The cognitive fabric of collaborative governance: paradox mindset in transformation-oriented collaborations

This theoretical article develops a micro-foundational perspective on how and under what conditions collaborative governance groups generate transformative outcomes. It integrates literature on collaboration, transformation, and paradox to advance three core propositions. First, collaborating for transformative outcomes constitutes a distinctive paradoxical context, in which the tensions of collaboration and the tensions of transformation are nested, reinforcing, and constitutive of the process itself. Second, diversity in collaborators’ cognitive-emotional capacity to perceive and navigate tensions (i.e. paradox mindset) shapes collaborative outcomes, with diversity in paradox mindset enhancing the likelihood of transformative outcomes. Third, the paradoxical leadership behaviours of designated leaders further increase the likelihood of transformative outcomes. By highlighting the dual challenge of transformation-oriented collaborations of eliciting tensions to stimulate change while containing them to sustain collaboration, the article links individual-level cognitive-emotional predisposition to group dynamics and system-level outcomes, offering a broader theorizing of collaborations in public administration.