Exploring challenges of boundary-crossing performance dialogues in hybrids

Vol.:(0123456789) Journal of Management and Governance https://doi.org/10.1007/s10997-019-09485-x 1 3 Exploring challenges ofboundary‑crossing performance dialogues inhybrids TomiRajala1 · HarriLaihonen1· JarmoVakkuri1 © The Author(s) 2019 Abstract Literature on performance management in hybrid organisations remains lacking, even though they increasingly are providing public services. This study created new knowledge on performance management in hybrid organisations by answering a question that addressed what kinds of challenges are in hybrid organisation’s boundary-crossing performance dialogues. Boundary-crossing performance dialogues here refer to performance management discussions between representatives of public and private sector organisations forming the hybrid. To answer the proposed question, a case study approach based on interviews and documents was chosen. Using inductive content analysis, the study identified several challenges that occurred during the boundary-crossing dialogues. This contributes to existing research on performance management in hybrid organisations. For practitioners, the results provide insights for tackling the specific problems of performance management in hybrid organisations. Keywords Hybrid organisation· Performance dialogue· Performance management· Performance governance· Performance information 1 Introduction Hybrid organisations increasingly are providing public services (e.g., McGuire 2002; Christensen and Laegreid 2011). A typical hybrid organisation comprises public and private actors who, through collaboration and cooperation, provide public services for citizens (Johanson and Vakkuri 2017). Extant literature claims * Tomi Rajala [email protected] Harri Laihonen har[email protected] Jarmo Vakkuri jarmo.vakkur[email protected] 1 Faculty ofManagement andBusiness, Tampere University, 33014Tampere, Finland T.Rajala et al. 1 3 that traditional entity-based performance management systems are inadequate in hybrid organisations and, therefore, performance management systems based on inter-organisational collaboration are being adopted by these types of organisations (Agostino and Arnaboldi 2018). Here, performance management means a ‘continuous process of identifying, measuring and developing the performance of individuals and teams and aligning performance with the strategic goals’ (Aguinis 2009, p. viii). Adopting inter-organisational performance management systems aims to turn performance management into performance governance that operates within and across public, private and third sector interfaces and relies on inter-sectoral co-processes (Bouckaert and Halligan 2008). One way to create inter-organisational collaboration in performance management is to use dialogue that engages all necessary actors in developing an organisation’s performance (Agostino and Arnaboldi 2015). In this article, dialogue that addresses performance management tasks is called performance dialogue. More specifically, performance dialogue is a phenomenon in which ‘participants jointly interpret performance information and discuss it while identifying the actions needed to manage the performance according to this information’ (Rajala etal. 2018). Performance dialogue utilises the methods of dialogue and concentrates on performance information (e.g., Moynihan 2005). Performance information includes data about resources, workload, outputs, processes, outcomes and efficiency (Hatry 2006), and it systematically is collected, produced and shared (Van Dooren etal. 2015). Boundary-crossing performance dialogues here refer to performance management discussions between representatives of public and private sector organisations operating in the hybrid; this definition of boundary-crossing dialogues was borrowed from the work of Rajala and Laihonen (2019). Generally, embedding dialogue in performance management can be beneficial in many ways, as it enables learning and development of organisational practices (Laihonen and Mäntylä 2017). However, performance dialogue simultaneously imposes many challenges on organisations, such as a lack of dialogue skills and motivation to conduct dialogues (Rajala etal. 2018). In this research, we were interested in the specific difficulties of hybridity associated with boundary-crossing performance dialogues that occur between representatives of different organisations forming the hybrid organisation. Therefore, we asked the following question: What kinds of challenges are in hybrid organisation’s boundary-crossing performance dialogues? This research question remains unanswered until now. Although Rajala etal. (2018) have studied performance dialogue problems in both hybrid and public organisations, they did not identify challenges of hybridity in boundary-crossing performance dialogues within hybrid organisations. To answer our question, we utilised a case study approach and content analysis. By identifying several challenges that occurred in hybrid organisations’ boundary-crossing performance dialogues, we contribute to conversations addressing performance dialogue and performance management practices in hybrid organisations (e.g., Hodges 2012; Rajala etal. 2018). Our results also offer reasons why it is difficult to attain the type of performance governance that is achieved through collaboration between public, private and third sector actors, according to Halligan etal. (2012). We also argue that our results 1 3 Exploring challenges ofboundary-crossing performance… provide useful insights into conversations about why performance management does not reach its full potential in hybrid organisations. The rest of this study is organised as follows. In the next section, we provide more precise conceptual definition of hybrid and we define performance management in hybrids. In the third section, research methods and context are explained. In the fourth section, we present an analytical framework for the content analysis, while the fifth section shows how this original framework was iterated and developed during the empirical analysis. The fifth section also provides the empirical analysis. In the final section, conclusions are presented. 2 What are hybrid organisations? Previous research has demonstrated that hybridity is not an easy concept to define (Johanson and Vakkuri 2017). Theoretically, hybrids have been considered an entity that one cannot explicitly explain (Ménard 2004). Almost everything can become hybrid, as its conceptualisations are associated with exploring ‘impure’ forms of social organising (Philoppopoulos-Mihalopoulos 2012). Thus, hybrid forms of organising have been defined in various ways. Extant literature attaches many characteristics to hybrid organisations. First, hybrid organisations can produce public and private goods (Johanson and Vakkuri 2017). Second, mixed ownership in hybrid organisations is common (Hansmann 1996). Mixed ownership indicates that a hybrid organisation has both public and private sector owners (Thynne 2011). Third, different institutional logics, goal congruency and incongruence typically exist in these types of organisations (Johanson and Vakkuri 2017; Kreps and Benoît 2011; Reay and Hinings 2009; Pache and Santos 2013; Eprahim etal. 2014). Fourth, hybrid organisations obtain funding from a variety of sources (Hodge and Greve 2007). Fifth, differentiated forms of economic and social control are exercised in hybrid organisations (Power 1997; Kelly 2005; Jordana and Levi-Faur 2004). For purposes of this research, an organisation formed by different types of legal organisations is called a hybrid organisation, i.e., it comprises public and private or third sector (i.e. voluntary sector) organisations, and these organisations have a common goal that they aim to achieve via collaboration. 3 Performance management inhybrid andnon‑hybrid organisations The concept of performance management forms from two major aspects: performance measurement and performance information usage that aims to enhance management and other organisational activities (e.g., Aguinis 2009, p. viii.). In public, private and third sector organisations, performance measures viewed in different performance management models can be divided into the same measurement categories: input, process, workload, output, outcome, productivity and cost-effectiveness measures (e.g., Pollitt and Bouckaert 2004; Micheli and Kennerley 2005; Thomas etal. 2008; Schläfke etal. 2012; Van Dooren etal. 2015). Performance measures that are used to report a hybrid organisation’s value to the surrounding community also belong to these seven T.Rajala et al. 1 3 performance measurement categories (Liu etal. 2014; Vo etal. 2016). The differences between performance measures used in public, private, third sector and hybrid organisations boil down to the question of what types of measures are used, e.g., output and outcome measures. For example, arrested criminals can be an output measure in the public sector, whereas manufactured cars can be an output measure at a car production plant, part of the private sector. When considering performance evaluations, public, private, third sector and hybrid organisations are trying to evaluate performance aspects that also can be grouped under the seven aforementioned measurement categories (e.g., Lee and Nowell 2015). Here, the only difference is that performance evaluations are nonroutine events that are designed in a case-by-case manner, whereas performance measurement is a routine event that occurs more or less the same way at different time points because the objective is to produce comparable information (McDavid and Hawthorn 2006). The complexity of performance measurement and evaluation differs between the hybrid and non-hybrid organisation types. Performance measurement has been viewed as more complex in the public and third sectors than in the private sector (van Helden and Reichard 2016). The fact that no market-price information on several public sector activities exists makes it difficult to evaluate government interventions and public services’ impact and attribution (Johanson and Vakkuri 2017). It also has been argued that hybrids, as organisational networks, are more complex to measure than public and third sector organisations, although problems in evaluating and measuring network performance bear a resemblance to complications viewed in the evaluations of public and third sector organisations (Provan and Milward 2001). The private sector networks are also more complex in terms of performance measurement and evaluation compared to a private sector organisation (Kamminga and Van der Meer-Kooistra 2007). At the organisational level, the constituents of public, private and third sector organisations have conflicting views on what is valuable to the organisation and its actions (Cyert and March 1963; Agranoff and McGuire 2001). Assessing networks, such as hybrid organisations, involves more constituents, and this complicates the evaluation, as more conflicting views on the network’s value can exist (Johanson and Vakkuri 2017). Besides the number of constituents, measuring network performance involves more analysis levels because network performance must be considered, and one cannot focus merely on the organisational and community levels, as is the case with private, public and third sector organisations (Provan and Milward 2001). Using performance information for performance management purposes is more complicated as well because developing the performance of individuals and teams and aligning performance with strategic goals involve more actors. 4 Research setting This study applies an explorative case study approach (e.g., Yin 2009). We chose this approach because we wanted to focus on one organisation, as this enabled us to use an in-depth exploration and multiple perspectives in describing the 1 3 Exploring challenges ofboundary-crossing performance… chosen hybrid organisation’s complexity and uniqueness (e.g., Simons 2009). Using more cases would have limited our opportunity to understand the richness related to the challenges of boundary-crossing performance dialogue in hybrid organisations. Thus, the case selection served the theory-building objective that we aimed to reach (e.g., Thomas 2011). Indeed, the chosen case enabled us to develop the current theory addressing performance dialogue challenges. Overall, our research can be considered an instrumental case study because it provides a general understanding of the challenges present in boundary-crossing dialogues addressing a hybrid organisation’s performance. Thus, we aim to understand how things might be in general, not just how things are in the particular organisation that we examined. The examined hybrid organisation could be defined as the most extreme, as the scope of services provided was diverse and these services were consumed by heterogeneous clientele. In this research, we focussed on the performance dialogues occurring in the steering and coordination groups, which were the hybrid organisation’s two main administrative organs. The steering group prepared budget proposals, solved conflicts, monitored goal achievement and carried into practice the hybrid organisation’s procedures. The coordination group made operational decisions and prepared matters for the steering group and service market manager. These administrative organs involved representatives from all nine service units operating in the hybrid organisation. These service units were as follows: 1. A government agency that provides basic social security for residents of Finland. 2. A federation of municipalities that produces healthcare services. 3. A private company that generates healthcare services. 4. A third sector organisation, along with municipal and voluntary workers, that arranges art events. 5. A library (a municipal service unit that offers versatile collections and helps information seekers). 6. A maternity and child health clinic (a municipal service unit that supplies social and health services). 7. A youth service (a municipal service unit that provides low-threshold guidance to youths and young adults ages 16–29). 8. A mental health and substance abuse service clinic (a municipal service unit that helps people over age 18 with mental health and substance abuse problems). 9. A citizen service (a municipal service unit serving citizens by distributing information, selling tickets, etc.). The hybrid organisation’s main goal was to make it easier for citizens to use public sector services, which was the biggest reason why it was formed. The second objective was to create an innovation platform that would improve public service production. The hybrid organisation aimed to fulfil its goals by combining the ideas of accessibility and customer orientation into a new technology and public space design that supported public service production and use. The hybrid organisation attempted to provide better services to citizens by generating T.Rajala et al. 1 3 collaborations among different service units. Indeed, active searching for synergies among different units and new ways to collaborate was built into the hybrid’s modus operandi. For example, many health-related services were part of the hybrid, and they collaborated to create effective service paths for citizens. Creating effective service paths included joint decisions on different service units’ tasks in each service path. Other examples of partnerships included collaborations between the library and youth services, joint briefing sessions and other health education events that the library and health service units arranged for citizens. The steering and coordination groups’ activities served the hybrid’s objectives, and within these groups, the boundary-crossing performance dialogues that we focussed on in this research occurred. It was typical for the hybrid’s personnel to view citizens’ needs in a holistic manner, with service paths between different service units generated accordingly. Thus, personnel in the hybrid saw the citizen not only as their own customer, but also as other service units’ customer in the hybrid. From citizens’ perspective, it was convenient that the often-used services were provided in same building, lowering the threshold to use public services, according to reports (Kenno 2017). Our data collection method mainly entailed expert interviews (e.g., Meuser and Nagel 2009), which provided more room for a more in-depth explorative approach, as follow-up questions can be asked and clarifying statements may be requested. Interviews were carried out between November 2016 and March 2017. The semistructured interviews’ objective was to determine managers’ perceptions of current challenges in boundary-crossing performance dialogues. The shortest interview lasted about 32min, while the longest one took 70min. Generally, most interviews lasted about an hour, but all interviews were conducted face to face, audiotaped and transcribed verbatim. Each of the 11 managers was interviewed only once. Only one researcher was sent to conduct each interview. The interviewees were selected through purposive sampling (Patton 2002) and in collaboration with city representatives so that we could locate public managers who participated in the dialogues in which we were interested. In the hybrid organisation, we interviewed three members from the steering group: the administration and development director, a representative from the library and a representative from a government agency. Then we interviewed five members of the coordination group (the service market manager and representatives from the maternity and child health clinic, library and mental health and substance abuse service clinic). Finally, we interviewed three people from the city’s central administration: the director of human resources, the services development director and the project manager. Anonymity for the interviewees was guaranteed and secured; thus, special attention has been paid to preserving anonymity during the sampling and reporting phase. Other researchers listened to the interviews, and feedback was provided to the interviewer if necessary. No biases arising from the interviewer were noticed in the process, and any feedback related mostly to follow-up questions. To triangulate and cross-check the interviews’ findings, five documents from the hybrid organisation were analysed (see Table1). As an analysis method, inductive content analysis was used. At first, the theoretical framework developed by Rajala etal. (2018) was adopted and used in the 1 3 Exploring challenges ofboundary-crossing performance… empirical analysis. However, during the analysis process that took place after all interviews were conducted, we iterated and corrected this framework after going through 50 of the interview transcripts. This method is known as inductive category development, in which new theoretical categories are created from collected empirical data (Mayring 2000). By utilising inductive category development, it was possible to provide more space for interactions between the researchers and research subjects. This space was very useful because our research topic had been unexplored in previous literature, and we did not know exactly what we were looking for when we entered the case organisation. Conducting the study via inductive content analysis gave us the chance to iterate the research setting. Overall, the whole research process can be summarised in 11 steps: 1. Review literature on performance management and identify research gap. 2. From the literature, adopt theoretical categories for the content analysis. 3. Create questions for interviews based on these categories and select semi-structured interviews as the interview type. 4. Choose interviewees with the case organisation by using purposive sampling and secure interview permissions. 5. Pre-test the interview questions with colleagues and iterate each one of them. 6. Send interview questions to the interviewees beforehand and set interview dates. 7. Conduct all interviews using the chosen questions and record and transcribe each interview. Table 1 The empirical documents used in this study Document Content A report on an ethnographic study This study examined the capabilities and challenges of co-production in the hybrid. A total of 100 study subjects participated. The study was based upon interviews and observations, and a private company conducted it. The examined municipality published the report Presentation of the management model, governing structures, and joint goals of the hybrid The document describes actors involved in the governance and management of the hybrid and their tasks. The jointly agreed-upon goals of the organisations forming the hybrid are also presented. This document is an internal document of the municipality The annual budget of the municipality This document reveals what the hybrid reported to the external stakeholders in official municipal documents. It reported the number of customers and costs per customer The quarterly report of the municipality This document reveals what the hybrid reported to the external stakeholders in official municipal documents. It reported the number of customers and costs per customer A report describing the hybrid as an innovation platform This 50-page report provided by the municipality describes the hybrid and its functions and problems in detail T.Rajala et al. 1 3 8. Analyse 50% of the interview transcripts with theoretical categories using the computer program Atlas.ti. 9. Develop theoretical categories based on the conducted content analysis. 10. Using Atlas.ti, conduct a new content analysis of all interview transcripts and documents with the developed theoretical categories. 11. Report the results. 4.1 Analytical framework: known challenges ofperformance dialogues We adopted an analytical framework, presented in Table2, for the content analysis. This framework comprises seven challenge categories, listed in Column 1. The categories are based on key concepts, described in Column 2. In Column 3, these categories’ precise content in our research setting is explained further with example statements excerpted from the interviews. This framework was presented originally by Rajala etal. (2018), and it initially was developed from reasons for non-use of performance information. Extant literature used mental models (McGrath 1999), power (Bass and Riggio 2006; Verhoest etal. 2004), information (Bouckaert 1993; Poister 2003), information systems (Abdel-Maksoud etal. 2015), organisational culture (Moynihan 2005) and organisational structure (Goh 2002) to explain non-use of performance information. Because boundary-crossing performance dialogues are based on performance information use, this theoretical framework seems relevant. 4.2 Challenges ofperformance dialogues inhybrid organisations As we went through 50 percent of the interview transcripts after all the interviews were conducted, we noticed that the analytical framework was too general. To describe the challenges of boundary-crossing performance dialogues within the hybrid organisation, we further developed the framework by using our empirical data. In our case, increasing the intensions (e.g., Blackburn 2016, p. 170, for a definition of intensions) of the concepts enabled us to describe the challenges of boundary-crossing performance dialogues that were evident in interviewees’ statements. We increased intensions by creating subcategories under those categories presented by Rajala etal. (2018). Our subcategories had more characteristics than the categories adopted in the previous research. As a result, we were able to report the challenges of boundary-crossing performance dialogues in the chosen hybrid organisation in a more analytical manner. These subcategories are discussed in detail in the following sub-sections. 4.3 Mental models, motivation andpower First, we developed two subcategories for the category of mental model. The first identified subcategory was named ‘language barriers between member organisations’. This challenge indicated the lack of a common language among representatives of member organisations participating in the boundary-crossing performance dialogues (interviewee 3). A representative from a private company expressed this 1 3 Exploring challenges ofboundary-crossing performance… Table 2 The preliminary framework for the content analysis (taken from Rajala etal. 2018, but see also Van de Walle and Van Dooren 2010; Van Dooren etal. 2015; Rajala 2019) Challenge category Definition of the key concept in the category Example statements of challenges excerpted from the interviews Mental model Mental models are psychological representations demonstrating how something works in the real, hypothetical or imaginary world (Johnson-Laird 1998). Explicitly stated values, perceptions, explanations and other knowledge are all mental models that can be examined (Rajala etal. 2018) Performance dialogue is not viewed as valuable. Performance information is not understood. Participants report lack of a common language. Comprehension of performance dialogues is lacking. Different perceptions of performance cause harmful conflicts. Worldviews are colliding Motivation Motivation describes what stimulates a person to action or inaction (Pervin 2003) Motivation to conduct a performance dialogue is lacking. Motivation to action or inaction that damages a performance dialogue is too high Power Power is the ability to take action or inaction (Foucault 1977) Action or inaction makes it difficult to conduct performance dialogue Information Information is propositional knowledge that is stored, sent, received or manipulated in any medium (Dretske 1985) Information is inadequate and unsatisfying in some way, creating challenges for performance dialogues Information system A group of interconnected components that gather, retrieve, process, store and share information to support organisational activities (Laudon and Laudon 2016) The usability of the information system does not meet the user’s standards, and poor usability is complicating the performance dialogue because some or all of the performance information remains unused because of the poor usability Organisational culture Organisational (sub)culture comprises habits (i.e., action or inaction), as well as social rules that guide the use of performance information (Van Maanen and Schein 1979) Performance dialogues fail to gain acceptance within (sub)cultures. The (sub)culture allows people to hinder performance dialogues Organisational structure How tasks associated with main goals are divided among branches, sections, divisions, departments, positions and jobs in the organisation’s structure (Rajala etal. 2018) Organisational structures restrict the development of performance dialogues by allowing individuals to do harmful things to these dialogues or by preventing dialogues from occurring T.Rajala et al. 1 3 the organisations’ mental models concerning performance. Public, private and third sector organisations also were dissimilar in terms of the information that they collected, and they even applied different methods to collect the same kind of information. Moreover, the information systems in these organisations deviated remarkably from each other. Finally, the organisational cultures and structures supporting their performance were quite different because each organisation served different purposes, and the professions included in these organisations also differed. The hybrid organisation itself did not have any formal power over the member organisations, and proper motivation schemes were not adopted in the hybrid setting. Thus, reconciling differences and finding a common ground for mutual performance management were based on member organisations’ willingness. When this willingness was not forthcoming, deadlocks occurred, and the lack of formal power and motivation schemes in the hybrid organisation was viewed as a challenge. 5 Conclusions Hybrid organisations contain many organisational disparities that can cause conflicts in performance management. This makes performance dialogues especially relevant to these types of organisations because such dialogues often are used to transform conflicts into cooperation. Considering the hybrid organisation’s characteristics requires active inter-organisational dialogue when performance management systems are being designed and used. For example, using the performance dialogues to understand goal incongruence between the organisations comprising the hybrid organisation can be very beneficial to the success of Table 3 Saturation of findings Challenge of boundary-crossing performance dialogue How many interviewees mentioned this challenge? How many documents mentioned this challenge? Language barriers between member organisations 8 2 Conflicting mindsets of the member organisations 10 2 Lack of inter-organisational sanction systems 6 2 Lack of interest in other member organisations 8 2 Powerlessness of the member organisations 8 2 Member organisations as information system silos 9 2 Inability to aggregate the member organisation data 10 2 Clash of organisational cultures 11 2 Prevailing culture among the member organisations 9 2 Inter-organisational territorialism 9 2 Representative line-up rotation in boundary-crossing performance dialogues 8 2 Incompatible tasks of the member organisations 9 2 1 3 Exploring challenges ofboundary-crossing performance… performance management. However, creating a functional performance dialogue also can be challenging in many ways. In this study, we sought to identify the challenges of boundary-crossing performance dialogue in a hybrid organisation. This issue is relevant not merely due to performance dialogues’ important role in all organisations (e.g., Agostino and Arnaboldi 2015, 2018), but also particularly because of our limited understanding of performance dialogues’ impacts on different forms of hybrid organisations. Accordingly, this paper has explored the problems of boundary-crossing performance dialogues in the context of particular hybrid organisation. As a result, we found many challenges and described them in a detailed way in our analysis. With this analysis, the study revealed relationships between inter-organisational factors and obstacles with boundary-crossing performance dialogues. Conflicting mindsets between member organisations, member organisations as information system silos, inter-organisational territorialism, and clashes of organisational cultures are all examples of inter-organisational factors that can cause issues in performance dialogues. Some of the problems which can arise include inhibition of innovation, and limitations placed on the learning and knowledge-sharing potential which is normally embedded in boundary-crossing performance dialogues. In general, the inter-organisational factors described in this study were harmful due to the fact that they were detrimental to an environment open to respectful communication of views on performance. As respectful and open communication is a bedrock of every effective dialogue (Rajala etal. 2018), issues emerge when these practices are lacking. Thus, the relationships identified by this study create new insights into the systems and practices of hybrid performance management. It seems intuitive to claim that the challenges of boundary-crossing performance dialogues in hybrid organisations have something to do with the hybrids’ general characteristics (e.g., Johanson and Vakkuri 2017). Because this study did not focus on describing how the hybrid organisation’s characteristics can create the challenges that we identified, a need exists to examine this in future research. As an example, future studies could address how different forms of social and economic control create, e.g., clashes between organisational cultures, or how different funding methods shape the hybrid organisation’s performance management system. Furthermore, it can be concluded that additional theoretical work addressing the conceptual relationships between the challenges of boundarycrossing performance dialogues and the general characteristics of hybrids is needed. Because the empirical examinations showed what caused the challenges of boundary-crossing performance dialogues, they also presented a model describing how these challenges occurred. However, further testing is needed before this model can be accepted as a general theory on boundary-crossing performance dialogues. As a methodological contribution, we created a conceptual framework that can be used to study the challenges of boundary-crossing performance dialogues occurring between public and private sector actors in hybrid organisations. In this research, we tested two conceptual frameworks in the analysis section, which revealed that more analytical frameworks would be useful in understanding the characteristics of the challenges associated with boundary-crossing performance dialogues. This T.Rajala et al. 1 3 conceptual framework also proposes new concepts for the performance dialogue theories (e.g., Moynihan 2005; Rajala etal. 2018; Rajala and Laihonen 2019). The results of this study have several managerial implications. First, because boundary-crossing performance dialogues are platforms that reflect the state of the organisation, they suffer from the same general issues which challenge the hybrid form of organising. These problems are related to motivational challenges and incompatible information systems, as well as the lack of common mindsets and language between people working in different areas of the hybrid organisation. Inadequate organisation culture and structures are also an issue. Second, as the complications of forming hybrids engender costs, practitioners should consider carefully whether the benefits of establishing such an organisation outweigh the costs arising from it. Here, the central question is whether it makes more sense for these organisations to work independently or as a hybrid. Finally, practitioners should also keep in mind that boundary-crossing performance dialogues are only one coordination instrument amongst others which can be utilised to shape hybrids. However, boundary-crossing performance dialogues can also be a vital coordination tool when regularly used to solve difficult and complicated disagreements. In this study, we used a case study approach, and for this reason, the results cannot be generalised (e.g., Abdel-Kader etal. 2009). Other limitations of the study include the limited number of interviewees and the fact that we did not interview representatives from the private sector. The views of the private sector actor were examined from secondary data (i.e., documents produced by the hybrid organisation) as these contained direct quotations from company representatives. When one is conducting qualitative content analysis, the observer-expectancy effect always runs the risk of biasing results. To tackle doubts concerning observer-expectancy effect, we have provided quotations from the challenges of boundary-crossing performance dialogues. From these quotations, the reader should be able to discern whether we described the challenge arising from the interviews correctly. The analytical framework created in this study was built from the descriptions we used to depict the challenges of boundary-crossing performance dialogues that interviewees described to us. Because saturation of interview findings (see Table3) confirmed our results about the challenges of boundary-crossing performance dialogues, and the analysed documents provided additional support for the interview findings, we are confident that specific challenges of boundary-crossing performance dialogues existed in the examined hybrid organisation. However, we do acknowledge that the way that we chose to describe the challenges seen in the interview is our construction that attempts to convey interviewees’ views. As the created analytical framework is our construction, it means that constructivism describes our research approach. Despite these limitations, we think that our research has provided fertile ground for future research to address and more fully test our theoretical ideas about the challenges of performance dialogues in hybrid settings. Thus, we call for more research on the ideas proposed here so that more knowledge on dialogues as performance management practices in hybrid and public organisations can be gathered. This new knowledge is valuable in attempts to move to the type of inter-organisational performance governance described by Bouckaert and Halligan (2008). 1 3 Exploring challenges ofboundary-crossing performance… Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creat iveco mmons .org/licen ses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. Appendix1: Interview questions Thematic interview questions categorised according to the theoretical framework. General view onperformance dialogues 1. How would you describe the dialogues about performance? Performance information andperformance information system 2. Are there problems related to performance information and the systems providing it? Organisational structure andmotivation 3. Who participates when organisational goals and performance indicators are determined, and actions are being decided based on the performance information? 4. Are all necessary participants present? Why/Why not? Mental models 5. Is the performance information provided useful to you? 6. Are there different interpretations/views about the performance information available? Power andorganisational culture 7. Do people listen and respect different interpretations/views about the performance information? 8. How do you resolve conflicting views and develop conversational culture in the organisation? References Abdel-Kader, M. G., Lin, E. Y.-C., & Connect, Palgrave. (2009). Performance measurement of new product development teams: A case of the high-tech sector. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. T.Rajala et al. 1 3 Abdel-Maksoud, A., Elbanna, S., Mahama, H., & Pollanen, R. (2015). 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Tomi Rajala MA, has graduated at the University of Tampere. He has specialized in local public economics. Currently Rajala works as a project researcher in the hybrid organization project and as a lecturer in public financial management at the Faculty of Management and Business. As a PhD student, he is researching performance public sector outcome measurement. Along with these tasks, Rajala is part of a research project focusing on performance dialogues. Previously he has worked in municipalities and Statistics Finland with government productivity statistics. Harri Laihonen is a research director at Faculty of Management and Business, Tampere University, Tampere, Finland. Harri’s research interests lie in the fields of knowledge management and performance management. Within these fields, his current research projects investigate how performance information can be more efficiently used to support decision-making and organizational learning through performance dialogue. At moments, Harri is operating mostly in the public sector but the phenomena are general. Service systems and hybrid organizations provide extremely interesting contexts for the research in different sectors. Jarmo Vakkuri is Professor at the Faculty of Management and Business, Tampere University, and the director of the research group on Public Financial Management. His research concentrates for instance on performance measurement in public administration, theories of decision-making, hybrid organizations and governance, and urban policy-making. Vakkuri is the director of the HYPER project (Performance measurement for hybrid governance), and one of the directors of the “Beyond MALPE coordination: integrative envisioning” (BEMINE), both funded by the Academy of Finland.