Managers in Governance Networks: How to Reach Good Outcomes?

ABSTRACT

There is a large amount of literature and research on network management activities. This article explores the role of network managers in governance networks. It fits into the discussion of managerial activities and their outcome. This article discusses and analyses the results of a survey that was conducted in 2006–2007 among those involved in environmental projects in the Netherlands (323 respondents, 111 of whom were managers of these projects). The respondents were asked questions about their background, trust, project characteristics, network management activities, and outcomes (both process and content outcomes). This article uses the data collected on network managers to study some of their background characteristics, the management activities they use, and project outcomes. The research shows that more experienced managers achieve good outcomes (trust and substantive outcome). However, the most important insight gained from this research is that network managers who employ a large number of management activities in the management of their network achieve good outcomes.

Notes

^# p < 0.10; *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01.

^#p < 0.10; *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01.

We experienced some problems in determining the representativeness of our study. However, we have reason to believe that our sample is quite representative. The problem with our study is that it impossible to determine the actual population of people involved in environmental projects in the Netherlands. There is no list of these people in the Netherlands. Therefore it is impossible to find out whether our response is representative for the population as a whole. We however have reasons to believe that this sample gives a reasonable overview of all such projects in the Netherlands. We used the mailing list of the knowledge organization Habiforum (as mentioned in the article). This organization has established itself as a fairly important network organization with many members. We have examined all the projects that —on an open question—are mentioned by the respondents, and concluded that almost all of the well-known environmental projects in the Netherlands are represented (and of course a number that are less well-known), which gives confidence that this is a reasonable sample of the existing projects in the Netherlands.

This is the effective sample with respondents with valid values for all variables. In some of our analysis the H will be higher as especially the “outcome” variable has a relatively high number of missing data.

The projects dealt with in our survey are all about complex issues in the field of environment and spatial planning in which stakeholders approach the issue differently and stress different aspects (i.e., water quality, nature development, ecology, economy, infrastructure, etc.). So, perceptions and underlying values are different, which make the issues “wicked” in nature (Koppenjan and Klijn 2004).

We tested in all cases for hetereoskedasticity, but this proved to be not a problem.

We checked for a possible curvilinear effect of years of experience (Seltzer and Numerof 1988; Delmar and Shane 2006) by also performing a regression analysis including the quadratic term of years of experience. This quadratic term proved not to be significant, and therefore we have not included it in Tables 3 and 4.

Following this procedure, we can note that (a) a correlation exists between management activities and outcome (.32), (b) a correlation exists between management activities and trust (.45), (c) trust affects outcome significantly (Table 5), and (d) the original effect of management activities on outcome disappears when controlling for trust (Table 5).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jurian Edelenbos

Jurian Edelenbos ([email protected]) is a Professor in the Department of Public Administration at Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands. He earned his PhD in 2000 at Delft University of Technology. He teaches and consults in the areas of management of change and technological complex projects, process-management, sustainable development, and interactive governance. His research focuses on interactive governance, public–private partnerships, institutional innovation, urban planning and infrastructure, water management processes, project and program management, trust in inter-organizational cooperation, democratic renewal, and co-evolution in public administration.

Erik-Hans Klijn

Erik-Hans Klijn is Professor at the Department of Public Administration at Erasmus University Rotterdam and Visiting Professor at the School of Public Policy at the University of Birmingham. His research and teaching activities focus on complex decision making and management in networks, institutional design and Public Private Partnerships, mainly in the areas of infrastructure and urban restructuring.

Bram Steijn

Bram Steijn is a Professor of Public Administration at Erasmus University Rotterdam. He holds the chair on human resource management in the public sector. He is also Director of Education at the Department of Public Administration. He studied sociology at Erasmus University, where he also earned his PhD. His research interests go into theory and research about work motivation (public service motivation in particular), the relation between organizational change in the public sector on the one hand and job satisfaction and commitment on the other hand, and the relation between HRM and job performance.