Saving the Salmon: Examining the Cost-Effectiveness of Collaboration in Oregon

Environmental collaboration has become an increasingly common approach to the management of natural resources. Scholars and practitioners have tried to understand how collaborative structures impact performance using a multitude of single case studies and comparative studies. However, despite calls for the evaluation of collaborative performance, little quantitative research exists that explores the connections between collaborative structures and performance using a large sample for analysis. We address this gap by carrying out fixed effects analysis that examines the impact of several structural variations, including collaboration form, number and representational diversity of participants, and contributions of in-kind resources, on the cost-effectiveness of collaborative watershed projects in Oregon. The data for this project come from the Oregon Watershed Restoration Inventory (OWRI). Our results indicate that collaboration form, participant numbers, and resource contributions affect cost-effectiveness, but representational diversity among participants does not. The findings from this paper can help sponsoring and implementing agencies execute collaborative projects more cost-effectively. They also indicate the need for additional research exploring the relationship between collaborative structures, outputs, and outcomes.