Exchange patterns and relations in collaborative governance.

Abstract

iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I first of all want to thank the almighty God for giving me the wisdom and inner strength to carry out this study from inception to completion. My sincerest gratitude also goes to my dissertation chair, Dr. Janet M. Kelly, whose mentorship, guidance and unflinching support throughout the stages of this research have contributed to this meaningful and scientifically substantiated paper. The findings of the study showed that compared to other public services, economic development services have a greater association with vertical collaboration whilst public safety services have a greater association with horizontal collaboration.Similarly, infrastructure services have a greater association with bilateral collaboration whilst public safety services have a greater association with multilateral collaboration.The study also corroborated previous findings that asset specificity and service measurability have strong influence on the likelihood of collaboration. With respect to the pattern of collaboration, the study indicated that compared to other transaction characteristics, services that have high levels of asset specificity but easily measurable have greater associations with vertical and bilateral collaborations. Similarly, services that have high levels of asset specificity and measurement difficulty have greater associations with horizontal and multilateral collaborations. With respect to network embededdness, the study established that repeated interaction in the past has the most significant influence on decisions to collaborate.vii