Power in Collaborative Governance: Contingencies of Power Sharing, Relationships between Power and Trust, and Approaches to Enhancing Power Sharing
Open Access
- Author:
- Qi, Huiting
- Graduate Program:
- Public Administration
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- February 22, 2022
- Committee Members:
- Triparna Vasavada, Major Field Member
John Haddad, Outside Unit & Field Member
Odd Stalebrink, Major Field Member
Odd Stalebrink, Professor in Charge/Director of Graduate Studies
Bing Ran, Chair & Dissertation Advisor - Keywords:
- Power
Power Sharing
Trust
Collaborative Governance - Abstract:
- Despite collaborative advantages advocated by literature, there are still many challenges facing by both scholars and practitioners in collaborative governance. In order to further understand challenges, scholars increasingly study different factors contributing to these challenges and find that the paradoxical nature of collaborative governance is an important one. Based on a systematic review of literature on collaborative governance in a paradox lens, I developed a framework consisting of 12 paradoxes and found many paradoxes are linked to power issues in different ways. Power is believed as a significant research area in collaborative governance yet relevant studies are very limited. To fill the gap, this dissertation analyzes power issue in collaborative governance through three research projects, which provide three approaches to interpreting and handling power issues in collaborative governance, including contingency approach, dyadic approach, and multidimensional approach. The first study on power in this dissertation is a conceptual study. The research question of this study is: What is the relationship between power sharing and effective collaborative governance? It proposes a contingency framework on power sharing in collaborative governance. This framework includes six contingency factors of power sharing from contextual, network, and node perspectives. The focus is about how each contingency factor influences the relationship between power sharing and the effectiveness of collaborative governance. The study suggests that, instead of focusing on the attempt to share power in collaboration, it will be more fruitful to design and implement collaborative arrangements based on dynamic contingencies. Focusing on the individual role of power is insufficient to cope with challenges facing power sharing in collaborative governance, such as lack of trust, participants’ reluctance, and inaction in sharing power. These unsolved challenges inspire me to study power from a dyadic perspective by linking power with some other key factors in collaborative governance. The second study on power goes beyond power itself by linking power with trust as another important mechanism in collaborative governance. Trust is selected since power and trust are functionally equivalent alternative mechanisms in coordinating communication and interaction. Both power and trust have the function of control in social interaction (Reed, 2001), and investigating their relationship can provide new insights for the management of power relationship and trust relationship in collaborative governance. The research question of the second study is: What is the relationship between power and trust in collaborative governance? A conceptual analysis is conducted to study the dyadic relationship between power and trust in collaborative governance regarding the shared sources of power and trust, the effects of power asymmetry and power sharing on trust building, and the influence of trust building on the management of power relationship in collaborative governance. It helps improve the management of power relationship by taking advantage of the underlying relationships between different dimensions of power and trust. The third study explores approaches to enhancing power sharing in collaborative governance, and the research question of this study is: What are the approaches to enhancing power sharing in collaborative governance? Power sharing is highly advocated in collaboration. However, how to enhance power sharing in collaborative governance is not well understood. Based on a case study on power sharing in a new collaboration-based governance mechanism for rural China, this article explores how power sharing is enhanced with the engagement of a new collaborator in the governing process. The findings indicate four approaches to enhancing power sharing in collaborative governance, including diffusing the source of power, increasing the type of power, expanding the arena for power, and ameliorating the outcome of power. This study offers a model for enhancing power sharing by considering multiple dimensions of power in collaborative governance. This dissertation contributes to power research in collaborative governance, both theoretically and practically. Theoretically, it enriches the understanding of collaborative governance in a paradox lens, which helps interpret the paradoxical nature of collaborative governance. It also contributes to power research in collaborative governance by providing three approaches to interpreting, theorizing, and tackling power issues in collaborative governance, including contingency approach, dyadic approach, and multidimensional approach. Practically, it provides a set of managerial implications that are necessary to deal with power dynamics in collaborative governance. Firstly, it develops six contingency factors of power sharing in collaborative governance, which can help practitioners evaluate their own status in power relationship and understand dynamics of power sharing in collaboration. Second, practitioners engaged in collaborative governance can take advantage of the three underlying relationships between power and trust to improve the management of power relationships in collaboration. For example, practitioners can obtain and enhance common sources shared by power and trust (e.g., authority, resource control and discursive legitimacy) to build a better power relationship based on trust among participants. Thirdly, this dissertation explores four approaches to enhancing power sharing in collaborative governance, which provide useful strategies for practitioners to mitigate power asymmetry in collaborative practices.