2026-11-25 –, MacCallum Room
Sustainability transitions involve changes across technologies, markets, policy, infrastructure, and institutions. Multiple organisations contribute to these changes across organisational boundaries. These organisations differ in their priorities, interpretations, and roles, yet their activities may be interdependent. Inter-organisational networks bring these actors together around formally articulated ambitions for systemic change. However, a shared ambition and participation in network activities do not, on their own, explain collective action within an ongoing sustainability transition. This study examines what the network's relational structure and participants' understandings of the transition reveal about collective action.
The study focuses on an inter-organisational network spanning more than 50 organisations across Australia's timber and construction sectors. An explanatory sequential mixed-methods design guides the analysis across three phases. Phase 1 applies whole-network social network analysis (SNA) to administrative and documentary data to examine patterns of participation, community structure, core–periphery organisation, brokerage, and governance positions. The structural analysis informs purposeful sampling for Phase 2, with participants selected from different structural positions across the network. Phase 2 draws on semi-structured interviews with selected network participants and organisational materials. An iterative interpretive qualitative analysis examines how participants understand the sustainability transition and how these understandings relate to the network's formally articulated direction for change.
Phase 3, currently in progress, integrates the relational and interpretive findings to examine collective action within the network. Neither structural positions nor participants' understandings are treated as sufficient evidence of collective action on their own. The integration considers what these dimensions reveal about collective efforts within an inter-organisational network established to pursue long-term systemic transformation during an ongoing sustainability transition.
Catalina Espinosa Tovar is a PhD candidate at The University of Queensland Business School and a strategy and sustainability professional with over 15 years of experience across industry, non-profit organisations, and academia. Her research focuses on how organisations across sectors work together to address complex sustainability challenges. She is particularly interested in inter-organisational networks and sustainability transitions, and uses mixed methods including social network analysis and qualitative research.