Convergence or divergence: Exploring different mechanisms driving children's rights organizations' offline versus online interorganizational alliance building

摘要

NGOs today increasingly use multiple technology platforms to build and maintain relationships with other organizations. However, the extent to which these platforms enhance NGOs' networking capacity beyond their offline connections is not well understood. Focusing on the status seeking versus resource-exchange logic, this paper asks what mechanism drives NGOs' networking behaviors across three different platforms by comparing the offline alliance network with two forms of online networks among a group of international children's rights NGOs and their NGO/IGO partners: (a) hyperlink network that emerges from organizational websites, and (b) Twitter follower-followee network. Exponential Random Graph Modeling (ERGM) analysis shows that NGOs are more likely to connect to high-status organizations both offline and online. Meanwhile, whereas NGOs are more likely to connect with geographically proximate others offline, online relationships are not constrained by geographic distance. Our findings confirm the boundary-spanning capacity of information and communication technologies (ICTs), which enables NGOs to expand existing interorganizational networks.