that each
actor brought to the table, the draft plan was approved by
the Board of Directors as part of the planning process for the
following year. The annual plan included key focus areas for
the Coalition’s work, which were further specified through
target goals for each area. For example, the 2014–2015 fiscal
year plan included goals and associated action plans related
to the following priority areas: communication, research,
prevention, Aboriginal, economic inclusion, and operations.
This planning process would take approximately 6 months
out of the year to complete and served to help focus the part-
nership around shared action to tackle homelessness. The
Executive Director facilitated the planning process. Once
the plan was finalized, the Executive Director alongside the
other Coalition staff coordinated the partners to execute it.
As one board member noted:
I think the Coalition has done a great job setting a clear
mandate, especially through the business planning pro-
cess. This process enables the partnership to set very
concrete and clear objectives which are realistic and
achievable in a given year...I think this is important for
a nonprofit organization like the Coalition. Because of
the many perspectives around the table you could get
pulled in thirty different directions all at the same time
if you aren’t careful
In addition to the regular planning process to determine
priority action areas, the Coalition held regular meetings
among its key groups, namely, the Board of Directors, Man-
agement Committee, and working groups, to obtain partner
updates and discuss pertinent issues facing the Coalition.
The Board held quarterly meetings to provide strategic
leadership and oversight of the partnership; one director on
the board commented that these quarterly meetings were “a
Negotiating Meaning Systems in Multi‑stakeholder Partnerships Addressing Grand Challenges:…
good platform to share information and ensure that every-
one is on the same page.” The Management Committee met
monthly to discuss ongoing operational and management-
related efforts and the working groups met as needed to dis-
cuss specific projects related to their given focus areas (e.g.,
communications, housing). One member of the housing
working group who worked for a regional housing nonprofit
noted how the Coalition was mindful of bringing forward
working plans and action items for consideration before
moving forward with action:
I like that they bring forward the pieces that the Coa-
lition itself is working on and ask for (partner) input
because I do think that is a good thing. They should
be able to say that a certain document or project they
are sending forward has the considered input of those
at the table.
In sum, these formalized and ongoing planning processes
served to focus the partnership around a shared set of goals
and to help ensure that all partners’ voices were actively
included.
Influencing Resources
Because authority in the partnership was distributed and the
Coalition was characterized by blurred boundaries, formal-
ized planning processes in the partnership only carried so
much weight (The authors, 2017). Outside of formalized
planning processes, the insider–outsider actors leveraged a
variety of resources to influence the conceptualization of
homelessness within the partnership and corresponding
areas of focus and action plans based upon the multi-level
meanings they brought with them into the partnership. For
instance, one actor, Stephanie (pseudonym) who represented
a major funder of the Coalition and a municipal health
agency, shared how she made prevention initiatives a part
of a recent funding contract between her own organization
and the Coalition:
Another difference is that at least back in September
2012, when I joined the Coalition…there was very,
very little interest in working with youth. It just wasn’t
on their radar. And [with] my background, being in
maternal/child and working with youth quite a bit,
there was the recognition that you need to start earlier
on or you’re just feeding the issue, right?...So, that’s
one thing we’ve done is when we crafted deliverables
for a contract last year we said we need to get a focus
on prevention.
The above quote highlights the actor’s meaning system in
regard to homelessness based upon her professional back-
ground working in the public sector, with a particular focus
on health. Her views not only affected how she approached
43
the Coalition but also how she attempted to influence the
partnership to focus on prevention-related initiatives by uti-
lizing the financial resources at her disposal. Further, she
adamantly expressed that she believed her role at the Coali-
tion table was to represent her employer who she believed
was working hard to support the partnership’s efforts to
combat regional homelessness. Specifically, she mentioned
her organization’s interest and support to incorporate
prevention-related initiatives into the Coalition’s ongoing
work. By comparison, her colleague, David (sample profile
above), held the personal belief that his employer should
do more to contribute to the Coalition and address regional
homelessness.
By and large, when a Coalition actor held meaning sys-
tems about homelessness at the individual, organizational,
and sectoral levels that were in alignment, they were more
effective in utilizing resources available to influence the
Coalition’s homelessness efforts, as in the example of Steph-
anie above. However, those who felt more conflicted about
their views of homelessness at multiple levels struggled at
times to gain traction. For instance, an academic researcher
on the board mentioned that she struggled to navigate her
role as a representative for the university at times because
she felt that the Coalition should advocate for her institution
to do more to address regional homelessness; these mis-
aligned views between the actor’s personal views and her
organization’s viewpoint created internal tensions in terms
of when and how she should speak up at the Coalition table.
While resources related to meaning negotiation could be
employed during formalized planning, actors utilized them
in regular meetings and conversations after strategic priori-
ties were determined. Three main resources—funding, “on
the ground” experiences, and research—were the most sali-
ent in the data (The authors, 2017). Below, we discuss these
resources and illuminate how partners utilized them in ongo-
ing meaning negotiation in the partnership.
Funding as an Influencing Resource
The Coalition, as a voluntary partnership with partners from
a variety of sectors, relied on financial support from part-
ners. The partners providing financial assistance and associ-
ated supportive resources (e.g., health supports to keep vul-
nerable populations housed) were primarily governmental
agencies and community nonprofits. While some funding
partners had annual, renewable funding contracts with the
Coalition, namely governmental partners, others, such as
community nonprofits, tended to fund particular projects.
One of the primary ways that partnership actors utilized
financial resources to influence the Coalition’s approach was
to stipulate the parameters for the funding promised. For
example, actors representing funding partners, often shared
how they sought to influence the Coalition’s priorities and
13
44
programs via annual funding contracts between their organi-
zations and the Coalition. See the statement below from a
Management Committee member representing a governmen-
tal funder in the Coalition:
I manage a service contract with the Coalition for their
core funding. So, each year I sit down with the Execu-
tive Director and the Board of Directors co-chairs and
we talk about the strategic direction of the organiza-
tion and the priorities for the upcoming year, and the
intended outcomes and the goal of [our governmental
agency] in terms of us wanting to influence the direc-
tion of the Coalition
Funding was primary utilized by actors to influence the
tactics used to end homelessness. By leveraging financial
resources, funders were generally effective in terms of influ-
encing particular initiatives that the Coalition would focus
on by specifying how the funding promised would be used.
Actors also leveraged financial resources to generate
additional discussion about proposed initiatives that they
felt uncomfortable with and/or those that required additional
input and discussion before the Coalition finalized decisions.
For example, in 2015, a proposed housing procurement plan
was put forward which detailed housing and support needs
and spelled out the commitments necessary from govern-
mental agencies. One actor representing a governmental
partner expressed concern that their organization was not
properly consulted in the development of the proposed plan.
This resulted in additional discussions that led to changes to
the proposal. Such discussions initiated by funders usually
resulted in one of the following outcomes: (1) suggested
plans moved forward as proposed once funders had a chance
to listen to alternative viewpoints, (2) alterations were made
as requested by funders, or (3) proposed projects came to a
halt.
“On the Ground” Experiences as an Influencing Resource
Partnership actors working regularly with people experi-
encing homelessness, including service providers and local
elected officials, shared personal stories about those experi-
encing and/or at risk of homelessness. They believed that an
expansive view of homelessness should be taken, acknowl-
edging the many faces that homelessness can take. Con-
sider the following excerpt from minutes of a 2009 board of
directors meeting:
(A board member) went to the extreme weather pro-
tocol shelter and recognized that many people taking
advantage were actually housed but there to have some
food. She noted that, “our perceptions of homelessness
are not necessarily the same as the reality.”
13
S. Easter et al.
Such statements were quite commonly found in the
meeting minutes documentation. The first author also
frequently observed such “on the ground” statements in
Coalition meetings she attended. Not only would partners
attempt to shape the Coalition’s meaning of homelessness
and corresponding action plans and initiatives by bringing
professional and personal experiences to bear, but in doing
so, they often attempted to influence other actors involved,
such as funders, to provide more financial resources. The
following excerpt from minutes of a board of directors
meeting reflects this:
(The Downtown Churches Association representa-
tive) reported seeing more working poor than home-
less…There are more questions about the longer-
term resolution to homelessness. Churches are now
expressing concern about who is holding all the
money for homelessness and what is being done
about it? Is the Coalition leading the provincial and
federal governments to change the situation?
Experience-based resources were influential in widen-
ing the meaning of homelessness within the partnership,
the result being that the Coalition focused on a wider array
of initiatives, including preventative measures. Yet, while
many service providers pushed for the Coalition to focus
on a wider array of homelessness initiatives, simultane-
ously, other partners, such as business and governmental
actors, wanted the emphasis to be on chronic homeless-
ness, resulting in a compromise related to homelessness
targets as well as increased reliance on evidence-based
research, as explained in the section below.
Personal experiences were also used to advocate for the
creation of new initiatives and projects. New proposed ini-
tiatives would often surface even after plans and priorities
for a given timeframe had been determined via formalized
planning. For instance, in one board meeting the co-chair
interrupted a Coalition staff member who was explain-
ing a new proposed program requiring financial support
from governmental partners, to ask where the direction
for the program had come from as she was not able to
see this initiative within the current strategic plan. The
staff member hesitated momentarily before explaining that
Coalition staff had identified, through conversations with
service providers who worked with those experiencing
homelessness that this was necessary to more holistically
address the issue. The co-chair replied by stating that she
was “concerned about shifting priorities.” Sharing “on
the ground” experiences was generally an effective way to
introduce new potential projects and initiatives to the part-
nership. However, if projects required significant financial
resources, such as the example above, proposals would be
stalled until possible funding streams could be determined.
Negotiating Meaning Systems in Multi‑stakeholder Partnerships Addressing Grand Challenges:…
Research as an Influencing Resource
Partnership actors utilized data, facts, figures, and research
reports in organized meetings as well as in ongoing dis-
cussions to influence the meaning of homelessness in the
Coalition. Those who believed a focal emphasis on those
experiencing chronic homelessness was important, primar-
ily actors representing organizations/associations in the
private and public sectors, would cite Canadian reports
highlighting the significance of focusing on housing-first
initiatives to combat chronic homelessness and point out
the economic arguments in favor of this approach. Others,
though, pointed to research highlighting the importance of
considering homelessness from a more holistic and inclusive
point of view. Consider the following statement from one
of the founding board members, a health researcher in an
academic institution:
I wrote a paper for the Coalition in the beginning to
talk about different ways of defining homelessness
and then making some suggestions about how we can
define it in a way that looks at it from the perspective
of the social determinants of health as opposed to this
problem of individuals misbehaving or something on
our streets.
Community and academic researchers as well as frontline
service providers were key actors attempting to expand the
focus of the Coalition to include those who are provisionally
housed and at risk of homelessness, rather than prioritizing
those currently without a home.
The partnership also published a variety of research
reports, written by various partners, emphasizing different
aspects of homelessness. For example, the Coalition staff
released a housing procurement plan calling for governmen-
tal agencies to commit to new housing units and associated
supports, the primary focus being on chronic homelessness:
Creating Homes, Enhancing Communities is a plan to
house individuals experiencing chronic homelessness
in [the local region]. Using existing analysis of pat-
terns of shelter use, it estimates the number of indi-
viduals in the region who require support services in
order to remain housed.
Concurrently, a report concerning housing and supports,
written by health researched involved in the Coalition,
emphasized the significance of focusing on homelessness
from a systemic perspective versus honing in simply on the
hardest to house.
Overall, research helped to broaden the meaning of home-
lessness within the Coalition. While the Coalition grew out
of the 2007 Mayor’s Task Force, primarily to combat chronic
homelessness, partners utilized research to help expand the
Coalition’s mandate to include a more inclusive view of
45
homelessness. As one Management Committee member
noted:
I think, personally, the motivation was to end street
homelessness. But the more that the Coalition has
matured and we’ve done more research, the idea of
homelessness has expanded and it’s broader, right?
Simultaneously, though, other actors, often from the pri-
vate and public sectors, sought to utilize research to narrow
the Coalition’s focus. The result was that multiple meanings
of homelessness and related tactics to address it remained
present within the Coalition.
Ongoing Negotiation of Multi‑level Meaning
Multivocality of Grand Challenge of Homelessness
Multivocal inscription of the grand challenge (Ferrero et al.,
2015) was the result of ongoing and dynamic meaning
negotiations, involving formalized planning and the use of
influencing resources, among insider–outsider actors, who
brought their own multi-level meanings of the grand chal-
lenge into the Coalition. In other words, different interpreta-
tions of homelessness and ways to address it existed simul-
taneously in the Coalition in a manner that still promotes
sustained engagement. The priorities of the Coalition at any
one point in time were reflective of the variety of different
sectoral, organizational, and individual meanings held by
actors feeding into the partnership. For example, each Coali-
tion plan from the first to the most recent included varying
degrees of emphasis on chronic homelessness and housing-
related initiatives, with a particular focus on housing first.
At the same time, the business plans also spelled out priori-
ties related to prevention efforts alongside those designed to
minimize the impact of homelessness in order to incorporate
a broader viewpoint of homelessness.
Emergent Partnership Outcomes
New insights for tackling regional homelessness often
emerged within the multi-stakeholder partnership. As one
example, the Coalition developed a task force charged
with creating a procurement plan to address housing needs
for individuals experiencing chronic homelessness in the
region. The task force included parner representatives from
the public, private, and, nonprofit sectors as well as those
actually experiencing homelessness. The Executive Director
described the task force’s process as follows:
We engaged in some research; we brought a group
of stakeholders around the table to form a task force,
identified what we wanted to have in the report,
brought it forward. We then debated it, brought it for-
13
46
ward again. We had a real crisis [in partner perspec-
tives], but then because we use a collaborative process,
we actually resolved that process. It delayed the report
a bit but everybody was on board with the resulting
report.
One of the task force members, who represents the busi-
ness sector on the board, described how the research and rec-
ommendations included in the final procurement plan were
beneficial in identifying the number of people experiencing
chronic homelessness and the associated resources needed
to fully combat and tackle this challenge. He described how
arriving at a cohesive understanding among the actors of the
core problem was “half the battle, because then we can apply
resources to it appropriately.” In other words, as the Coali-
tion partnership actors interacted and utilized influencing
resources in organized meetings and ongoing conversations,
they were able to negotiate meaning related to housing needs
to apply available financial resources more effectively.
In addition to the procurement plan, through this dynamic
negotiation process the Coalition achieved a number of
partnership successes related to developing shared action
and outcomes for addressing homelessness. For example, a
CASH (Centralized Access to Supported Housing) was cre-
ated to foster collaboration between direct service providers
and streamline access to supportive housing (i.e., housing
with supports). As another example, the Coalition developed
a priority housing project list which reflected shared rec-
ommendations for new housing projects as funding became
available. As a board member and a representative for a
major governmental entity that helped to fund the Coali-
tion’s efforts put it:
The willingness of the funding agencies to listen to the
Coalition has been a success factor. They have actu-
ally endorsed the plans [the Coalition has] developed.
[We] set our priorities based on the consensus of the
stakeholders in the Coalition. Rather than coming in
and trying to sort that out ourselves, it provides that
basis for governments to make those decisions. And,
you can look at their top projects (referring to the pri-
ority housing list) and begin to tick them off…when
they see that their top three projects got funded, then I
think that just reinforces the value of the Coalition and
its work. You can see some positive outcomes.
Structural Features
The partnership negotiations were contingent on several
key contextual characteristics (see Strauss, 1978), namely,
the vast number of perspectives represented, fluidity of
actor involvement, and the Coalition’s limited finances.
First, the Coalition was quite heterogeneous in terms of
partner make up, with various partnership actors involved
13
S. Easter et al.
on behalf of organizations/associations from the public,
private, and nonprofit sectors. As well, as illustrated in
the partnership actor profile of David above, the multi-
level meaning systems that each actor held about the focal
grand challenge was unique. These perspectives served
to make the negotiation context quite multi-faceted. One
board member who served on several other organization
boards put it:
It’s more complex. And I think it…in most of the
other (board driven) organizations I’ve been a part
of I’ve had a better understanding of how all the
parts work with one another. Whereas I…there
are so many diverse parts to this organization. It’s
really complicated. Most of the other organizations
I belong to are more homogenous. This is very, very
broad.
Even as the Coalition was very complex, partnership actors
were continually cycling in and out. One actor described
the multitude of perspectives and the lack of continuity
in this way:
There was never ever a time in my 2 years (of
involvement) that I felt that everybody sitting around
the table was starting from the same place…people
came into it from lots of different places. There was
a lot more turnover too, so, you know, all of a sudden
the person who was representing the city or (a gov-
ernmental agency involved) was a new person in the
room and there was no—I don’t think there was any
preparation for people or at least in the more recent
periods. I mean, I don’t even think the new people in
the room had ever even sat down to read the annual
reports. They were just kind of, ‘I was sent here to
be at this meeting’, and there was no attempt to get
people up to speed. And, so, they’d come in back at
step one that we had dealt with 5 years ago.
The lack of continuity was particularly challenging given
that each incoming actor’s multi-level perspective con-
cerning homelessness was ultimately unique. For example,
an actor who represented a municipal government agency
and was very passionate about homelessness personally
was replaced by an actor who was primarily involved in
the Coalition out of an obligation to represent his agency
and was not as personally invested.
Additionally, the Coalition had limited financial
resources at its disposal, meaning that the partnership
could not simultaneously focus on all of the priorities and
projects that its diverse and expansive stakeholders wanted
it to implement. One Coalition actor noted:
If you’ve got unlimited resources then you can—it’s
easier to look at the complexity of homelessness
Negotiating Meaning Systems in Multi‑stakeholder Partnerships Addressing Grand Challenges:…
Meanings of Grand
Challenge
• Sectoral differences Multi-level
Meanings Held
• Organizational differences
by Actors
• Individual differences
Ongoing
Negotiations
Fig. 3  Negotiation of multi-level meanings in multi-stakeholder partnerships
and address all the different groups. But with lim-
ited resources, how do you decide what is the best
approach?
Model of Grand Challenge‑as‑Negotiation
Our emergent process model shown in Fig. 3 captures how
meaning in a multi-stakeholder partnership working to
address a grand challenge is negotiated in settings charac-
terized by the presence of multi-level meaning systems held
by insider–outsider actors. Our model elucidates the variety
of multi-level meaning systems that partnership actors bring
into the partnership and, in turn, how actors facilitate pri-
ority areas via formal planning and influencing resources.
Their ongoing negotiations to iteratively shape multivocality
of the focal grand challenge result in emergent and ongoing
partnership outcomes related to tackling it.
The model begins with partnership actors who voluntar-
ily participate in a multi-stakeholder partnership. The actors
function as insider–outsiders in that they are partnership
participants (insiders) while simultaneously representing
their own organizations/associations, positioned within the
public, private, or nonprofit sectors (outsiders). The initial,
multi-level meaning systems that each actor brings offer a
starting point for the dynamic and iterative meaning negotia-
tions that take place in the context of a particular partner-
ship. These multi-level meaning systems shape how actors
make sense of the grand challenge the partnership seeks to
address and the means by which to go about tackling it. For
example, in the case of the Coalition, actors brought their
own understandings of homelessness (micro level) as well
as the values and goals of the organizations/associations
they represented (meso level) that were themselves situated
within different sectors (macro level). This shaped how each
47
Structural Features of
Negotiation Context
Formalized Planning
Ongoing
Negotiations
Facilitating Priority Areas
Multivocality
of Grand Emergent Partnership
Negotiation
Challenge Outcomes
Facilitating Priority Areas
Influencing Resources
actor approached the partnership and interacted with others.
As highlighted in the example profile of David within our
findings, ultimately, each actor’s multi-level meaning sys-
tems of homelessness was unique.
To account for the variety of ways in which actors work
through meaning-related differences, throughout this study
we used the term “negotiated” intentionally as one of the
possible means of “getting things accomplished” when play-
ers must deal with one another (Strauss, 1978:2). Given the
variety of insider–outsider actors involved, the formal organ-
izing strategies seek to serve as a stabilizing mechanism
to help focus collective partnership action over the long-
term in working to address the focal grand challenge. Due
to the blurred boundaries of the partnership, insider–outsider
actors also engaged in discussions outside of regular meet-
ings and planning sessions. Influencing resources utilized
by actors, who approach the partnership with their own
interpretations of the focal grand challenge, serve to con-
tinuously infuse new ideas and approaches to address the
focal grand challenge into the negotiation process. While
we would expect that the specific influencing resources that
are most pertinent to a particular partnership setting are idi-
osyncratic, in our empirical setting, three key influencing
resources were regularly utilized—research, funding, and
“on the ground” experiences.
Through ongoing negotiations among actors in the part-
nership (as indicated by the circular arrows surrounding the
partnership negotiation context), the meanings attributed
to the focal grand challenge are recontextualized (Brannen,
2004) within the context of the particular partnership. The
result is that there is multivocal inscription of the grand
challenge (Ferraro et al., 2015), meaning that different
interpretations of homelessness and ways to address it exist
simultaneously in the Coalition in a manner that promotes
13
48
sustained engagement. Tactics identified for addressing the
grand challenge, such as particular programs or initiatives,
are reflective of partners’ multi-level meanings.
As a result of this process, new insights for approach-
ing solutions to the grand challenge continually surface and
are incorporated into the partnership’s efforts to address it.
These efforts bring about outcomes related to tackling the
grand challenge. As negotiations are contingent on the struc-
tural conditions of a given partnership (see Strauss, 1978),
characteristics such as the fluidity of involvement among
partnership actors, the number of perspectives represented,
and the financial resources available play a role in the way
that negotiations take place.
Discussion
Extant scholarship has focused on particular elements of
meaning systems present in partnerships such as value sys-
tems (e.g., Hardy et al., 2006; Le Ber & Branzei, 2010) or
organizational structures (e.g., Berger et al., 2004; Dahan
et al., 2010) as opposed to emphasizing the various multi-
level meaning systems that come into play when actors
collaborate to address a grand challenge (Andromahi &
Selsky, 2015; Quelin et al., 2017). Studying one such multi-
stakeholder partnership in-depth allowed us to go beyond
the extant literature to understand the difficult but crucial
work of negotiating meaning in multi-sector partnerships
tackling grand challenges, and enabled us to document the
processes of dynamic and ongoing meaning negotiation.
Specifically, we highlight how a multi-stakeholder partner-
ship—involving over forty partner organizations/associa-
tions in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors—worked
to address a grand challenge by leveraging the wide variety
of multi-level meaning systems to more holistically under-
stand the focal issue, and to design approaches to address it
that extended far beyond the resources of any one organi-
zation or sector. Our model differs from other accounts by
explicitly accounting for the multi-level meanings related
to the focal grand challenge that actors bring to partnership
settings and which have an impact on ongoing negotiations.
We also detail the subtle and mundane processes, alongside
more formalized practices, in day-to-day meaning negotia-
tion. By actively incorporating the negotiated culture per-
spective (e.g., Brannen & Salk, 2000), which emerged as a
significant theoretical lens via our emergent analytic data
analysis process, we were able to more fully account for the
various attempts to influence ongoing meaning construction
taking place within the focal multi-stakeholder partnership.
This involved both formal and informal, subtle and overt
strategies as they worked to tackle a grand challenge in a
collaborative manner.
13
S. Easter et al.
Moreover, from a business ethics perspective, our find-
ings point to the importance of holistically understanding
multi-level meaning systems at play in multi-stakeholder
partnerships as insider–outsider actors work to carry out
their voluntary ethical responsibilities in support of address-
ing grand challenges (see Clarke & Crane, 2018; MacDon-
ald et al., 2019). Bringing to light the multitude of socially
constructed, multi-level meaning systems that each actor
carries into a multi-stakeholder partnership setting high-
lights the complexity of stakeholder engagement. In theory,
multi-stakeholder partnerships develop structures to allow
for an equal possibility of input among the different part-
ners in steering the initiative (Fransen, 2012: 166 in de Bak-
ker et al., 2019). Yet, our findings point to the challenge of
ensuring actors are given equal voice in the ongoing nego-
tiation process as they have access to different influencing
resources and are involved in different areas of the Coali-
tion’s work. This becomes particularly challenging when
insider–outsider actors hold different views of other actors
involved, as highlighted in our findings above in discussing
service providers’ and governmental actors’ views of one
another. We would encourage future work that focuses on
meaning negotiation in multi-stakeholder partnerships as it
relates specifically to meaningful stakeholder engagement
and the power dynamics at work.
Attempts to address grand challenges often reflect the
meaning systems and strategic objectives of particular actors
who seek to resolve the challenge. When multi-stakeholder
collaborations form to address grand challenges, this can
generate opportunities to design multi-faceted and more
holistic solutions, but, at the same time, such collaborative
work often creates tensions as diverse actors seek to align
their agendas and activities within a collaborative organiza-
tional arrangement (George et al., 2016). Previous research
has highlighted how actors concealed their key purpose of
eliminating the grand challenge of social inequality under
a proximate goal of providing sanitation, in order to appear
less threatening to other actors (Mair et al., 2016). Prior
literature also explains how actors’ complementary capabili-
ties can help resolve coordination challenges and enhance
alignment among actors (Oslen et al., 2016). Yet, overall,
our understanding of how actors’ meaning systems interact
to form collaborative agendas and activities in the context
of multi-stakeholder collaborations established to tackle
grand challenges remains understudied and undertheorized
(George et al., 2016); this is particularly the case as it relates
to understanding how multivocality (Ferrero et al., 2015)
can be designed in practice to be acceptable to a variety of
diverse partners and enable sustained engagement.
While Klitsie et al. (2018) examined meaning negotiation
in multi-stakeholder partnerships from a rhetorical stand-
point, a holistic and multi-level understanding of how multi-
vocality plays out in such complex partnership arrangements
Negotiating Meaning Systems in Multi‑stakeholder Partnerships Addressing Grand Challenges:…
was still lacking. Our research begins to address this gap
by highlighting how actors bring their own multi-level
understandings of a focal grand challenge with them into a
multi-stakeholder collaboration. The result of actors bring-
ing a combination of individual, organizational, and sectoral
meanings of the grand challenge into the Coalition was mul-
tivocal inscription related to how defining and tackling the
grand challenge of homelessness was conceived. Multivocal-
ity in the Coalition involved a continuum of different view-
points on the grand challenge being incorporated into the
partnership’s action plan, ranging from wide net approaches
that addressed the social determinants of homelessness, to
narrowly focused approaches that addressed the key symp-
tom of homelessness (i.e., lack of adequate housing). We
also found that the multi-level meaning systems that actors
brought with them into the partnership were largely latent
in nature and rarely made explicit. Future research could
explore whether the meaning systems that actors bring with
them into partnerships tend to be covert in nature or if cer-
tain boundary conditions exist that make this dynamic more
likely in particular contexts.
The challenge of negotiating meaning in a multi-stake-
holder setting is compounded by differing agendas and goals
in relation to the partnership (George et al., 2016; Tihanyi
et al., 2014). As individual actors are partnership partici-
pants (insiders), they also represent their own organizations
and associations within the partnership (outsiders), which
may result in a complex and contradictory balancing act
(Maguire & Hardy, 2005). In the context of the formation
of the Canadian Treatment Advocates Council, Maguire
& Hardy (2005) document, primarily via interviews, how
actors navigate insider–outsider roles at an individual level.
Specifically, they reveal the ways in which actors construct
identification and dis-identification with their constituency,
as well as identification with the collaboration. Yet, over-
all, our understanding of how insider–outsiders navigate
their complex roles within the context of multi-stakeholder
partnerships is undertheorized and almost entirely unstud-
ied beyond the individual level of analysis. Through our
empirical findings and process model, we highlight how
insider–outsider partners utilize influencing resources
based upon their own multi-level meanings when negotiat-
ing meaning of the focal grand challenge. In this way, our
research contributes by detailing how actors navigate their
insider–outsider roles in relation to other actors at the inter-
organizational level in negotiating multi-level meaning sys-
tems for the purpose of taking coordinated action to address
a grand challenge. Future research could further explore the
structural features (e.g., number of perspectives represented,
resources available to the partnership) that shape these inter-
actions to determine other actions and factors that exist in
negotiating shared meaning in partnerships. Even as we
focused on a multi-stakeholder context, specifically, our
49
findings are also highly relevant and valuable in other set-
tings where permeable boundaries and multi-level meaning
systems are present, such as in the context of multinational
corporations involving headquarter–subsidiary networks,
and in international strategic alliances.
By incorporating a negotiated culture perspective (e.g.,
Brannen & Salk, 2000) to understand meaning construction
within a multi-stakeholder partnership, we also add to the
literature a deeper understanding of the multiple levels of
meaning at work in complex partnerships. Bishop & War-
ing (2016) take up a negotiated order perspective (Strauss,
1978), which the negotiated culture perspective builds on,
in trying to understand how a public–private health care
partnership works out field-level meaning systems in the
everyday practices of individual partnership actors. Yet, the
authors stop short of accounting for the fuller domain of
meaning systems stemming from multiple levels of culture.
By comparison, by taking on a negotiated culture perspec-
tive, we were able to capture the multi-level meaning sys-
tems that influenced partner sensemaking in the Coalition.
We also add a more complete understanding of how part-
ners negotiate the wide variety of meaning systems present
in a multi-stakeholder collaboration, utilizing both formal
and informal aspects of negotiation. Even as the Coalition
partners engaged in explicit negotiation tactics, including a
formal strategic planning process and discussions at regular
partnership meetings, many negotiations took place behind
the scenes and in more covert ways, such as actors utilizing
influencing resources, like research and personal experience,
in subtle ways.
Negotiated culture scholars have primarily explored
meaning-related phenomena at the meso and micro levels
(e.g., Brannen, 1994; Brannen & Salk, 2000; Yagi & Klein-
berg, 2011) by concentrating their efforts on documenting
the nature and effects of misalignments in meaning systems
and how they are managed over time. This involves con-
sidering cultural interactions at organizational, group, and
individual levels of analysis. Brannen (1994), for exam-
ple, conducted a two-and-a-half-year study of two distinct
national culture groups that were combined in a takeover
by Japanese management of a US paper plant. Yet, due to
the ethnographic nature of that research, focusing on the
understanding of micro-level cultural phenomena, the intra-
organizational sources of influence are more fully explicated
in comparison to extra-organizational sources of influence.
We complement the negotiated culture perspective by cap-
turing contextual influences at micro, meso, and macro lev-
els of analysis and illustrating their impact on negotiation
processes within a multi-stakeholder partnership context.
13
50
Limitations
There are several limitations that are important to note about
our study. First, our findings were made in the context of a
specific multi-stakeholder partnership with several distinc-
tive characteristics: (1) actors came together voluntarily to
address homelessness, and (2) the partnership set up a non-
profit organization comprised of a full-time Executive Direc-
tor and four full-time staff members to coordinate the part-
nership. Future research is needed to determine how widely
our findings apply to other partnership settings. Second,
this ethnographic study took place in the multi-stakeholder
partnership’s seventh and eighth year of operation over a
period of 16 months. Our longitudinal approach allowed
us to observe how meaning systems were negotiated over
time, and we relied on both primary and archival data col-
lection and analysis to understand unfolding dynamics. Yet,
we were not able to observe firsthand how meaning systems
were negotiated among actors since the partnership’s incep-
tion. Therefore, we lack primary data concerning the earliest
stages of the partnership. We encourage future research that
explores meaning negotiation in partnerships over time to
begin at the time of partnership formation, to better under-
stand how these dynamics play out over time in different
stages of a partnership’s lifespan. Further, because our focus
was on the partnership as the negotiation context, we lack
empirical data concerning how partner organizations them-
selves were influenced by participation in the partnership
over time. We encourage future research to temporally exam-
ine meaning negotiation in multi-stakeholder partnerships,
with an emphasis on the dynamic influences on the partner
organizations and their spheres of influence over time.
Practical Considerations
Our study offers several important contributions to prac-
tice. First, the varied meaning systems that multivocal,
insider–outsider actors bring to multi-stakeholder partner-
ships is significant for practitioners to understand in order
to address grand challenges in a holistic manner. However,
these different perspectives can cause conflict and even
inaction in partnerships. Therefore, a shared architecture is
important for bringing together diverse actors in a manner
that can be sustained over time. For example, within the
Coalition, a shared architecture took the form of a nonprofit
organization where partnership actors engaged in a strategic
planning process and held regularly scheduled meetings to
discuss viewpoints and ongoing updates with one another.
Further, given the multi-level meaning systems present, our
study speaks to the importance of explicit communication.
In other words, actors should work to communicate exactly
what they mean in regard to the focal grand challenge and
13
S. Easter et al.
ways to address it. In our research, actors held many different
perspectives of the Coalition’s mandate, even as they were
regularly reminded of what the shared mandate was.
The emergent outcomes related to homelessness that we
describe in the Coalition did not surface overnight—they
evolved over a period of years. Indeed, in the Coalition’s
context, partnership actors were still learning and develop-
ing new approaches 8 years into the partnership’s existence.
Therefore, actors should consider involvement and commit-
ment to partnerships over the long term. Even with this com-
mitment, given the nature of insider–outsider actors involved
in partnerships, and the likelihood that individual actors and
partner organizations cycle in and out over time, it is impor-
tant that multi-stakeholder partnerships have robust orienta-
tion processes for newcomers, as well as frequent partner
check ins, to ensure sustained partnership engagement.
In conclusion, our work provides a new perspective on
how actors in multi-stakeholder partnerships holistically
negotiate multi-level meaning systems for the purpose of
tackling a grand challenge. We add to the literature a more
complete understanding of the individual, organizational,
and sectoral aspects of meaning negotiation in such complex
partnerships. We view the findings of this study as being
particularly relevant for scholars studying collaborative part-
nerships that cross multiple sectors, with a focus on those
seeking to address grand challenges. It is our hope that this
study opens pathways for future exploration to more holisti-
cally understand today’s multi-faceted and dynamic ways
of organizing, which increasingly cross sectoral, organiza-
tional, and professional boundaries.
Funding This study, which grew out of the first author's dissertation
research, was supported by University of Victoria.
Declarations
Conflict of interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of
interest.
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