Dissecting Collaboration in Environmental Management and Governance: Examining Qualities, Outcomes, and Relationships

Abstract

As a proposed strategy in addressing both limitations associated with conventional approaches to environmental management and governance, as well as challenges of wicked environmental problems, collaboration is a concept in which is highly examined yet unclearly assessed. The thesis aimed to explore collaboration in environmental domain to better understand this intricate process and how it works. Specifically, collaboration was explored terms of three elements: 1) the qualities which contribute to the process of collaboration (e.g. trust, social learning, shared understanding), 2) outcomes of collaborating, and 3) how qualities relate to outcomes (i.e. relationships). Two studies were conducted. The first study of this thesis involved conducting a systematic mapping review to unpack collaboration in environmental management and governance in the scholarly literature in terms of these three elements. The second study involved a multiple case study design to explore findings from this first study in empirical settings, in which three case studies of climate change adaptation collaboratives in New Brunswick were examined using a mixed methods approach. The overall findings from the studies are indicative of some similar elements examined in the literature and present in practice, as well as some discrepancies which should drive further examination into key elements of collaboration. The research contributes both conceptually and empirically to the scholarly literature by addressing gaps of understanding on collaboration in the environmental domain. It also contributes to collaboration in practice, to aid in determining how collaborative strategies can be understood to be more effective as an alternative approach to environmental management and governance.