Relational leadership in collaborative governance ecosystems

• DOI: 10.1080/14719037.2021.1879913
• Publication Date: 2021-03-11T10:43:16Z
• Authors: Tony Kinder; Jari Stenvall; Frédérique Six; Ally Memon
• Keywords: SDG 16 - Peace; 0502 economics and business; 05 social sciences; Collaborative governance ecosystems leadership; Governance for Society; 16. Peace & justice; Justice and Strong Institutions

We address a conundrum: since ecosystems lack a Central Controller, how are these self-organizing systems led? This is important since local service providers in Europe are adopted ecosystems organizing of services in preference to network management. We show that ecosystems are led not centrally directed by a powerful agent, but instead guided to change by collective consciousness that results from learning in logic-of-practice distributed in the ecosystem. We suggest a new framework for explaining leadership in collaborative governances organizing as ecosystems. This has important implications for how leadership in collaborative governances in local service delivery is viewed.