Managing through Collaborative Networks

Local governments face a conundrum; a structural decline in revenues concurrent with a complex environment where service responsibility must be viewed as multijurisdictional, multigovernmental, and multisectorial. Issues faced by local government are increasingly beyond the financial or service capacity of individual governments. This article proposes that outcome success in the era of resource limitations necessitates that managers form new systems for regional collaboration. Successful adaption to twenty-first century realities requires that managers lead by identifying and forming new collaborative networks. Networks where several governments, nonprofit, and private organizations will integrate personnel and resources to accomplish a common mission.