Commitment to the Process of Collaborative Governance

Cross-sector stakeholders’ commitment to collaborative governance, especially the collaborative process, enhances synergistic engagement and encourages working assiduously toward achieving collaborative success. Stakeholders’ willingness to engage each other relative to the complex public problem results in them volunteering their time and resources. It also entails accepting challenges associated with involvement, performing related tasks, and embracing continuous improvement as part of collaborative governance to promote collective resolve and outcomes that meaningfully help address concerns of target populations with domino benefits for society. The commitment of stakeholders to collaborative governance, despite sometimes legitimate reservations, underscores the motivation to make a difference. The stakeholders’ commitment reflects some level of mutual recognition and appreciation of the contributions in ways that yield outputs and outcomes with sustainability in terms of impact. The reality of collaborative governance embraces some unavoidable shortfalls due to push or pull factors. However, stakeholders’ shared responsibility and observance of engagement protocols, including ownership of the process and the acceptance of associated results, serve as an impetus for relentless commitment to the greater good. This chapter explains the stakeholders’ commitment to the collaborative governance process, references some related elements, includes a contemporary case relative to health services, and concludes with an intervention case for strategy and solution formulation.