Master of Coastal & Ocean Policy Master of Public Administration Developing a Framework for...

Master of Coastal & Ocean PolicyMaster of Public Administration

Developing a Framework for Analyzing Partnerships for Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM):

An Institutional Analysis of Watershed Partnerships in the U.S.

Mark T. Imperial, Ph.D.Master of Coastal & Ocean Policy (MCOP) Program

Master of Public Administration (MPA) Program

University of North Carolina [email protected]

http://people.uncw.edu/imperialm

Presented at the conference “Design and Dynamics of Institutions for Collective Action” at Utrecht University, Netherlands November 29 – December 1, 2012


Central Arguments• While participants in IWRM should think about

problems holistically, they should act strategically to build and manage partnerships

• Unfortunately, research tends to examine what partnerships “do” without examining the structures that shape and constrain their processes

• Getting the rules, routines, and processes right takes time and the partnership’s “structure” is likely to evolve as it confronts different challenges

• Building robust theory requires understanding partnership structure and developmental processes


Framework for Comparative Analysis• Policy space that the partnership operates in can be

framed in terms of a set of strategic choices– Consistency of how problems are framed, comprehensiveness

(space, actors, issues, time), and the level of aggregation associated with making these choices

• Partnership structure is defined in terms of the configuration of three sets of rules– Strategic choices about the boundary, decision, and

coordination rules• 4 stage- life-cycle model draws attention to the

clusters of challenges at each developmental stage– Entrepreneurial, collectivity, formalization and control, and

elaboration of structure


Data & Methods• Extends analysis of data collected by Imperial &

Hennessey (2000) as part of study for the NAPA– Comparative analysis of partnerships in six longitudinal case

studies of watersheds in the U.S.– More than 200 field interviews, archival records– Grounded theory approach to qualitative analysis

• Builds on wide range of theory– Framework is consistent with approach to institutional analysis

advanced by Elinor Ostrom (1990) and her colleagues– Draws on research in organizational theory, networks, and

collaboration


Policy Space & Partnerships• Choices about what it is and what it should do

– Space (geographic scale), actors, issues, and timeframe– Typically they are organized around one or more focal

problem(s) that motivate collective action

• Who makes decisions? How are decisions made? – Need some process for aggregating preferences and making

decisions over some period of time

• What will it do? How will it get done?– How will joint actions be coordinated– Where will the resources come from– Horizontal consistency may be easier to achieve than vertical

consistency


Dimensions of Policy Space• Consistency of Policies

– Horizontal: organizations at a particular level pursue the same policy for the same issue

– Vertical: organizations at different levels pursue the same policy for the same issue

• Comprehensiveness is viewed in terms of– Space (geographic scale), actor (proportion of actors involved),

issue (proportion of interdependent issues), and time (long range view of the consequences and ability to solve problems)

• Aggregation of Policy Preferences– Extent to which problems and policy alternatives are framed

from an “overall” perspective rather than from a particular actor


Describing the Structure of a Collaborative Partnership

• The “structure” is produced by the configuration of 3 interrelated sets of rules (formal and informal)– Boundary: member and strategy rules– Decision: preference aggregation, distribution of power,

distribution of roles or responsibilities, and distribution of participation rules

– Coordination: exchange, monitoring, dispute resolution, and enforcement rules


Boundary Rules• Configuration of member and strategy rules that

determines the boundary distinguishing the partnership from other organizations

• Member Rules– Who can or cannot be a member– Different types of members (member, associate member, ex

officio)– Members are organizations but individuals might be included– Voluntary participation or required by a higher-order set of rules

(e.g., state statute)– Rules pertaining to expansion or expulsion of members

• Selection of members will influence and constrain the strategic options for the partnership


Boundary Rules• Strategy Rules

– Specify shared definitions of a problem or set of problems within the domain of the partnership

– Specify the responses to problems that are legitimate or illegitimate – what can or cannot be done

– Specify its roles, functions, or processes– Specify how it will acquire resources needed to accomplish

these tasks– Specify the relationship between the partnership and other

network members – relationship to the “turf” of network members

• Strategy will influence the membership structure of the partnership


Decision Rules• Determine how members interact and make decisions

– Rules are likely to evolve towards formality and complexity and may have a path-dependent quality

• Preference Aggregation Rules– Consensus and Robert’s Rules of Order are common but other

complex voting systems may exist• Distribution of Power Rules

– Equality, voting vs. nonvoting, creation of executive boards, centralized vs. decentralized

• Distribution of Roles/Responsibility Rules– Officers, sub-units, work groups, specialization of functions

• Distribution of Participation Rules– Width: degree each member participates in each decision– Depth: degree each member can influence a specific decision


Coordination Rules• Coordination rules define mutual exchange rights

among members• Exchange Rules

– Set up the operating procedures that govern resource exchanges between the member and the collaborative organization or between members

• Monitoring Rules– Created to govern exchange process and ensure that members

follow through on commitments• Dispute Resolution Rules

– Specify how conflicts among members will be resolved• Enforcement Rules

– Sanctions for noncompliance or rewards for compliance


Life Cycles of Collaborative Partnerships• Little research

– Some case studies point out that there is often an evolutionary character to the development of these partnerships

– A sequence of different partnerships when viewed over time

• Draw on literature of organizational life-cycles– Rely on a simple four-stage summary model– Adopt a less controversial view that stages represent clusters of

issues and problems that the organizational system must confront

– Time spent at each stage could vary considerably and process is not necessarily sequential

– Birth, death, and decline are explained by different theories– Liability of “newness” exists when partnerships form


Entrepreneurial Stage• Boundary Rules

– Goals are initially hard to distinguish from founding members– Potential members come an go as they explore utility of joining– Marked by innovation and lots of ideas related to strategy– Distinct strategy soon emerges to attract members and resource

• Decision & Exchange Rules– Frequent changes: try and abandon organizational forms until a set of

workable rules takes hold– Emphasis on trust and relationships among founding members– Need for opinion leaders, champions, and entrepreneurs

• Success– Survival– Resource acquisition, growth, flexibility– Resources focus on partnership creation


Collectivity Stage• Boundary Rules

– Membership is now stable and there is a commitment to strategy• Decision & Exchange Rules

– Marked by high cohesion among founding members– Cycles of exchange are now reproducing themselves– Not that it has survived testing period, investments in relation-specific

assets becomes possible– Emphasis begins shifting to improving decision and exchange rules– Need for coordinators, facilitators, and fixer/brokers

• Success– Perception that partnership is effective enough to justify

continued/increased investments– Resources needed to reproduce the structure are relatively secure– Emphasis on survival gives shifts to reliable and efficient processes


Formalization & Control Stage• Boundary Rules

– Identify in policy space is recognized outside the partnership– High member commitment because investments in structure now lost

• Decision & Exchange Rules– Shift to efficiency, productivity, and organizational maintenance– Investments in relation-specific assets are common, but lost if

partnership dissolves– Emphasis on efficient processes and accountability leads to new rules

and their institutionalization• Success

– Organizational maintenance is overarching goal– Efficient internal processes– Effectiveness gauged in terms of goal attainment, production,

efficiency, and stability and control of internal processes


Elaboration of Structure Stage• Boundary Rules

– Respond to threats and opportunities by boundary modifications• Decision & Exchange Rules

– Marked by new multi-purpose subsystems and decentralization to sub-units to improve reliability and efficiency

– On-going investments in relation-specific assets requires continued focus on accountability and efficiency of internal processes

– Scope of rule change is relatively small with changes in periphery more common than changes in core rules and routines

• Success– Continued emphasis on goal attainment, production, efficiency, and

stability/control– Renewed emphasis on boundary expansion leads to importance of

measures like resource acquisition, growth, and expansion


What does other literature say about successful rule configurations and

partnership life-cycles


Enduring Partnerships• Leach & Pelkey (2001)

– Meta-analysis of 37 studies, that identified, 210 “lessons” learned, that share 28 themes (7 have +/- are opposites)

– 8 factors are resource-related but causal process is unclear• Do resources allow partnerships to form or do rules require

resource exchanges?– While only 3 studies used the IAD framework, 18 theses are

related to boundary, decision, and coordination rules– Seemingly contradictory findings reflect reality that no single

structure will always be most effective and the changing nature of success measures during different developmental stages

• Need to better understand role of structure and developmental processes


Some interesting paradoxes and possible limitations for IWRM emerge from the framework


Stability vs. Change• Stability in organizational structures when

viewed over time– Inertia is not a symptom of “bad” management but is actually a

by-product of an well designed organizational system– Changes in core strategies, structures, and processes will be

more difficult to achieve than minor changes at the periphery– Changes associated with CEM may prove beneficial over the

long term but disruptive aspects can also have dire consequences

– As CEM partnership matures, it is likely to focus on maintaining its resources

– Is “adaptive management” of natural resource systems is possible or desirable?


Reliability & Institutionalization• Modern world favors organizations that demonstrate

a capacity for reliable performance – Partnerships have to reproduce their structure consistently– Do this by institutionalizing rules, routines, and procedures

• Institutionalization is a “two-edged sword” – Institutionalization lower the transaction costs and promotes

stability that enables the CEM partnership to endure – It also makes it resistant to change because changes disrupt

internal routines and external linkages, which reduces reliability– This suggests another set of obstacles to adaptive approaches to

natural resource systems


Accountability• Modern world favors organizations that

account rationally for their actions– CEM partnership must document how resources are used and

reconstruct the series of decisions, rules, and actions associated with outputs or outcome

• Accountability is also a “two-edged” sword– Too much emphasis on accountability or poorly designed

monitoring systems can create disincentives for joining and/or contributing resources to a partnership


Legitimacy• Legitimacy is needed to acquire the resources (e.g.,

membership, public or political support, money, etc.) needed to survive– Membership can influence legitimacy– Enhance (or reduce) legitimacy through choices related to

membership, strategy, decision, or coordination rules – As partnership ages, it should develop stronger exchange

relationships, become part of the hierarchy, and have their actions endorsed by powerful actors

– If adaptive management results in information that suggests the policy is not working, that could reduce legitimacy

– Easier to attract resources to win-win situations but what if the “problem” inherently involves win-lose dynamics?


Summary & Conclusions• Think holistically, but IWRM is inherently a

strategic endeavor– Need to understand the ecology of the governance system –

lots of opportunities for partnerships but not all will bear fruit– Practical limits to how much any collection of policies and

programs can or should be “integrated” and a little conflict can also produce policy innovation and change

– Prospective gains of any institutional change must be weighed against the potential costs of change

– Sub-optimum level of integration may be intentional or desirable because the transaction costs to move to an alternative institutional arrangement may be too high


Summary & Conclusions• Getting the rules right takes time and involves a wide

range of implicit and explicit strategic choices– Little thought is given in advance to what the “structure” should

be. Structure becomes the by-product of choices (implicit and explicit) made along the way

– There is a path dependent quality to these choices, which can sometimes make them hard to undo

– There is unlikely to be one “best” way to organize the interactive processes associated with these partnerships

– However, certain structures impose clear limits on what can be done and how things are done

– It is important to give a lot of thought to the rules that provide structure to the partnership because they can be hard to change


Summary & Conclusions• There is a need to understand the developmental

process of these partnerships– Different challenges and measures of “success” during each

stage of their life-cycle– Lots of research but it is often focused on early part of

formalization and control shortly after some plan or “process” has completed

– Need much greater understanding of factors in later stages of partnership life-cycles

– Very poor understanding of what is needed to improve productivity and performance


Questions?


Collaborative Partnerships• An organization whose membership consists of other

organizations (and in some cases individuals)– When organizations embrace collaborative processes, make joint

decisions, and act as a single entity – new organization – Membership requires duties, obligations, and resource

• Different terms in use– Partnerships, coalitions, alliances/strategic alliances,

consortiums, network broker, network administrative organizations, collaborative organizations

• Different functions– Convener, catalyst for action, conduit for information, advocacy,

organizer, funder, technical assistance provider, capacity builder, partner, dispute resolver, or facilitator


Collaboration & Networks

• Interorganizational network– Totality of all of the organizations connected by a certain type of

relationship and is typically bounded by a common orientation such as a policy area, type of service, or a geographic area

– Policy space that CEM partnership works within

• Action sets– Groups of organizations that form temporary or permanent

alliances for a limited purpose or common area of involvement– Collaborative Partnership

• Organization set– Set of organizations linked to some other organization (dyads)


Institutional Analysis• Based on work of Elinor Ostrom and her colleagues

– Institutions are enduring regularities of human action structured by rules, norms, and shared strategies

– Rules and social norms are implicit or explicit attempts to achieve order and predictability among humans

– Rules can be formal (e.g., laws, policies, regulations, etc.) or informal (e.g., shared understandings)

– Rules operate configurationally at different levels for different actors, and occur in nested systems

– Organizational routines and processes are structured by the configuration of rules and provide a “structure” that achieves order and predictability and allow the interactions to reproduce themselves


Evolutionary DynamicsLife-Cycle Stage Rule Development Objectives/Outcomes

Entrepreneurial Determine policy space Strategy & boundary

rules begin to emerge Some decision rules are

crafted

Attract members and resources Investment of resources exceeds

returns Survival

Collectivity Policy space is clearly established

Strategy & boundary rules are clearly understood

Decision rules are expanded

Need for some coordination rules emerges

Trust and relationships are well established

Attracting required resources Investment in resources may

still exceed returns but eventually comes into balance

Begins “doing something” Increasing focus on reliability

and a reproducible structure


Evolutionary Dynamics

Life-Cycle Stage Rule Development Objectives/Outcomes

Formalization & Control

Elaboration of decision and coordination rules

Incremental adjustments and enhancements to rule structure

Elements of rules structure are formalized

Returns now exceed resource investments

Stability in resources Less reliance on trust and

relationships and increased reliance on following rules

Emphasis on reliability & reproducibility shifts to emphasis on accountability and legitimacy

Emphasis shifts from acquiring resources to demonstrating what is produced by resources


Evolutionary Dynamics

Life-Cycle Stage Rule Development Objectives/Outcomes

Elaboration of Structure

Modification to member and strategy rules to expand partnership boundaries

Continued elaboration and minor adjustments to decision and coordination rules

Efficiency Productivity Increased emphasis on

legitimacy and accountability Expanded role inside policy

space


Leach & Pelkey (2001) Factors

• Policy Space– Appropriate geographic scope– Balanced local/state/federal participation– Community resources

• Member & Strategy (Boundary) Rules– Membership: Limited or broad and inclusive– Scope of activities: Limited/focused or Broad/ambitious– Local bottom-up leadership– Balanced local/state/federal participation


Leach & Pelkey (2001)

• Decision Rules– Rules: Well defined decision/process rules/flexible rules– Consensus: use consensus based rules/caution against consensus

based rules– Effective leader, coordinator, facilitator– Training in managing collaborative processes


Leach & Pelkey (2001)• Coordination Rules

– Effective leaders, coordinator, facilitator – Training in managing collaborative processes– Coordinator/facilitator (effective)– Conflict: low or high– Effective communication/data sharing– Agency staff support for partnership– Cooperative and committed participants– Trust– Adequate time– Agencies encourage staff participation– Monitoring/Adaptive management– Enforcement Mechanisms: formal or informal


Role of Resources in “Success”• Leach & Pelkey (2001)

– Funding– Cooperative and committed participants– Adequate scientific & technical information– Adequate time– Legislature aids agency participation– Training in collaborative processes– Agencies encourage staff participation– Community resource

• Potential causality problem– If you don’t attract you don’t survive– Providing these may be requirement of membership

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