Individuals in Collaborative Governance for Environmental Management.

Area of Science:

• Environmental governance
• Urban planning
• Social science

Background:

• Analyzing individual impacts on collaborative environmental governance is challenging.
• Lack of theoretical frameworks and data limits understanding.
• This study addresses these limitations using a case study.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the effect of individual participant roles and transitions on collaborative governance.
• To contrast identity theory with empirical data from a Brazilian environmental collaboration.
• To understand how individual transition styles influence collaboration success.

Main Methods:

• Utilized pattern matching to analyze original data from 7 participants.
• Examined a waste management and urban agriculture collaboration in Florianópolis, Brazil.
• Contrasted identity theory with participant transition styles (integrators and segmenters).

Main Results:

• Participants transitioned between roles, organizations, and departments.
• Integrators fostered sectoral diversity and innovation during activation.
• Segmenters aided in formalizing the collaboration and institutional design.

Conclusions:

• Individual transition styles significantly impact collaborative governance success.
• Integrators and segmenters play distinct, crucial roles at different collaboration stages.
• Adapting collaborative settings to individual transition styles is key for urban environmental issue management.