Cross-sector inter-organizational partnerships, alliances and networks have become extremely popular. Yet, we may expect competing societal-level institutional logics to play an important role in cross-sector alliances, hence making their management central to alliance success. This article responds to the general research question: How do participants of public–private joint ventures manage competing institutional logics? Based on in-depth interviews we empirically characterize two competing logics in a cross-sector collaborative and identify two practices used to cope with them.