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Community coalitions are an important part of the public milieu and subject to similar external pressures as other publicly funded organizations – including changes in required strategic orientation. Many US government agencies that fund efforts such as community-based social marketing initiatives have shifted their funding agenda from program development to policy development. The Florida Prevention Research Center at the University of South Florida (Tampa, Florida, USA) created community-based prevention marketing (CBPM) for policy development framework to teach community coalitions how to apply social marketing to policy development. This paper aims to explicate the framework’s theory of change.

The research question was: “How does implementing the CBPM for Policy Development framework improve coalition performance over time?” The authors implemented a case study design, with the “case” being a normative community coalition. The study adhered to a well-developed series of steps for system dynamics modeling.

Results from computer model simulations show that gains in community coalition performance depend on a coalition’s initial culture and initial efficiency, and that only the most efficient coalitions’ performance might improve from implementing the CBPM framework.

Practical implications for CBPM’s developers and users are discussed, namely, the importance of managing the early expectations of academic-community partnerships seeking to shift their orientation from downstream (e.g. program development) to upstream social marketing strategies (e.g. policy change).

Union‐community collaboration is an increasingly common practice in industrialised nations where union power and density have declined. This paper proposes a framework for defining and evaluating community unionism, through a definition of the term “community.”

The author explores this framework drawing on campaigns in Sydney and Chicago.

It defines the term community in three discrete but mutually reinforcing ways, as (community) organisation; common interest identity, and local neighbourhood or place. The term is used to then define community unionism as three discrete union strategies, and finally to examine one type of community unionism – coalition unionism. Successful coalition practice is defined by partner organisational relationships (coalition structure, bridge brokers, and coalition offices); common concern (common interest operates as mutual direct interest of organisation and members), and the element of scale (where success increases as coalitions operate at multiple scales such as the local, as well as the scale of government and/or business decision makers).

The paper identifies three elements of coalition unionism.

The purpose of this research is to assess whether differences occurred between directors and staff in community tobacco use prevention coalitions in Mississippi. Community coalitions, which are organizations working together for a common purpose involve representatives of diverse institutions focusing on issues in a local community. Because of their different roles, directors and support staff may view their coalition differently.

Thirty directors and 14 support staff of tobacco use prevention coalitions anonymously answered a lengthy questionnaire about their coalition personnel and functioning.

Both coalition directors and support staff agreed that their coalition had formal rules and effective management, reduced tobacco use, and benefited their region. In addition, directors and support staff reported high ownership, and positive opinions of member and personnel expertise. Further, directors and support staff favored taking tobacco industry money for themselves or their coalition. However, directors and support staff were neutral in satisfaction and in difficulty managing their coalition, and slightly negative in ratings of member‐member and member‐personnel communication, directors more negative than support staff on member‐personnel communication.

Strengthening communication seems to be a place where there is room for improvement in the present tobacco use prevention coalitions.

Presently, those actually working in a tobacco use prevention coalition were still idealistic about their efforts, but continued frustrations with communication may dampen their enthusiasm in the future.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and expand the role of strategic ambiguity (SA) in the field of organizational communication. It treats the triple bottom line (TBL) as indicative of an emerging coalition. This coalition brings together three loosely coupled discourse communities each attempting to advance the notion of green business, corporate social responsibility and sustainability.

This case directs attention to how SA and equivocation built into TBL aids three loosely networked discourse communities – formulated around “profits”, “people” and “planet” – emerge, coalesce and diffuse despite being rooted in imprecise and loosely formulated measures.

The findings indicate that despite its imprecision, lack of specificity and operational indices the TBL provides its members with the belief that they are far better off joining the coalition than going it alone. TBL's openness to multiple interpretations enables each of the discourse communities in the emerging network to expect to win concessions from others and to protect its values from encroachment.

This treatment of TBL suggests that SA can be expanded beyond an intra‐organizational focus to one encompassing emergent coalitions. The expanded notion of SA helps explain the stickiness of knowledge transfer in the early stage of coalition formation and the propensity of critics to view new imprecise but inspiring ideas like TBL as nothing but a fad or passing enthusiasm.

Community‐based participatory research (CBPR) has been shown to improve aspects of health promotion initiatives. This case study examines the effects of a CBPR intervention on intermediate outcomes (changes in the community) related to preventing health disparities and chronic disease. We describe how the Kansas City‐Chronic Disease Coalition used CBPR methods to help bring about community changes to reduce risk for cardiovascular diseases and diabetes among African Americans and Hispanics in Kansas City, Missouri. Using an empirical case study design, communities and scientific partners documented and analyzed the contribution of community changes (new or modified programs, policies or practices) facilitated by the coalition in two racial/ethnic communities: African American and Hispanic. Follow‐up interviews suggest that the coalition did a better job of implementing a CBPR intervention in the African American community than in the Hispanic community. Challenges to implementing CBPR interventions in multiple and diverse ethnic communities are discussed.

This paper aims to identify ways by which the core functions of human resource development HRD can be used to enhance the university–community partnership (UCP) in lieu of the “town and gown” era. Furthermore, the paper addresses the need to extend HRD activities beyond the organization and leverage HRD to spearhead the community-development agenda through coalition building between organizations, local universities and the community.

Literature on UCP is reviewed and analyzed, and the need to extend HRD focus beyond the organization to include community development through coalition building is discussed. A single-case descriptive analysis to illustrate the critical role of human resource and leadership development in UCP is done.

HRD’s interest in the UCP drive is negligible. UCP presents a new frontier for HRD research and practice because there is both public and private funding that can be assessed through the right contacts and networks.

The need for UCP has been a subject of discussion among scholars for time immemorial. However, the collapse of the “town and gown” era has inspired greater interest in UCP. HRD scholars and practitioners can leverage the expertise in applying andragogy principles, the focus on the adult learner and community leadership development to play a crucial in the UCP drive.

The health equity and prosperity of communities is closely linked to the effectiveness and success of local health coalitions. Social network analysis (SNA) is one mechanism to quantify and understand the factors leading to collaboration and effectiveness within these coalitions. This study aims to investigate network characteristics associated with perceived success and satisfaction in a health coalition and determine significant factors related to organizational collaborations.

This study examined the Olympic Peninsula Healthy Community Coalition (OPHCC) which aims to prevent chronic disease in rural Clallam County, Washington. Representatives (n = 21) from member organizations (n = 18) were asked to report on organization characteristics, perceived satisfaction in coalition activities, perceived success toward coalition's mission, and collaborations with other organizations in the coalition. Multilevel modeling used to analyze whether an organization's position within the coalition network was associated with their perceived satisfaction and perceived success. Exponential random graph modeling was used to examine what factors may impact collaboration ties between coalition members.

Organization representatives reported a total of 252 collaboration ties. In multilevel models, organization characteristics and network centrality scores accounted for between 61 and 68% of variance displayed in satisfaction scores and 45–61% of variance in perceived success scores. Exponential random graph modeling revealed activity level, for-profit status, and transitivity as significant factors in collaborative tie presence.

Encouraging consistent active participation, a balance of organizational type, and projects which require more than two collaborators may provide an environment for collaborative ties between organizations.

There is evidence that many promising coalitions fail to thrive, languishing for indefinite periods and/or collapsing before achieving their goals. The purpose of the current study is to conduct a qualitative investigation of a local coalition established to build a healthy community.

Text analysis and thematic coding of coalition interviews over two separate time points provided first hand insights into the experiences of coalitions as they develop and begin to implement change.

Two overarching processes defined each phase, namely: establishing potential (development phase) and fulfilling purpose (implementation phase). At the development phase, critical considerations related to the themes of “The Local Context”, “Processes” and “Time”, whereas at the implementation phase, critical considerations were focused on “Programs”, “Information” and “Funding”. The data clearly supported a shift in attention among coalition members that could be used in a preventative manner by coalition managers.

Left unattended, these critical considerations may contribute to coalition under‐performance by compromising the functional integrity of the members and the entity as a whole. The processes identified in this paper offer a way of conceptualising what topics are critical to coalition members at different phases of the coalition life cycle.

Community benefits agreements (CBAs) redistribute the benefits of new development to distressed communities and historically disenfranchised groups. They allow coalitions of labor and grassroots organizations to negotiate for concessions in the development process. Yet, CBAs are a relatively new tool used in planning and local economic development, and specification about their content and scope is evolving. Some of the earliest CBAs were negotiated in cities experiencing an influx of new growth and investment. However, less is known about the scope of CBA negotiations in shrinking cities where economic development is relatively anemic. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper offers an extension to the existing literature through an exploratory analysis of the scope of CBAs in the ten fastest shrinking cities in the USA between 2000 and 2010. The analysis is organized in three parts. First, the authors present a CBA typology that differentiates among CBAs negotiated with developers in the public, private and nonprofit sectors. Second, the authors compare neighborhood conditions in shrinking cities with CBAs to those without negotiated agreements. Finally, the authors discuss critical cases where CBA negotiations have occurred in shrinking cities.

Grassroots coalitions have more leverage when negotiating for concessions with private sector developers vs developers from the public and nonprofit sectors. The added leverage is attributed to the high profile and limited public benefits associated with projects pursued by private sector developers. Moreover, shrinking cities face additional obstacles when negotiating CBAs. The authors concluded that cities with the highest levels of physical distress are the least likely to negotiate and adopt CBAs.

This paper contributes to the literature by focusing on CBAs in shrinking cities. It also highlights nuisances in CBA negotiations with developers from the private, public and nonprofit sectors. Although the analysis focused on the US context, the inclusion of these perspectives in the CBA typology provides researchers in other institutional settings with a common framework for comparative analysis.

Inclusion and participation have become key values steering the policies of many governments. Hence, partnerships are now considered increasingly prominent vehicles for stakeholder synergy, added value, collaborative advantage and building local capacities to address health and social concerns. However, generally leadership across organisational boundaries has received little attention, and particularly partnership leadership represents a central challenge in any collective undertaking.As an example, this paper starts by shedding light on the meaning of partnership. It then poses several questions in order to navigate the partnership‐leadership mantra. The paper examines the skills of leaders in five South African community partnerships as reported from the perspectives of each partnership and each participating stakeholder group. It describes the uniqueness of how each partnership views its leaders and the distinctiveness of how each stakeholder appraises its leadership. It highlights diffuse and shared leadership in collaborative settings, and it encourages the nurturing of emergent leaders. It concludes that one size of leadership does not fit all partnerships.