Public administration agencies have over the last few decades increasingly worked with policy issues spanning across administrative borders. This has resulted in multi-layered collaborations dealing with complex tasks and problems such as for instance aging societies, climate change, trade, etc. Although literature suggests several types of such inter-organizational arrangements (i.e., Stout and Keast 2021); meta-organization has received much less attention than other forms of organizing. Meta-organization is a relatively new theoretical concept founded by Ahrne and Brunsson (2005). It is defined as an organization consisting of other organizations rather than individuals (Ahrne & Brunsson 2005). Despite growing scientific interest in meta-organization (Berkowitz et al. 2022), there is surprisingly limited studies on coordination of actions and relations between organizational members inside meta-organization (Garaudel, 2020; Zyzak & Jacobsen 2020).

Meta-organizations have different purposes and play various key roles in modern society. In the public sector they are organized at different levels of government, which increase their structural complexity. According to previous research, complexity increases when coordination extends across territorial, functional, or sectoral boundaries (Jacobsen, 2017), especially in larger systems facing collective action challenges (Christensen & Lægreid, 2020) where a collective structure having their own context, systems and goals has a potential for greater complexities than a single organization (Agranoff, 2006). Thus, this paper applies the main concepts of complexity theory such as multiple systems and interdependences, feedback loops, co-evolution, nonlinear interactions (i.e., Eppel & Rhodes, 2020; Klijn, 2008) and combine them with the three dimensions of inter-organizational coordination: vertical, horizontal and diagonal/multi-level (Bouckaert et al., 2010; Christensen & Lægreid, 2020) to unpack the coordination paradox of complex systems such as meta-organizations. Then, building on Peters' (2018) argument that much of the success and failure of coordination is context-dependent, we use local and international meta-organizations to show the differences in the coordination of complex systems.

Therefore, this paper asks the following questions:

1. How do the complexity theory concepts help to improve our understanding of coordination of meta-organization?

2. How does the context of meta-organization influence the complexity of coordination?

In this paper, we use an exploratory case study design to unpack coordination in two types of meta-organizations. The first case is a local meta-organization, the Intermunicipal Political Councils (IPC) in Norway with municipalities as members, designed to coordinate local governmental challenges. The second case is an international meta-organization, the World Trade Organization (WTO) with states as members, designed to coordinate global challenges. In the case of IPC, we combine the qualitative semi-structure interviews (N=17) with a survey to regional council’s managers (N=61, response rate 83,6%). In the case of WTO, we utilize data from our previous research (Langhelle, Farsund and Rommetvedt 2014; Farsund and Langhelle 2021). This paper contributes to the public administration research in two main aspects. Firstly, it adds to the rather scant knowledge on coordination of complex systems such as meta-organizations by applying complexity theory concepts. Secondly, it provides an empirical support for contextual aspects of complex system by involving two different cases of meta-organization.

References:

Agranoff, R. (2006). Inside Collaborative Networks: Ten Lessons for Public Managers. Public Administration Review, 66(s1), 56-65. doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2006.00666.x

Ahrne, G., & Brunsson, N. (2005). Organizations and meta-organizations. Scandinavian journal of Management, 21(4), 429-449. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scaman.2005.09.005

Berkowitz, H., Brunsson, N., Grothe-Hammer, M., Sundberg, M., & Valiorgue, B. (2022). Meta-Organizations: A Clarification and a Way Forward. M@ n@ gement, 25, 1-9.

Bouckaert, G., Peters, B. G., & Verhoest, K. (2010). Coordination: what is it and why should we have it? In The coordination of public sector organizations (pp. 13-33): Springer.

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Garaudel, P. (2020). Exploring meta-organizations’ diversity and agency: A meta-organizational perspective on global union federations. Scandinavian journal of Management, 36(1), 101094. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scaman.2020.101094

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Stout, M., & Keast, R. (2021). Collaboration: What does it really mean? In Handbook of collaborative public management (pp. 17-35): Edward Elgar Publishing.

Zyzak, B., & Jacobsen, D. I. (2020). External managerial networking in meta-organizations. Evidence from regional councils in Norway. Public Management Review, 22(9), 1347-1367. doi:10.1080/14719037.2019.1632922

In recent years, comprehensive security and total defense have garnered increasing attention as agile frameworks for addressing complex security and societal challenges. These concepts emphasize the significance of coordinated and collaborative efforts across sectors and administrative levels. Is this approach a panacea for solving complex problems? The question is relevant as many countries seeking to adapt their crisis management systems often turn to the Nordic countries as a model.

This study aims to examine how Norway and Finland utilize collaborative network arrangements to adapt to and address transboundary crises, with a specific focus on crisis management agencies, security services, the military, and select county governors/regional authorities.

This research adopts a theoretical approach based on organization and institutional theory, focusing on whether the collaborative structures in the two countries align with the problem structure. This theoretical perspective provides a comprehensive framework for understanding the complex social, political, and organizational dynamics that shape the two security/defense concepts.

A mixed-methods approach is employed, involving qualitative document analysis of government white papers, reports from agencies and security services, and lessons learned reports. Additionally, semi-structured in-depth interviews with 15 experts are conducted to explore specific themes and topics. Process tracing is used to examine the causal mechanisms underlying the adoption and implementation of comprehensive security/total defense strategies. Through methodological triangulation, this study aims to provide a nuanced understanding of the main similarities and differences between the two concepts in terms of collaboration in transboundary crisis management.

Preliminary findings indicate that the structuring of the two concepts reflects different administrative logics. The Finnish system demonstrates more ad-hoc adaptation and collaboration at the regional/local level but faces central challenges, such as establishing a common situational picture. Conversely, the more formalized system in Norway initially enables greater coherence at the strategic level but appears slower to adapt to local variations.

Another finding pertains to the administrative nucleus of the systems. In Finland, the permanent security committee convenes at least once a month, whereas in Norway, the Total Defense Forum meets biannually. At a working hypothesis suggests that the Finnish arrangement is central to its pragmatic approach. However, as Finland enter the security architecture of NATO, its comprehensive security could converge more with that of its allies. How this will affect the perceived "Finnish pragmatism" is at this stage unclear.

Crises introduce significant challenges for regulators and crisis managers because of several uncertainties and urgency often inherent in such events. Much of the literature and commission reports on crisis management during the pandemic is empirically placed on central authorities where local authorities are considered mere agents of implementation of national directives. We are critical to this approach and believe that it needs more nuanced. First, it is important to understand that crisis management is carried out within multi-level systems of governance, where decisional and regulative competences vary. In addition, we need theoretical perspectives that recognize that handling crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic are polycentric. Formulated as solutions to urban nested collective actions problems, this approach captures the various ways in which different types of collaborations and actors (potentially) add resources to organizations.

Our empirical take is on crisis management at the local level, specifically municipalities in the Nordic countries with the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic. According to the CEOs and the Mayors, do we find traces of a polycentric approach to crisis management? We ask both: to what extent have various actors made significant contributions to covid management in their municipality? The data for the analysis come from surveys of Nordic municipal CEOs (N 478) and Mayors (N 411) carried out in the spring/summer of 2022 as part of the research project POLYGOV: Crisis management in a polycentric Nordic local democracy: different governance structures – different results?

What is perhaps most striking is not the extensive variation we see, both between the countries and within each country. Rather, it is the difference as to how the CEOs and the Mayors rank the importance of different types of cooperative relationships (i.e., polycentric problem solving). The elected representatives (mayors) consistently experience a wider contact surface than CEOs. This applies both locally (horizontally), but also partially in the chain of MLG structures (vertically). They are therefore important catalysts (ombudsmen) for ensuring democratic legitimacy in crises. At the same time, CEOs' contacts with state regional and national authorities are higher than mayors', which indicates safeguarding of administrative legitimacy and coordination.

According to the IPCC, the current pathway of sociotechnical systems leads to a 3 degree increase in global temperature. This brings along a significant increase in extreme weather events, such as droughts, floods, storms, creating a situation of sustained, overlapping crisis. Despite the severity of these potential events, strategic adaptation to polycrisis is challenging for several reasons, including institutional inertia, defensive heuristics, and political pressures. An emerging framework of Policy Operations Room (POR) has been proposed for urgent strategic decision making while remaining sensitive to unwanted socio-ecological disruptions (Hukkinen, Eronen, Janasik, Järvensivu, et al., 2022; Hukkinen, Eronen, Janasik, Kuikka, et al., 2022; Järvensivu et al., 2021). Building upon literatures of high-reliability management, scenario exercises and simulations, this framework aims to create strategic awareness and increase adaptive capacity in public planning and governance that the climate change-induced polycrisis requires. While an Operations Room in high-reliability management is used to secure critical operations such as aviation control, water and electricity systems, military operations and financial transactions, in a POR, as the name suggests, the critical system is “policy”. However, like other proposed tools and short-term interventions, its influence remains weak unless it is embedded in governance on a strategic level. Indeed, one of the key concerns of high reliability literature has been the integration of various parts, including the Operations Rooms within the organization. Our paper aims to analyse the value and challenges of using such an analogy from high-reliability management in urban administration by empirically studying the application of the POR framework in three cities in Finland. The empirical analysis is particularly focused on the integration of the POR into the structure of urban administration.