Designers of collaboration mandates for sustainable natural resource management must address public agencies’ concerns about losing autonomy and influence

With climate change now influencing entire regions, there is a greater need for organizational collaboration to manage natural resources sustainably. Using California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, which mandates collaboration between groundwater sustainability agencies, as a case study, Brian An and Shui-Yan Tang examine what drives integrative collaborations between agencies. They find that agencies are more likely to joint integrative collaborations if their mission addresses a broader focus, their core stakeholder groups have less concentrated interests in the policy issue, and their organizational culture is less rigid and risk averse.