ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the darker side to mandated interorganizational relations, specifically mandated groups, in health and social care integration and the basic social processes that are at play. Mandated forms of interorganizational relations are now a significant policy tactic of most governments, especially in the UK. Generally, the dark side of wicked issues within the health and social care interorganizational literature is usually external and contextual, referring to the long-term, social, economic, environmental and intractable problems that exist within local communities. If social identity theory as a group process points toward interorganizational groups being a collection of individuals based on common self-identity, the data on mandated interorganizational groups in some ways contradict's this theory. The research on voluntary forms of groups and pluralistic ignorance does have certain parallels with mandated groups, however there are still contradictions from which lessons could be learned.
