Physical activity promotion in an urban district: Analyzing the mechanisms of interorganizational cooperation

Abstract

Past research has identified the importance of cooperation among community-based organizations from different sectors to address public health problems such as insufficient physical activity. However, little is known about how and why interorganizational cooperation occurs. The present study sought to analyze the structure and emergent patterns of interorganizational cooperation within a network promoting physical activity based in an urban district neighborhood of a city in Southwestern Germany. Survey data on cooperative relations among 61 network organizations and organizational attributes (e.g., possession of sport facilities) were collected. Social network analysis was applied to examine network properties and exponential random graph models were estimated to test hypotheses concerning mechanisms and conditions of cooperative tie formation. The results show that the network of cooperation is sparse but characterized by a tendency for cooperation to occur in triangular structures. Other significant mechanisms of cooperative tie formation are preferential attachment, with the community department for education and sports being the most central network actor, and heterophily regarding the cooperation of organizations from different sectors. This study provides valid and reliable findings on conditions of network formation and significant mechanisms of interorganizational cooperation in the field of physical activity promotion. Knowledge about these mechanisms can help to manage networks effectively and efficiently and reveal potentials for improvement and intensification of interorganizational cooperation in both the present and other research areas of health promotion.

Community networks of sport and physical activity promotion: an analysis of structural properties and conditions of cooperation

“…In some studies using SNA, organizations in the same sector cooperate more often with each other, indicating homophily as a mechanism of cooperative tie formation [ 59 , 63 ]. However, other network studies have found that organizations from different sectors are more likely to establish a relationship, indicating heterophily as a mechanism of cooperative tie formation [ 18 , 56 , 60 ]. An effect frequently observed is that cooperation in these networks takes place in triangles [ 18 , 63 ], i.e.…”

“…Studies on cooperation networks of organizations engaged in sport and PA promotion show rather heterogeneous results [31], both in terms of network characteristics and in terms of the predictors of cooperation. While some networks have a moderate to high density with a variety of realized relationships [56][57][58], other networks are rather fragmented with low levels of cooperation [18,19,59,60]. In some networks, cooperation is characterized by centralization of a few actors that hold by far the highest number of cooperative ties or act as gatekeepers [56,58,60,61], whereas in other networks the relationships between the organizations are evenly distributed and represent a decentralized network [19,59,62].…”

“…While some networks have a moderate to high density with a variety of realized relationships [56][57][58], other networks are rather fragmented with low levels of cooperation [18,19,59,60]. In some networks, cooperation is characterized by centralization of a few actors that hold by far the highest number of cooperative ties or act as gatekeepers [56,58,60,61], whereas in other networks the relationships between the organizations are evenly distributed and represent a decentralized network [19,59,62]. There are also contrasting results regarding the conditions of cooperation.…”