Introduction to the Special Issue: Organizational Networks and Environmental Governance

Abstract

CALFED Bay-Delta Program (CALFED) emerged in 1995 as a network organization whose comprehensive initiative was to manage water resources in California’s SacramentoSan Joaquin Delta. Water shortages had caused conflict among the disjointed state and federal water management agencies that shared regulatory authority over the Delta. CALFED started as an innovative effort to build a tighter network among these agencies that would allow them to more effectively address what was a complex, multi-jurisdictional environmental management problem. As a secretariat, staffed with personnel on loan from member agencies, CALFED coordinated collaboration among member organizations. For several years, CALFED was able to coordinate planning and policy-making among members. Ten years later, the network had all but collapsed into a morass of turf wars, political manoeuvrings, and internal communications problems, driven largely by organizational self-interest. Legislation in 2008 essentially abolished CALFED. While CALFED is an extreme example, the elements of its story are common. Organizational networks are often formed to address “wicked” environmental problems— large-scale, complex, and multi-jurisdictional—that are beyond the capacity of a single organization to address. Multiple goals related to member self-interests compete with external goals related to the production of public goods (e.g., a sustainably managed resource). As a result, the networks fail to achieve their intended goals—or at a minimum perform differently than expected. This special issue explores the relationship between functionality (expected outcomes) and dysfunctionality (unexpected outcomes) in organizational networks, combining perspectives from environmental governance, and organizational and network sociology.