摘要：The need to develop successful collaborative strategies is an enduring problem in sustainableresource management. Our goal is to evaluate the relationship between information networks and conflictin the context of collaborative groundwater management in the rapidly growing central highland region ofArizona. In this region, water-management conflicts have emerged because of stakeholders' differinggeographic perspectives and competing scientific claims. Using social network analyses, we explored theextent to which the Verde River Basin Partnership (VRBP), which was charged with developing and sharingscientific information, has contributed to collaboration in the region. To accomplish this, we examined therole that this stakeholder partnership plays in reinforcing or overcoming the geographic, ideological, expert,and power conflicts among its members. Focusing on information sharing, we tested the extent to whichseveral theoretically important elements of successful collaboration were evidenced by data from the VRBP.The structure of information sharing provides insight into ways in which barriers between diverseperspectives might be retained and elucidates weaknesses in the partnership. To characterize informationsharing, we examined interaction ties among individuals with different geographic concerns, hierarchicalscales of interest, belief systems (about science, the environment, and the role of the partnership), and self-identified expertise types. Results showed that the partnership's information-sharing network spans mostof these boundaries. Based on current theories of collaboration, we would expect the partnership networkto be conducive to collaboration. We found that information exchanges are limited by differences inconnection patterns across actor expertise and environmental-belief systems. Actors who view scientistsas advocates are significantly more likely to occupy boundary-spanning positions, that appear to impedethe success of the partnership. This analysis challenges widely held assumptions about the properties thatseparate successful collaborations from those that are less successful. It has implications for ourunderstanding of the factors that constrain information processing, knowledge production, and collective-action capability in institutions
