Organizational Networks for Invasive Species Control: Exploring the Relationship Between Form and Performance

Abstract

Organizational networks represent a type of collective action with the potential to expand capacity and improve efficiency, including in responses to biological invasions. A growing body of research suggests that a network's governance form is a determinant of network performance, though the link between form and performance remains underexamined in the context of invasive species control. We engaged with a popular theoretical framework—contingency theory of network governance (CNG theory)—to explore the relationship between network form and performance through an examination of an organizational network pursuing elimination of invasive wild pigs in a US state. We found that the network's decentralized shared governance form performed effectively and mostly comported with CNG theory predictions when it was focused on policy goals. However, once its goals transitioned to improving on-the-ground removal operations, the network evolved towards a more centralized and brokered form of network governance due to the need for enhanced cross-organization coordination. The resulting network form, which performed effectively and used the incident command system, represented a hybrid of the network form ideal types recognized by CNG theory and partially comported with theory predictions for lead organization-governed networks. Our findings, together with other reported cases, suggest that when organizational networks are primarily focused on invasive species removal operations, decentralized shared governance networks may often fail to perform as effectively as centralized networks on account of coordination challenges. Ecological dynamics and species-related factors, along with network goals (e.g., elimination vs. mitigation), all likely bear upon the suitability of network form.