The Political Economy of Collaborative Organization

This article provides a theoretical framework to advance the understanding of collaborative organization through integrating extant theories of political economy. Eight propositions are advanced from theories of rent seeking, commodification, administrative capture, cartelization, transparency, risk, institutional logic, and transaction cost. These propositions are applied to a recent multisectoral collaborative, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Because of the innate diversity that exists among institutions, collaborative organization constitutes a hybrid organizational form through which regulatory penumbras, or gray areas, emerge. Political economic conditions can arise in these penumbral areas, as they offer organizations the opportunity to operate within diminished regulatory environments.