| Over the past few decades, the formation of regional collaboratives (RCs) to resolve regional issues has become a nationwide phenomenon. These collaborative organizations are composed of entities from two or more sectors and typically include civic leaders and public, private, and nonprofit groups. As one of many emerging hybrid governance structures, this collaborative governance system is characterized by multiple sector participation (Tang and Mazmanian, 2008).;This dissertation seeks to identify the factors contributing to the sustainability and accomplishments, management and leadership of successful regional collaborative governance structures, as these organizations take on critical roles in shaping regional development. The research involves adapting Elinor Ostrom's (2005) original design principles of common-pool resource settings.;By conducting a survey and case study analyses on 64 organizations across the nation (39 regional collaboratives and 25 traditional alliances), this dissertation identifies design principles and management and leadership principles that relate to the outcome measures of sustainability and accomplishments.;The findings of this study reveal that the principles contributing to sustainable and successful regional collaboratives are: shared values, consistent mission and values, legitimacy and political support, membership behavior and homophily, and organizational capacity. Additionally, external economic climate, organizational financial stability, and executive leadership are identified as key factors for success in regional collaboratives.;Compared with Ostrom's design principles of common-pool resource regimes, the number of elements that contribute to successful collaborative governance, especially in the case of regional collaboratives, is fewer. It is consistent with the fact that many regional collaboratives are often disbanded or become inactive as they are difficult to sustain themselves. |
