The Inner-Workings of Collaboration in Environmental Management and Governance: A Systematic Mapping Review

Collaboration has taken centre stage in addressing complex environmental issues and yet several voids are evident in our understanding of it. A systematic mapping review was conducted to synthesize knowledge about the inner workings of collaboration (qualities, outcomes, and their relationship(s)) in environmental management and governance scholarship. Eighty-five scholarly works were included in the review and the analysis revealed 27 qualities, 20 outcomes, and 104 relationships. The frequency and magnitude of each were established through multiple rounds of coding, surfacing their relative prominence in the literature. Collaborative qualities with the greatest prominence included trust building, social learning, dialogue, and active involvement; the most prominent outcomes included social learning and social capital. Descriptive analyses illuminated myriad relationships among collaborative qualities to achieve outcomes, and emphasized the role of collaborative qualities of lesser scholarly attention on achieving outcomes. Findings offer insight for individuals engaging in collaboration and for future work aiming to further explore collaboration.