| This study utilizes a networked perspective to examine the role that collaboration plays as an implementation strategy. The study utilizes an inductive approach to generate conceptual frameworks and testable propositions by analyzing implementation efforts in six watersheds: Inland Bays (DE); Lake Tahoe (CA, NV); Narragansett Bay (RI, MA); Salt Ponds (RI); Tampa Bay (FL); and Tillamook Bay (OR). The analysis examined four research questions: (1) What implementation activities were observed? (2) What role did collaboration play in the implementation process? (3) How did the institutional setting influence the collaborative process? (4) What public value was created? These questions were answered using an qualitative, comparative case study research design that developed theory grounded in the data.; Collaboration emerged as an important implementation strategy in all six watersheds. At the operational level, collaboration was used to deliver public services such as permitting, public education, training, environmental monitoring, and data collection. At the policy-making level participants were engaged in a wide range of activities oriented towards sharing information, pooling resources, and developing shared policies and norms. There were also attempts to institutionalize shared policies by developing formal agreements, creating new programs, and developing new institutions.; A theoretical framework was developed with testable propositions that help explain the particular pattern of collaborative activities in each watershed. The framework postulates that the watershed's contextual conditions create an interorganizational system's collaborative capacity. Five sets of contextual factors had the largest influence: the physical environment; configuration of problems; institutional setting; situational histories; and, programmatic context. Once these opportunities exist, the actors must still reach collective agreement on the activities to be pursued jointly. This decision-making process was influenced by a different set of situational factors: the mix of actors; mix of problems and policy solutions; the nature of the decision-making process; and, the expected outcomes. The situational factors create incentives and constraints that influenced the participants' ability to reach agreement. The final section analyzes the different ways that collaboration generates public value at the individual, organizational, network, and societal level and discusses the implementation problems that occurred. |
