Cross-sector partnerships (XSP) that address complex societal issues tend to struggle to achieve a substantial impact. To attain successful collaboration, the way in which these XSPs balance participation and efficiency in collaborative practice is vital. While it is commonly examined in a face-to-face environment, this study investigates the practice in a digital context. Based on observations of virtual meetings in an XSP on climate change mitigation, a multimodal discourse analysis presents how affordances of communicative channels influenced the relationship of participation and efficiency, with consequences of increased centralization, virtual methods of governance and difficulties of dealing with complexity.

Interorganisational collaboration is often proposed as an ambitious and democratic method to address complex societal problems, yet it faces criticism for its perceived inefficiency. While this critique questions the effectiveness of interorganisational collaborations to achieve collective goals, little attention is awarded to the variety of impacts brought by members' possibilities to communicate. With this study, I aim to enhance the understanding of interorganisational collaboration by exploring their members' perceptions of how communication practices influence their ability to generate collaboration value. Eleven members of a Swedish interorganisational collaboration were interviewed, and the material was subjected to thematic analysis. The analysis revealed three overarching collaboration values: monitoring, networking, and empowering. By highlighting the communicational support, constraints, and interconnections of these values, the study offers insights into the communicational challenges and potentials of generating societal impact in fair and effective manners. These insights are valuable for practitioners involved in interorganisational collaborations and for guiding future research inquiries.

In research into interorganizational collaboration (IOC), the number of contributions highlighting the constitutive role of communication constantly seems to increase. However, surprisingly few contributions are devoted to communication studies that concentrate on the use of different media. An advanced “mediatedness” perspective is increasingly required, not least in terms of theory, focusing on how different media, as objects, tools and agents altogether constitute collaboration through complex combinations and asymmetric usage patterns. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to develop a theoretical framework for analyzing IOCs as media-driven processes and practices, which is highly relational. Of particular importance are the diachronic transformations of meaning-making when discursive content (sketchy notes, brainstorming, digital threads, presentation program slides, etc.) is transferred and materialized into stable ideas, proposals or solutions; moving from one media context to another; and its impact on the collaborations’ outcome.