Date of Award

Spring 2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Program/Concentration

Public Administration and Urban Policy

Committee Director

Adam Eckerd

Committee Member

Marina Saitgalena

Committee Member

John Nunnery

Abstract

Multi-sector partnerships (MSPs) are problem-solving groups composed of government agencies, nonprofit organizations, private firms, community groups, and individuals. These partnerships have often struggled to achieve consistent success, with performance rates estimated at 30%–50%, largely because MSPs are tailored to the specific interests, resources, and implementation contexts of the constellation of stakeholders involved in each project. This situation raised important questions regarding how MSP performance can be predicted and whether the likelihood of success can be enhanced during the early planning stages of partnership formation.

Social value orientation (SVO) is a behavioral public administration theory that may help explain variation in MSP performance. Because MSPs rely on cooperation among diverse actors, the motivational orientation of decision-makers may influence how effectively these partnerships function. SVO approximates the extent to which an actor (e.g., decision-maker or participant) is willing to sacrifice personal gain to improve the outcomes of another actor and can be measured using the SVO Slider Measure (SVM; Murphy et al., 2011). Although SVO has been widely studied as a framework for understanding individual behavior in cooperative and competitive contexts, less is known about how these motivational orientations shape perceptions of collective outcomes, such as partnership performance in MSPs.

This study examined the actor SVO as a motivational driver influencing perceived MSP performance. The study explored SVO within the MSP literature across two subcategories of partnerships: infrastructure-based public–private partnerships (PPPs) and socially oriented cross sector social partnerships (CSSPs). The study developed and tested an empirical model using quantitative data to examine the relationship between SVO and perceived MSP performance through conditional process analysis (CPA). The study was grounded in SVO theory, which explains how individuals’ cooperative or self-interested preferences influence decision-making in collaborative settings. This theoretical framework was integrated with a moderated mediation model using the Hayes PROCESS (2022) approach to examine how SVO influenced perceived MSP performance through goal clarity and goal congruence, contingent upon partnership type. The study examined whether SVO influenced perceived MSP performance through goal alignment mechanisms. This research also has practical implications, as it suggests that understanding SVO during partnership formation may improve MSP performance rates across both PPPs and CSSPs.

Rights

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

DOI

https://doi.org/10.25777/3bvc-0e69

ISBN

9798197810441

Download

Share

COinS