Existing arrangements to secure sustainable cooperation may also founder because of spillover. Strategies to cope with a new reality in one domain (e.g., families) can have negative or positive effects on provisions facilitating cooperation elsewhere (e.g., communities, organizations). Work-home interference is a prominent example of this kind of problem: high-performance human resource management practices may trigger employees’ willingness to work overtime at the expense of commitments at home. For example, throughout history, the development of a state-coordinated welfare system for care decreased the need for other forms of (citizen-led) initiatives. Of course, spillover can also result in mutual reinforcement of cooperative arrangements in both domains, for example as is the case when flexible work-hour policies facilitate employees meeting their care duties.

These kinds of spillover processes are an important reason why some arrangements are vulnerable or untenable, and why others thrive. Making cooperation sustainable requires that investments in one domain are compatible with requirements of others, or even have positive side effects. Cooperation will only truly contribute to a resilient society if it is achieved across, as well as within, these domains. How are the institutional arrangements of families, communities, and organizations interrelated, and how do these arrangements allow for accommodating the changing socio-economic and technological circumstances? We need to know how to prevent and mitigate negative cross-domain spillover effects; we also need fundamental insights into how to design institutional arrangements in which processes in one domain enhance value creation in the others.