Exploring resistance in collaborative forms of governance: Meaning negotiations and counter-narratives in a case from the Danish education sector

Mie Plotnikof and Anne Reff Pedersen

Scandinavian Journal of Management, 2019, vol. 35, issue 4

Abstract: This paper addresses resistance in studies about collaborative forms of governance. Although the literature discusses collaborative challenges, issues related to resistance are largely unexplored and mostly regarded as destructive. However, we argue for understanding resistance more dynamically – as a co-constructive aspect of collaboration. Drawing on extant resistance studies, we combine concepts of meaning negotiation and counter-narrative to examine power-resistance relations in a case study of collaborative forms of governance in the Danish education sector. The findings elucidate how resistance complicates, yet also co-constructs collaboration in governance processes; discursive struggles over meanings of collaboration and a quality model invoke power-resistance relations that destabilize a dominant narrative and enable counter-narratives, which influence future collaborative processes. Hence, we suggest understanding resistance as a constitutive feature in collaborative forms of governance, rather than a destructive obstacle. This contributes with empirical and theoretical insights into the complex role of resistance in collaboration and governance processes.

Keywords: Resistance; Meaning negotiation; Counter-narrative; Organizational discourse; Collaborative governance; Education sector (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0956522117303706
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:scaman:v:35:y:2019:i:4:s0956522117303706

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/872/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... me/872/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.scaman.2019.101061

Access Statistics for this article

Scandinavian Journal of Management is currently edited by Janne Tienari

More articles in Scandinavian Journal of Management from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().