Seo, Danbi2022-11-142022-11-142020-04https://hdl.handle.net/11299/243108University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. August 2020. Major: Public Affairs. Advisor: John Bryson. 1 computer file (PDF); viii, 125 pages.In my dissertation, I focus on how actors in the early stages of collaboration develop and use resources to identify and realize the potential of the collaboration. Collaboration in public and nonprofit sectors enhances organizations’ access to resources, but the very process of collaboration is resource intensive. This tendency is even stronger when collaboration is aimed at addressing large-scale complex social problems. Yet to date, the topic of how to develop and use resources for effective collaboration remains underexamined in the existing literature. To address this problem, I examine the development process of a collaboration of seven nonprofit organizations, called “Synergy,” whose purpose is to support minority entrepreneurs and ultimately to reduce racial income and wealth disparities in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul in Minnesota. Based on extensive archival documents, 123 interviews with 27 unduplicated interviewees, and 6,150 minutes of participant observations over five years between August 2014 and August 2019, I identify four actions through which collaboration participants develop and use resources – framing, orienting, mobilizing, and structuring. With those actions, I demonstrate how collaboration participants develop and use resources, thus facilitating the process of collaboration, and propose a preliminary model of resource development and use. The findings of my dissertation suggest a new way of understanding resources in collaboration and highlight the significance of actions of collaboration participants in creating and maximizing the value of resources in collaboration.encollaborationearly stages of collaborationinstitutional changeleadershipnonprofit managementresource developmentThesis or Dissertation