Network governance as a structure of conversations

In this paper, we use Cultural Theory to explain why effective network governance is experienced by so many participants as generating many frustrating conversations – a ‘talking shop’ – and to explain why particular actors tend to find these conversations so frustrating. In the second part of the paper, we propose an approach to managing those conversations in a more fruitful way, based on separating out a specific set of conversations, based on our prior analysis, and generating a set of potentially testable propositions about how to go about this. We draw on twenty years of participation in the network governance of ‘joining up’ projects in the field of health social care and education.