Myten om partnerskapet: Om institutioner, rationaliserade myter och regionala tillväxtprogram

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The overarching goal of this paper is to explain the intensive occurrence of partnerships ? regarded as a specific organizational structure ? in the formulation and implementation of Regional Growth Programs. By using theoretical concepts from new institutionalism, the paper tries to examine the explanatory capacity of this theory in the specific case of partnerships. The basis is a skeptical stance towards the conventional interpretation that views partnerships as rational organizational tools. Hence, the purpose of the paper is also to compare our own institutional explanation with the conventional. The paper finds that the occurrence of partnerships can be understood as the effect of an intensive institutional pressure. The government has, in what we regard as the institution for regional development, prescribed the partnership as a rational solution ? a rationalized myth - to the regional growth problem. Responsible regional organizations have, through the mechanism of coercive isomorphism, answered by at least rhetorically incorporating the partnership myth in their formal organizational structures. The relation between our institutional explanation and the conventional is dependent on what we regard as ?broad participation?. A demanding definition...