Collaborating for improved governance

(Press-News.org) By Alistair Jones

SMU Office of Research Governance & Administration – Beomgeun Cho, an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at Singapore Management University (SMU), is the inaugural recipient of the Kyujin Jung Memorial Research Award, presented at the 2025 American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) conference. 

The award, which recognises a promising early-career scholar in the field of public administration, is based on an overall assessment of their academic trajectory and achievements, rather than a specific paper.

"I am deeply honoured to be the inaugural recipient of the award," says Professor Cho.

Kyujin Jung was a passionate and prolific scholar, notably at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, and a popular mentor. Among his academic standouts was his expertise in social network analysis (SNA), a method for studying social structures by mapping the relationships between people, organisations or groups.

"Professionally, this award means a lot to me since I have aimed to develop my scholarly identity around SNA and governance networks," Professor Cho says. "Personally, [the award] has even greater significance to me since my first exposure to SNA was at [one of] Dr. Jung’s methods workshops in 2018. 

"Dr. Jung's core message was that SNA is more than a methodological tool. Using his research projects on disaster management and inter-local collaboration, he demonstrated how SNA can serve as an important theoretical lens to explore key questions about networks in public administration and policy. 

"Echoing his approach, I have employed the network concept as a theoretical viewpoint, as well as a methodological tool, to examine the extent and quality of collaborative processes," Professor Cho says. 

Relational structures

"My overarching research goal is to explore how to nurture and manage collaborative networks to improve community-level outcomes in multiple policy contexts, including food systems, regional economic development and renewable energy innovation," Professor Cho says.

He is a co-author of a recent study exploring the impact of collaboration processes on the success of policy networks. 

"This paper aims to investigate which characteristics of collaborative processes, and their combinations, can improve collaborative performance by examining 12 cases of food policy councils (FPCs) in the US," Professor Cho says.

Originating in 1982, FPCs are cross-sectoral, community-driven organisations that bring together varied stakeholders – from farmers and food businesses to government officials and non-profits – to address complex food system issues at the local or regional level. 

These councils play advisory roles in the creation of policies to increase food access and improve the local food system.

"Drawing on the literature on collaborative and network governance, I have argued that the quality and extent of collaborative processes are reflected in relational structures among policy council actors," Professor Cho says. 

"Among different aspects of the collaboration dynamics, we focused on four components: network density, diversity, inclusion and participation."

And what is network density? Why is it important?

"Network density refers to the ratio of observed connections to all possible connections within a network," Professor Cho says. 

"This overall connectedness among network actors is important because it reflects the degree of principled engagement, which can indicate active communication, shared goals, improved decision-making and reduced coordination costs."

Stakeholder input

In something of a paradox, network density can also negatively affect collaborative effectiveness by inhibiting diverse stakeholders from having equal and inclusive access to active deliberation.

"High density may suggest power imbalances among network actors and the potential for collective blindness, where tightly connected groups may overlook alternative perspectives or innovative ideas," Professor Cho says. 

"But network density can also prevent the negative impact of substantial stakeholder engagement. Specifically, active and inclusive participation has been found to increase costs to address disagreements because actors with heterogeneous preferences and perspectives will work as a veto point. 

"Network density can mitigate the negative impact of substantial stakeholder input by facilitating mutual trust and shared norms, which can hold heterogeneous actors together and smooth out the negotiation processes."

Extant research suggests that having wider inclusion promotes richer deliberation and increases fairness and legitimacy in the decision-making process, generating opportunities for improved learning. 

"Inclusion is also an important element of principled engagement in building trust among actors, as an inclusive process enhances the capacity for joint action when more voices and more resources are combined,” Professor Cho says.

According to the researchers, the combination of network density and stakeholder engagement, in the form of inclusiveness and participation, constitutes pathways toward effective collaborative arrangements.

Recognise and navigate

So, what is the core contribution of the study?

"[It] is to demonstrate that there is no single factor underlying the success of collaboration," Professor Cho says. 

"I think this study provides important implications by demonstrating how specific collaborative processes and their combinations influence the success of FPCs. In other words, the effectiveness of collaboration depends on not only formal structures of formal collaborative venues but also, crucially, on how collaboration is organised and managed.

"A broader implication is that public officials who lead collaborative efforts need to recognise and navigate the paradoxical nature of collaboration. They need to accommodate this paradox by employing seemingly contradictory strategies simultaneously, such as promoting both inclusiveness and decisiveness." 

The paper, Exploring the impact of collaboration processes on policy networks success: a case study of food policy councils, received the Sam Overman Best Paper Award from the Section on Complexity and Network Studies, ASPA in 2024. The co-authors were Beomgeun Cho, In Hae Noh, April M. Roggio and Luis Felipe Luna-Reyes.

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