Leadership in Regional Collaborative Governance: Evidence from the Integration of China’s Yangtze River Delta

Abstract

Regional collaborative governance is a valuable topic in current theoretical and practical research. Embedding leadership theory into the field of regional collaborative governance can provide a dynamic perspective for understanding the complex collaborative process. The existing research on leadership is not suitable to explain the process of regional horizontal collaboration. Based on the prudent reflection of Bolman et al.’s four-frame leadership theory and Huxham et al.’s cross-organizational leadership framework, and combined with the forward-looking thinking of the public value theory, this study puts forward the leadership framework of regional collaborative governance: Collaboration structure is the carrier, political management is the guarantee, operation management is the tool, participants are the main body, and creating public value is the purpose. This study takes the demonstration zone of green and integrated ecological development of the Yangtze River Delta as a case to verify the theoretical framework. This study has enriched the theoretical map of regional collaborative governance leadership, established a more general theory of public value creation, and had implications for the practice of regional collaborative governance around the world.