Ingmar van Meerkerk, Erasmus University Rotterdam

Anka Kekez, University of Zagreb

Jurian Edelenbos, Erasmus University Rotterdam

This special issue addresses how boundary spanners navigate tensions and challenges while fostering cross-boundary collaboration and public service delivery in turbulent governance environments. It seeks to advance research on collaborative governance by examining the practices, role tensions, and coping strategies of individuals who work across organizational, sectoral, and community boundaries to address complex societal challenges such as sustainability transitions and social inequality. The issue recognizes that these boundary spanning workers operate under increasingly difficult conditions marked by fragmentation, institutional discontinuities, and competing logics.

Appel publié par Public Management Review. Lire l'appel complet sur le site de l'éditeur. Fiche de l'appel sur kerostig.

Potential topics

• Dilemmas, paradoxes and dark sides of boundary spanning
• Role tensions and coping practices
• Dealing with the political interface, multiple accountabilities and logics
• Boundary spanning practices of different agents in the state, market and civil society and their implications for joint public value creation and transformational governance
• Everyday and relational practices in collaborative settings
• Bricolage theory and improvisation in boundary spanning
• Organizational and institutional conditions shaping boundary spanning capacity
• Role stressors and coping strategies for boundary spanning workers
• Political astuteness and navigation of political interfaces
• Dark sides of boundary spanning including burnout and precariousness

Timeline

• March 6, 2026: Abstract deadline
• January 15, 2027: Manuscript deadline