Collaborative synergy in resource and environmental management.

摘要

The collaboration and partnership approaches to building sustainability have gained considerable momentum in Western societies since the 1992 Earth Summit. Collaboration processes, methods, tools, and best practices are routinely discussed in the relevant literatures. However, despite widespread support for more and better collaboration, such processes are also coming under increased scrutiny. The process of building them is often time-consuming, resource-intensive and difficult. Skeptics argue that many initiatives generate more frustration than results.; This mixed-methods study examines collaborative synergy in 23 Canadian multi-stakeholder processes set within resource and environmental management contexts. The study aims to understand better the general texture of synergy, as well as the factors that help it to emerge in processes established to address sustainable forest management (Canadian Model Forest Program) and coastal zone/watershed management (Atlantic Coastal Action Program) issues and problems. The broad goal is to contribute to an enhanced understanding of synergy in collaborative processes such that practitioners are better able to initiate, build, evaluate and sustain them.; Results are based on 68 semi-structured interviews and 249 returns of a mailed-out questionnaire to leaders and participants from the cases noted above. Results reveal that although of considerable benefit to processes that achieve it, not all collaboration success is due to synergy. Synergy may be more special than ordinary in collaboration. It is a dynamic phenomenon. When synergy emerges within a collaborative process, it is not always experienced by all parts and at all levels of that process. It is not unusual for a process to experience a type of start-up synergy early in its formation stage. There are several common transition points around which synergy often pivots. It emerges from the confluence of multiple factors, and there does not appear to be a most common, or best, chemistry of factors. Some factors are more under the control of participants than some others. Some appear to be more vital than some others. The former include ambitious and practical work; common/complementary goals; positive results; collaboration-friendly or -suitable members; meaningful participation opportunities; shared decision-making; strong leaders/champions; and trust, respect, and mutual understanding.