Thinking Harder About Outcomes for Collaborative Governance Arrangements

Abstract

In recent years, a growing number of scholars have urged greater intellectual effort regarding the outcomes, or impacts, being produced, or not produced by collaborative governance arrangements. Some progress has been made with "process" and "social" outcomes, outcomes affecting systemic collaborative capacity, the identification of second-and third-order consequences, and in refining approaches to incorporating and measuring real world environmental improvements. But what about other creative, important, and potentially useful governance outcomes that may well be unique to collaborative governance arrangements? Are we measuring all of the important things? We put this hypothesis to the test by examining four successful cases of collaborative governance in four Western states. The research, by discovering and developing three new types of governance outcomes-enhancing agency resources, developing and transferring technology, and going beyond compliance-suggests that our current frameworks for thinking about and measuring outcomes produced by collaborative governance arrangements are necessarily incomplete.

Managing Biodiversity Through Stakeholder Involvement: Why, Who, and for What Initiatives?

“…For example, Rogers and Weber (2010) have analyzed various cases of successful collaborations in the areas of clean water supply, forest management, land conservation, endangered species protection, and sustainable communities. Yet the literature describing stakeholder involvement is either too general (focused on general typologies or theoretical concepts) or else too narrow (focused on very specific cases studies) to provide a consistent overview of the types of practical measures that organizations can implement in cooperation with stakeholders in relation to biodiversity conservation.…”

Collaboration in Federal Hydropower Licensing: Impacts on Process, Outputs, and Outcomes

“…Participants gain knowledge and skills (Frame et al, 2004), and learning can extend beyond the original stakeholders (Connick & Innes, 2003). Collaboration builds new "collaborative capacity" (Bardach, 1998, p. 20;Rogers & Weber, 2010), and generally improves "public problem-solving capacity" by enabling citizens to better draw on collaborative resources (Rogers & Weber, 2010, p. 3; also d' Estree & Colby, 2004). And collaboration enhances the democracy of decisionmaking bodies (Leach, 2006).…”

“…Many studies of collaborative decision-making are single-case, in-depth descriptions (O'Leary & Bingham, 2003) that describe collaboration, but not what might have occurred absent collaboration, and thus they only provide limited causal evidence of collaboration's impacts. Most studies of outcomes focus on procedural and social impacts, like capacity to collaborate (Rogers & Weber, 2010) and institutional resilience Goldstein, 2012;. Studies evaluating impacts on the actual system being managed are almost nonexistent (Kelman, Hong, & Turbitt, 2013).…”

Understanding the Role of Cross-Sector Collaborations on the Success of Florida’s Drug Courts

“…In practice, Wolf et al's (2004) study participants stated that obtaining data was problematic and expressed a need for improved data systems and access. In addition, Rogers and Weber (2010) urge members of these partnerships to think harder and pay more attention to the kinds of outcomes being produced from such partnerships.…”