Ecosystem Cross-Sector Collaboration: Conceptualizing an Adaptive Approach to Sustainability Governance

This paper explores the theoretical underpinnings of collaboration and ecosystem management in order to identify the relationships and processes involved in implementing ecosystem management programs through cross-sector collaboration. Ecosystem management requires a highly adaptive and resilient social-ecological governance approach, which addresses spatiality and temporality issues. In order to explore possible implementation issues with ecosystem management, propositions are developed dealing with adaptive governance, institutional isomorphism and collective action. The paper concludes with a discussion of the theoretic underpinnings involved in implementing ecosystem management through cross-sector collaborations. Copyright (C) 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.