Scholars encourage government at all levels to embrace collaboration as a governance strategy for achieving environmental outcomes (Ferreyra and Beard 2007; Imperial 2005; Leach et al. 2002). Indeed, while public managers are choosing to devote significant resources to collaborative policy arrangements (Scott & Thomas, 2017), the evidence that collaboration results in improved environmental outcomes, compared with alternative governance approaches, is scarce (Koontz & Thomas, 2006; Margerum, 2011).
Currently, the literature outlines numerous benefits of collaborative processes such as knowledge sharing, improving the definition of complex problems, and the development of trust between diverse stakeholders. However, evidence to demonstrate causal relationships between those benefits and long-term environmental outcomes remains limited. Further, evidence on how, and in which cases, collaborative governance should be adopted to address environmental problems remains a key knowledge gap.
This paper presents an analysis of over 300 research papers on collaborative governance in the environmental domain. It synthesises and evaluates the different outcomes that have been demonstrated to result from collaborative processes, and the conceptual frameworks that have been utilised to predict how collaboration results in long term environmental outcomes (in the absence of empirical data).
Drawing on this analysis, a conceptual framework has been developed to illustrate a theory of change from collaborative processes to process outputs, process outcomes, intermediate outcomes, and long-term environmental outcomes. It will illustrate the current state of knowledge and theorised mechanisms of change within the conceptual framework. This will provide an overview and insight into where greater attention is required to understand these mechanisms, through which collaboration may lead to long term environmental outcomes.