We live in a network society (Castells 1996) in which the public sector is increasingly dependent on the formation of networks with various stakeholders to effectively address policy issues and delivering services to citizens and organisations. These multi-party arrangements are expected to remain as cornerstones of public policy and service delivery for some time. Yet, as many have noted there is little empirical evidence to demonstrate that such collective approaches work and deliver better value than more conventional or traditional service models. At the same time there is growing demand by the public and other investors for more evidence of the value or benefits of public services and their models. Together these pressures provided an accelerated impetus for a stronger evidence base to better inform network design, management practice, evaluate outcomes and more appropriately allocate funding. Related to this is the need for mechanisms by which to map, monitor, and evaluate network governance arrangements. This book provides a response to these issues by directly focusing on showcasing the array of research methodologies and analytic tools that scholars and practitioners can use to unpack network practices. By bringing together upcoming and leading scholars in network and collaboration research, the book offers the state of the art of the range and scope of methods and tools currently used, as well as more emerging styles of empirical investigation. It thus provides both scholars and practitioners with a comprehensive overview of a wide range of qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods that can be applied to networked arrangements, associated collaborative practice and other forms of collective work within and across the public sector. The text will assist and guide students and scholars to study collaboration and networks empirically by demonstrating the core research approaches and tools for investigating and evaluating networks and collaborations.

Governance networks are both nested and interconnected systems. Identifying internal boundaries within governance networks, such as those governance structures that influence and are influenced by large and diverse watersheds such as the Lake Champlain Basin, is necessary for differentiating between multiple functional subnetworks. Internal network boundaries exist between functional subnetworks when the networks have divergent structures (Weible & Sabatier, 2005). A qualitative case study of Lake Champlain Basin watershed governance networks identi- fied several key overlapping subnetworks in which organizations interact in a variety of ways (Koliba, Reynolds, Zia, & Scheinert, 2015). An online survey of institutional actors was used to identify which actors were connected in five different functional subnetworks. Structural com- parisons are made by analyzing the correlation between the subnetworks based on the quadratic assignment procedure (QAP) and network macrostructure. Results show that the information sharing, technical assistance, and project collaboration subnetworks formed one grouping, while the reporting and financial resource sharing subnetworks formed another grouping. The results demonstrated that this triangulated comparison was necessary to reach valid conclusions on the structural variation between the subnetworks on a multiplex network when subnetworks were structurally similar.

Forest Transition Theory (FTT) suggests that reforestation may follow deforestation as a result of and interplay between changing social, economic and ecological conditions. We develop a simplistic but empirically data driven land use transition agent-based modeling platform, interactive land use transition agent-based model (ILUTABM), that is able to reproduce the observed land use patterns and link the forest transition to parcel-level heuristic-based land use decisions and ecosystem service (ES). We find that, when farmers value food provisioning Ecosystem Services (ES) more than other ES (e.g., soil and water regulation), deforestation is observed. However, when farmers value less food provisioning than other ES or they value food provisioning and other ES equally, the forest transition is observed. The ILUTABM advances the Forest Transition Theory (FTT) framework by endogenizing the interactions of socio-ecological feedbacks and socio-economic factors in a generalizable model that can be calibrated with empirical data.

Governance networks are both nested and interconnected systems. Identifying internal boundaries within governance networks, such as those governance structures that influence and are influenced by large and diverse watersheds such as the Lake Champlain Basin, is necessary for differentiating between multiple functional subnetworks. Internal network boundaries exist between functional subnetworks when the networks have divergent structures (Weible & Sabatier, 2005). A qualitative case study of Lake Champlain Basin watershed governance networks identi- fied several key overlapping subnetworks in which organizations interact in a variety of ways (Koliba, Reynolds, Zia, & Scheinert, 2015). An online survey of institutional actors was used to identify which actors were connected in five different functional subnetworks. Structural com- parisons are made by analyzing the correlation between the subnetworks based on the quadratic assignment procedure (QAP) and network macrostructure. Results show that the information sharing, technical assistance, and project collaboration subnetworks formed one grouping, while the reporting and financial resource sharing subnetworks formed another grouping. The results demonstrated that this triangulated comparison was necessary to reach valid conclusions on the structural variation between the subnetworks on a multiplex network when subnetworks were structurally similar.

Social science can be practiced as a decidedly action-oriented and applied phenomenon, in particular within the context of organizational change and development. These practices are often prefaced by assumptions concerning the social construction of reality, the role of the researcher as an active agent for change, and the capacity of organizations to learn. This article recounts the attempts of social science researchers to employ an action research process to promote and support organizational learning within a public school setting. Addressing concerns with regard to the methodological challenges of translating individual perceptions into organizational themes or problems, the authors discuss the use of intersubjectively constructed accounts to support organizational learning.