The Challenge of the Resource Exchange Network

The resource exchange rationale is, in the authors' words, 'not a theory but a principle stating that people have far more to give and get from each other than appearances suggest or thinking allows' . This distinction matters because Sarason and Lorentz are not proposing a predictive model but a orienting assumption that must be tested in practice. The rationale holds that if individuals form voluntary associations that crosscut traditional agency boundaries, many obstacles to efficient service provision can be overcome through interpersonal linkages and negotiated exchanges . The principle is aspirational rather than deterministic: it asserts a possibility, not a mechanism, and its realization depends on human initiative and leadership.

The book identifies three major obstacles. First, the competitive orientation of service agencies, each protecting its own domain and funding streams. Second, constraints created by overspecialization, where agencies define themselves narrowly and cannot see the resources they might offer or need beyond their immediate mission. Third, what the authors provocatively call the 'disease of professionalism'—the tendency of professional identities and jurisdictional claims to inhibit the informal, boundary-crossing exchanges that networks require . These obstacles are not incidental but structural, which is why the authors argue that the resource exchange rationale is unworkable at the formal interorganizational level and must operate through informal people networks instead.

Sarason and Lorentz argue that network formation and maintenance require a rare kind of leader—sometimes called a 'reticulist' or member of a 'creative minority'—who possesses unique capacities to scan the environment for possible matches, generalize across domains, and remain passionately committed to the resource exchange rationale . Karen Cook's review in Contemporary Sociology described these skills as 'almost super-human' . The leader-coordinator must navigate between agencies without formal authority over them, sustain voluntary participation without hierarchical control, and maintain the network's momentum against the centrifugal forces of organizational self-interest. This emphasis on individual leadership is both a strength and a vulnerability of the network model: it suggests that networks depend on exceptional people rather than being replicable through routine procedures.

Reviews were mixed. Julian Rappaport, writing in Contemporary Psychology, praised the book as 'exciting and full of implications, possibilities, and relationships among heretofore unrelated events,' though he noted its 'rambling style' as both a weakness and part of its charm [citation:3]. Karen Cook's review in Contemporary Sociology was more critical: she argued that the idea, while interesting, 'is not as new as the authors presume,' pointing to historical precedents like quilting bees, barn raisings, and consumer cooperatives . Cook also faulted the book for overgeneralizing from a few case studies, prioritizing concrete details over analytical depth, and failing to engage with relevant social exchange theory from scholars like Homans, Blau, and Emerson .

The 1979 volume is a sequel and companion to the 1977 book, which presented the theory and rationale using the Essex Network as a case study. According to the publisher's description, Human Services and Resource Networks 'presents the theory and rationale for the network,' while The Challenge of the Resource Exchange Network is 'the how-to book, containing numerous case examples of resource exchange networks in action' and 'practical step-by-step guidelines for overcoming the obstacles to network development and operation' [citation:17]. Together, the two volumes form a pair: the first argues why resource exchange networks are necessary and how the Essex experiment demonstrated the concept; the second provides the operational detail and broader case examples that the first volume lacked.

The 1988 edition, published by Brookline Books, signals a shift in emphasis from the original 1979 subtitle's focus on the 'challenge' to a focus on moving 'from concept to action' [citation:1][citation:19]. This revision appeared nearly a decade after the first edition, during a period of reduced public funding for human services—a context the publisher explicitly addressed in promotional material, noting that 'in a time of reduced funding and tighter budgets—with the mandate to coordinate service offerings in each community—the resource exchange network offers public and private institutions more effective use of their resources' [citation:17]. The revised edition thus positions the resource exchange model as a practical response to fiscal constraint, not merely an idealistic alternative.