Investigating Environmental Features and Network Interdependencies in Network Formation: A Study of Collaborative, Community-Based Watershed Restoration

Public policies, particularly those addressing environmental problems, increasingly depend on the work of networks of governmental and non-governmental actors to achieve policy goals, making an understanding of the formation of these networks imperative for the study and practice of environmental management. Past scholarship often examines networks for collaborative policymaking or interorganizational planning, with less attention being given to networks in which participants take hands-on action together to tackle public problems “on the ground”. Yet, these action-oriented networks can be crucial for policy implementation. This paper responds to this knowledge gap by analyzing the formation of purpose-oriented networks (PONs) by organizational actors for collaborative restoration projects in Oregon watersheds. PONs form when actors consciously convene under some shared affiliation to work together, potentially through cross-sector collaboration, to accomplish some shared goal(s). Through regression analyses using over two decades of data on thousands of PONs and their participants, I investigate factors that may influence when and where these networks form. I find PON formation may be catalyzed by increased resource contributions to previously-formed networks, the presence of more saturated network environments (i.e., environments where more networks developed in the prior year), and stakeholders’ prior participation in multiple networks simultaneously. Moreover, network formation could be diminished when PONs formed in the previous year take longer to complete their work. My findings offer researchers and practitioners novel insights into PON creation and draw attention to how the constitutive dimensions of these networks may have implications for their developmental dynamics.