Building implementation networks: Building multi-organizational, multi-sector structures for policy implementation

The purpose of this dissertation is the delineation of a new approach, or, more precisely, a new "role" and "methodological system," for those persons engaged in building and managing multi-actor structures, or "networks," for the purpose of policy implementation.Following a discussion on what the role of "network facilitator" means in relation to current understanding of public management, this treatise will describe a new methodological system for use by the administrator playing such a role. The 'methodological system' for building implementation networks that is advocated here is composed of three overlapping methodologies: (1) "Contextual Assessment"---Mapping a Network's Political-Economy (2) "Stakeholder Analysis & Management"---Understanding Who Should be at the Table and Furthering the Conditions for Cooperation and, (3) "Joint Visioning"---The Facilitation of Project Planning in a Network Setting.Each methodology has been constructed from the ground up by appropriating parts of different methodologies that have been advocated in different areas of application. Specifically, methods, approaches, and understandings have been appropriated from the literatures of corporate management, stakeholder analysis, action research, political economy, community facilitation, knowledge engineering and management, and strategic planning. These methods have been combined and modified to better serve as tools for network establishment and management.This methodological system has been developed as much from experience as from scholarly analysis. Accordingly, a case study, one that has directly led to the development of many concepts in this system, will be discussed and used for 'real-world' elaboration of the concepts described. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...