Alignment of Divergent Organizational Cultures in IT Public-Private Partnerships

The cooperation of public and private sector organizations is a viable option for decision makers in the public sector for improving information technology (IT) infrastructures, acquiring innovation, and increasing management know-how. Effective partnering in public-private partnerships (PPP) is difficult though, because the involved stakeholder groups have divergent interests and organizational cultures. Using institutional logics as meta-theoretical lens, this exploratory, interpretive case study analyzes an IT PPP in Germany. The results reveal public- and private-side organizational culture differences and how the partners aligned their cultural differences by the development and legitimization of a partnership norm as well as the necessary partnership practices. The case analysis also illustrates how public sector and private sector organizations succeeded with the transition of public sector and private sector employees into a partnership organization and the management of different organizational cultures.