Understanding Tradeoffs in the Institutional Design and Leadership of Collaborative Governance

Abstract There is broad scholarly agreement that successful collaborative governance relies on supportive institutional design and facilitative leadership. However, there is a need to increase our understanding of how institutional design and leadership are used to pursue and balance conflicting public values. This article discusses an in-depth case study of a Norwegian municipality’s collaborative governance efforts in designing and leading a circular economy project. The results show how taking on a leadership role as a sponsor influences decisions regarding institutional design in terms of the inclusion of actors. The municipality committed to an open approach to inclusion, which challenged the opportunity to act the leadership role as a mediator by increasing the interests that needed to be aligned. In line with a contingency approach to collaborative governance the study suggests that different leadership roles and institutional design features are required for the pursuit of different values.


Introduction
In the literature, collaborative governance is presented as a strategy for addressing complex public problems (Bryson et al., 2006;Page et al., 2015).Collaborative governance is broadly defined as "a collective decision-making process based on more or less institutionalized interactions between two or more actors that aims to establish common ground for joint problem solving and value creation" (Douglas, Ansell, et al., 2020, p. 498).As explained by Ansell and Gash (2008, p. 544), it is a governing arrangement in which public agencies collaborate with non-state stakeholders.Public managers resort to collaborative governance to address complex problems, such as environmental issues (Avoyan, 2022;Liu et al., 2021;Ulibarri, 2015) and climate change (Kalesnikaite, 2019;Sørensen & Torfing, 2022).
There is broad agreement in the literature that successful collaborative governance relies on supportive institutional design and leadership (Ansell & Gash, 2008;Ansell & Torfing, 2021;Bryson et al., 2015, Hofstad et al., 2022).Institutional design is defined as "the devising and realization of rules, procedures, and organizational structures that will enable and constrain behavior and action so as to accord with held values, achieve desired objectives, or execute given tasks" (Alexander, 2005, p. 213).Ansell and Gash (2012) describe facilitative leadership as "helping others to make things happen" (p. 6) through different leadership roles.Public managers and administrators, as well as other relevant actors, can use facilitative leadership and institutional design as governance tools to manage collaborations and networks (Ansell & Gash, 2008;Ansell & Torfing, 2021;Sørensen & Torfing, 2009).This study focuses on how a municipal administration uses these governance tools to manage collaborative governance in the pursuit of intended outcomes.
While there has been a focus in the collaborative governance literature on outcomes in terms of effective solutions to wicked societal problems (Sørensen et al., 2021), it is increasingly argued that effectiveness is not the only criterion for assessing the value collaborative governance creates (Cristofoli et al., 2022;Emerson & Nabatchi, 2015a, 2015b;Liu et al., 2023;Page et al., 2015;Voets et al., 2008).In the public value approach to public administration, "values beyond efficiency and effectiveness-and especially democratic values-are prominent" (Bryson et al., 2014, p. 445).
When introducing different values, tradeoffs are likely to occur between them (Ansell & Torfing, 2021;Page et al., 2015Page et al., , 2018)).For example, in the pursuit of legitimacy, the aim may be to ensure an inclusive process, while in the pursuit of effective solutions, the aim may be to have a more exclusive process to secure the alignment of interests (Ansell & Torfing, 2021, p. 202;Cristofoli et al., 2022, p. 2).With the broadened perspective on values to be pursued, there is a call for research on whether there are inherent tensions between the conditions of collaborative governance supporting different outcomes (Cristofoli et al., 2022;Douglas, Berthod, et al., 2020) and how to manage tensions in collaborations (Bryson et al., 2015).This study seeks to contribute to this literature by examining the following research question: How are the institutional design and leadership of collaborative governance used to pursue and balance conflicting public values?
The article draws on Ansell and Gash's (2008) well-established model of collaborative governance, as it represents a contingency approach to collaborative governance.In line with a contingency approach the assumption is that conditions for success may vary according to the goals pursued and "there is no single 'best way' to exercise collaborative leadership" (Ansell & Gash, 2012, p. 3).As Ansell and Gash's (2008) model does not specify the outcome variable, I draw on Page et al.'s (2015) framework for assessing public value in cross-sector collaborations and focus on three dimensions of public value: effectiveness, legitimacy, and accountability.As argued by Page et al. (2015), these represent distinct concerns for public administrations and may cause tensions.
The analysis is based on an in-depth case study of the local government of Asker in Norway that attempts to accelerate the transition to a circular economy through collaborative governance.The circular economy is an economic model that seeks to keep resources in the economy as long as possible through different strategies, such as reuse or repair (Merli et al., 2018).The circular economy is high on the agenda in the climate and environmental policy area, and local governments and partnerships are increasingly seen as crucial in addressing these global challenges (Ansell et al., 2022;Bulkeley, 2010).
The article proceeds as follows: The next section presents the theoretical framework, including the conditions for successful collaborative governance and public value outcomes.Then, the methods section describes the case selection and data collection (document analysis, observation, and interviews).Finally, the results will be analyzed and discussed, focusing on the tradeoffs in institutional design and leadership in the pursuit of effective, legitimate, and accountable collaborative governance.The article concludes with a summary of the main results and suggestions for future research.

Collaborative governance
The literature has considered several frameworks that present conditions for successful collaborative governance (Ansell & Gash, 2008;Bryson et al., 2006Bryson et al., , 2015;;Emerson et al., 2012;Emerson & Nabatchi, 2015a).This article draws on the model by Ansell and Gash (2008), which highlights the "conditions under which collaborative governance will be more or less effective as an approach to policy making and public management" (p.544).The model includes four overarching conditions: favorable starting conditions, facilitative leadership, institutional design, and collaborative process.Favorable starting conditions, including a prehistory of successful collaborations and incentives to collaborate, are expected to facilitate successful collaboration.Incentives to collaborate mean that perceptions of goal achievements depend on collaboration and the expectation that the collaborative process will lead to meaningful results (Ansell & Gash, 2008, p. 552).Starting conditions, institutional design, and facilitative leadership influence the collaborative process, which in turn leads to the outcome (Ansell & Gash, 2008).
This article focuses on leadership and institutional design because these are tools that can be deliberatively used to manage collaboration in pursuit of intended outcomes (Ansell & Torfing, 2021).Although these tools, in principle, can be used by different stakeholders, public agencies have a particular responsibility as resourceful actors to unleash the potential of collaborations and protect public interests (Sørensen & Torfing, 2009, p. 235).While institutional design aims to shape the arena for collaboration and "refers to the rules, norms and procedures that enable and constrain collaborative interaction" (Torfing et al., 2020, p. 594), the exercise of leadership aims to promote, encourage, and support collaboration and has a direct effect on the relations and actions of participating actors (Hofstad et al., 2022, pp. 4-5;Torfing et al., 2020, p. 594).Analyzing these conditions can contribute to understanding how institutional design and leadership roles may or may not generate the intended outcomes (Bianchi et al, 2021(Bianchi et al, , p. 1583)).

Facilitative leadership
Collaborative governance requires a specific type of leadership.Ansell and Gash (2012) argue that collaborative leaders take on a facilitative rather than direct role and enable stakeholders to work together effectively.They present three facilitative roles (Ansell & Gash, 2012, p. 2).The first leadership role is steward, which involves convening collaboration by bringing stakeholders together and maintaining its integrity by establishing the framework in which collaboration unfolds (Ansell & Gash, 2012, p. 7).This leadership role thus involves making decisions regarding the institutional design, such as which actors to involve.In this role, leaders lend reputation and social capital to convene the process and manage the image of the collaboration (Ansell & Gash, 2012, p. 8).The second leadership role is mediator, which involves enabling positive exchanges between stakeholders and managing conflicts (Ansell & Gash, 2012).In this role, leaders serve as "honest brokers" in meditation and facilitate the "construction of shared meaning" (Ansell & Gash, 2012, p. 8).The third leadership role is catalyst, referring to identifying and realizing value-creating opportunities (Ansell & Gash, 2012).In this role, leaders frame or reframes problems and mobilizes stakeholders to pursue value-creating opportunities (Ansell & Gash, 2012, p. 8).
All three leadership roles presented above refer to what Crosby and Bryson (2010) call "champions" and are leaders directly involved in the process (Ansell & Gash, 2012).A sponsor, on the other hand, "is less involved in the process, but deploys authority, money, or connections to move the change effort forward" (Crosby & Bryson, 2010, p. 219).Sponsors secure political, financial, and institutional support for the collaboration (Ansell & Torfing, 2021, p. 206).To capture this type of leadership, the sponsor was added as a fourth leadership role in the analytical framework.

Institutional design
Institutional design can include the creation of collaborative platforms and arenas (Ansell & Gash, 2018) and entails several design choices (Ansell & Torfing, 2021, p. 200).In this article, following Ansell and Gash (2008), institutional design includes the following four features meant to facilitate successful collaborative governance: participatory inclusiveness, clear ground rules, forum exclusiveness, and transparency.Ansell and Gash (2008) argued that the broad participation of stakeholders must be actively sought because only stakeholders who perceive "they had a legitimate opportunity to participate are likely to develop a 'commitment to the process'" (p.556).Clear ground rules and process transparency can help reassure stakeholders that the process is fair and equitable.Forum exclusiveness makes it likely that stakeholders will participate in the collaborative forum if there are no or few other options (Ansell & Gash, 2008, p. 556).

Public value outcomes
The public value approach has significant implications for public administration because it has broadened our perspectives on important values and implies that public managers should rely on collaborative modes of governance (Bryson et al., 2014;Sancino, 2022).The theory of public value creation was originally outlined by Moore (1995, p. 28), who argued that the creation of public value is the aim of managerial work in the public sector.Torfing and Sørensen (2019, pp. 1-2) argue that the public value perspective is a game changer for public managers and the public sector as a whole.Compared to a narrower focus on the administration of particular programs, the broad focus on the production of public value outcomes implies that a wide range of public and private actors may contribute to the definition and production of public value.
Public value can be understood as a measure of how "value is created to the benefit of society" (Lindgreen et al., 2019, pp. 6-7).As explained by Douglas, van de Noort, et al. (2020), reviewing public value creation is difficult and is "part of the wider puzzle of assessing public performance in an age of complex societal challenges, cross-sector collaborations, and multiple demands on government" (p.4).The literature contains numerous frameworks suggesting different values to be reviewed (e.g.Bryson et al., 2006;Emerson & Nabatchi, 2015a, 2015b;Koontz & Thomas, 2012;Newig et al., 2018;Page et al., 2015;Voets et al., 2008).This study draws on Page et al.'s (2015) framework for evaluating public value created by cross-sector collaborations, featuring three overarching dimensions related to effectiveness, legitimacy, and accountability.This framework highlights that accountability and legitimacy are important values for public undertakings, in addition to ensuring concrete results, and that these three dimensions represent distinct concerns for public administrators.Page et al.'s (2015) framework includes several attributes and indicators for each dimension including aspects of both the collaborative process and outcomes.To analyze the three values as outcomes of collaboration, this study includes other literature on collaborative governance to define and operationalize effectiveness, legitimacy, and accountability.
Effectiveness is linked to the new public management discourse and involves attaining predetermined goals (Page et al., 2015;Voets et al., 2008, p. 775).Moreover, the literature emphasizes capacity-building to be able to produce effects over time (Emerson & Nabatchi, 2015b, p. 732).Collaborations may build capacity, which can increase resilience and robustness in dealing with future challenges (Voets et al., 2008) and strengthen the potential to create value in the future (Page et al., 2015).
However, effectiveness is not the only criterion for assessing the value that collaborations create (Page et al., 2015, p. 715).Collaborative governance is also supposed to be legitimate and accountable (Cristofoli et al., 2022;Page et al., 2015;Triantafillou & Hansen, 2022).The legitimacy of collaborative modes of governance is defined in different ways (Bryson et al., 2006;Emerson & Nabatchi, 2015a;Page et al., 2015).In this article, legitimacy is understood in line with Cristofoli et al. (2022) as "the extent to which a particular governance mechanism enjoys widespread support from relevant and affected actors" (p.3).Collaborative governance arrangements may achieve widespread support in various ways: by actor inclusion (input legitimacy), by positive perceptions regarding the ability of ground rules to "ensure fair, inclusive and transparent interaction and decisionmaking that neutralizes power asymmetries (throughput legitimacy)," and by the likelihood of the collaboration producing effective solutions (output legitimacy) (Cristofoli et al., 2022, p. 3).
Furthermore, the increase in collaborative modes of governance has different implications for accountability (Acar et al., 2008;Papadopoulos, 2007;Sørensen & Torfing, 2021;Willems & Van Dooren, 2011).From a public value perspective, it is important to redress democratic deficits by responding to accountability demands (Page et al., 2015).Accountability can be examined in terms of the nature of accountability (vertical and horizontal), accountability for what (processes, procedures, and performance), and accountability to whom (legal, political, administrative, managerial, professional, and social) (Laegreid & Rykkja, 2022, p. 685).In this article, accountability is understood in line with Cristofoli et al. (2022), who explained that collaborations can "be considered accountable when public authorities and the internal and external stakeholders can actively monitor, critically scrutinize and effectively sanction its processes and goal attainment" (p.4).To be accountable, collaborative governance arrangements must provide regular accounts to and engage in responsive dialogue with relevant accountability forums (Cristofoli et al., 2022, p. 4).

Analytical framework
This section draws the theoretical concepts together and presents the analytical framework of the study.Following Ansell and Gash's (2008) model of collaborative governance, successful collaborative governance depends on supportive institutional design and leadership.Drawing on Page et al. (2015), this study focused on three dimensions of public value as outcomes: effectiveness, legitimacy, and accountability.The analytical framework that draws the concepts together and guides the study is presented in Figure 1.The concepts in the figure will be further operationalized in the methods section (Table 1).
Figure 1 includes the four different leadership roles (sponsor, steward, mediator, and catalyst) and the four features of institutional design (participatory inclusiveness, forum exclusiveness, clear ground rules and transparency).As illustrated in Figure 1, leadership and institutional design are expected to influence the achievement of public values (effectiveness, legitimacy, and accountability).For public administrators, the simultaneous pursuit of effectiveness, legitimacy, and accountability may produce dilemmas.
As explained by Ansell and Gash (2008), their model represents a contingency approach to collaborative governance, and the conditions for  Ansell & Gash, 2008, 2012;Page et al., 2015).

PUBLIC PERFORMANCE & MANAGEMENT REVIEW
successful collaborative governance may depend on the goals to be pursued.For example, taking on a leadership role as a steward to protect the integrity of the collaborative process and an institutional design characterized by broad inclusion of actors and clear ground rules are expected to ensure legitimacy (Ansell & Gash, 2008, 2012).Transparency in institutional design is particularly important for ensuring accountability as a public value.On the other hand, ensuring effectiveness might require a less inclusive process to secure alignment of interests and a catalyst leadership role to realize value creation (Ansell & Torfing, 2021;Ansell & Gash, 2012).
Thus, the assumption is that the presence of multiple demands causes tensions, and the "pursuit of one attribute or dimension of public value may compromise the pursuit of others" (Page et al., 2015, p. 727).From this perspective, the following theoretical proposition is derived: Different institutional design features and leadership roles are required for the pursuit of effective, legitimate, and accountable collaborative governance, and there are likely to be tradeoffs between them.To examine the theoretical proposition, the question to be studied -as announced in the introduction -is how the institutional design and leadership of collaborative governance are used to pursue and balance conflicting public values.

Case selection
The selected case is the urban municipality of Asker in Norway, which aimed to accelerate the transition to a circular economy through collaborative governance.The circular economy as the empirical focus was chosen because it is a policy area that requires extensive collaboration (Christensen, 2021) and the balancing of public values, such as effectiveness, to achieve solutions that increase circularity while ensuring legitimacy in terms of maintaining support from businesses and citizens.A quotation from the conclusion in the European Union's (EU's) circular economy action plan illustrates the need to balance public values: "The transition to the circular economy will be systemic, deep and transformative, in the EU and beyond.It will be disruptive at times, so it has to be fair.It will require an alignment and cooperation of all stakeholders at all levels -EU, national, regional and local, and international" (The European Commission, 2020, p. 24).Norway has the ambition to become a frontrunner in the transition to a circular economy.Asker has the ambition of being a frontrunner at the local level in the transition to a low-emission society.Improved circular economy through collaboration is emphasized as a crucial step in achieving this ambition.
Asker municipality (2021) has strong ambitions and strategies for the circular economy and emphasizes collaboration as an important tool, as stated in their thematic plan for action against climate change: "Asker municipality will, in collaboration with businesses and the voluntary sector, facilitate increased repair, reuse, and sharing economy to secure sustainable consumption and waste reduction in the society of Asker" (p.31).The focus of this study was the project called Again (Omigjen), initiated by the municipality of Asker to increase circularity in collaboration with businesses and the voluntary sector, mainly by establishing a reuse center with secondhand stores and repair stations.Asker was selected as a most-likely case (George & Bennett, 2005, p. 121) due to favorable starting conditions -with a history of successful collaborations and incentives to collaborate -suggesting that collaborative governance will be an effective approach to public policy making and public management.Selecting a most-likely case with favorable conditions for using collaborative governance as a strategy in a policy area with conflicting public values, allows for examining the theoretical proposition and contribute to theoretical development by extending or deepening the theory (Yin, 2014, p. 51;Patton, 2015, p. 289).
The starting conditions are favorable in Asker because of a history of successful collaborations in circular economy initiatives and incentives to collaborate in this policy area.The municipality had initiated and collaborated in several successful circular initiatives but found that the existing initiatives were not adequate to achieve the rate of reuse that the municipality was aiming for.An employee in the municipal administration explained, "After all these test rounds, we see that we are unable to make the internal collaboration that gets us to, what should I say, the percentages we need."The administration realized that the municipality depended on extended collaboration with other actors to increase the rate of reuse in the local community.The presence of favorable starting conditions with a history of successful collaborations and incentives to collaborate including dependence on other stakeholders for goal achievement, was expected to facilitate collaboration.
Furthermore, the municipality had dedicated staff working on circular strategies and could rely on competent businesses and resourceful inhabitants.The institutional context is typical of Scandinavian municipalities, which have a strong tradition of collaboration between the public and private sectors and high trust in government (Hofstad et al., 2022, p. 5).The selection of a leading municipality in Norway that had worked on circular initiatives for some time and had favorable starting conditions for succeeding in collaborative governance provided the opportunity to examine how the institutional design and leadership of collaborative governance are used to pursue and balance conflicting public values.

Data collection
Data collection involved participative observation, document analysis, and in-depth interviews.Observation consisted of participating in project meetings between September 2021 and November 2022.Document analysis was based on the policy documents of the municipality and documents related to the project, including applications for funding and acceptance letters, reports, webinar presentations, content about the project on the municipality's web page, newsletters about the project, market analysis, and documents regarding the political decisions concerning the Again project.The policy documents were used as background information, and the documents regarding the project were included in the analysis.Two of the documents analyzed were based on interviews with a wide range of actors.The first was a feasibility study (Sprint, 2021) conducted by a consultant firm that investigated opportunities for collaborative circular projects based on insights from interviews with business actors, and the second was a report written by fellow project members (Wethal & Hoff, 2022) who conducted 37 interviews in the fall of 2021 with businesses, civil society actors, and citizens.Furthermore, three of these interviews conducted by colleagues were included in the data for which I conducted secondary analysis, as they were particularly relevant.Access to these data from colleagues was available because this study was part of a larger research project in which we worked together. 1 To fill in the gaps in the available information, I conducted five in-depth interviews with informants involved in the project, from both the municipal administration and the private sector.The interviews were conducted in 2022 and lasted approximately 1-1.5 hours each.All these interviews were recorded and transcribed.Furthermore, in 2022, I followed up with shorter interviews with two business actors that my colleagues had previously interviewed.These two actors were of particular interest because they initially showed an interest in participating in the collaboration but did not participate.Written informed consent was collected from all informants, and the project was conducted in accordance with ethical guidelines (the project was approved by the Norwegian Center for Research Data -reference number 464043).The following topics were covered in the interviews and document reviews: 1) background for initiating Again and incentives to participate, 2) the role of the municipality in managing the project through institutional design and leadership, 3) the collaborative process All the data, written reports, and other material, as well as the transcribed interviews, were coded based on the operationalization of the theoretical concepts presented in the theoretical framework (see Figure 1) and were analyzed using NVivo software.The operationalization of the concepts is presented in Table 1.The four leadership roles are operationalized with different leadership activities, such as evidence of securing political support for the collaboration representing acting as a sponsor.Intuitional design is operationalized with evidence of securing the four features, such as making information regarding decision-making in the collaboration openly accessible representing transparency.Finally, the public values are operationalized with evidence of different outcomes of the collaboration, such as achieving predetermined goals representing effectiveness.In NVivo, I created codes of the different concepts and used operationalization to identify the concepts in the data.As I marked the data representing the concepts, NVivo organized the data according to the theoretical concepts.

Limitations and advantages
One challenge encountered in data collection and analysis was getting a complete understanding of how Asker attempted to arrange the collaboration because the idea for the collaborative project had developed since 2017, with conversations occurring with different actors at several stages over the years until the establishment of the reuse center in 2022.This challenge was addressed through the use of different methods.The combination of observation, document analysis, and in-depth interviews provided me with insights from different sources into how the process evolved over time as well as how and why decisions were made.This enabled me to triangulate (Yin, 2014) key findings.For example, the in-depth interviews allowed me to confirm or ask follow-up questions regarding the topics noted during the project meetings.
The case study of a most-likely case was not conducted to arrive at empirical generalizations for a wider population but to provide empirical evidence on theoretical concepts and contribute to theoretical development (George & Bennett, 2005;Yin, 2014, p. 41).The results of this study can help elaborate on Ansell and Gash's (2008) model of collaborative governance by showing how the conditions expected to facilitate successful collaborative governance may depend on the outcomes to be pursued.

Findings
This section reports findings about how the municipal administration used leadership and institutional design to manage the collaborative project in pursuit of conflicting public values, including effectiveness, legitimacy, and accountability.The findings are presented chronologically as the collaborative process progresses.The presentation is structured according to leadership roles.The features of institutional design are presented as part of the stewardship role, as this leadership role involves the institutional design of frameworks for collaborations to unfold.
As a basis for understanding how different public values were pursued by the municipal administration in the different collaborative phases, however, a short presentation of the project Again is needed.

The Again project
In the Again project, the municipality aimed to collaborate with stakeholders in both the development of a concept for the reuse center and in the operation of the center after opening.In addition to the main ambition of reducing climate gas emissions by making circular consumption more accessible to citizens, the project also aimed to contribute to circular business development and social inclusion via the provision of opportunities for work training.The idea for a reuse center came up in 2017 and was followed by a process of inquiries and efforts to co-create the concept with stakeholders.The Again Center opened in November 2022 with five circular businesses, a pop-up station, and one caf� e.The center will facilitate circular businesses and work training.For a period of two years, the municipality will subsidize rent for businesses at the center and provide a center leader and communication resources.The center will help maintain resources in the economy, and according to a newsletter from February 2023, the center saved more than five tons of waste in 2022.
However, the concept development of the center was not as collaborative as the municipality hoped for.The municipality sought to co-create the reuse center with stakeholders including businesses to develop a center to be operated commercially and ensure economic sustainability without continued support from the municipality.Economic sustainability is crucial for the continuation of the center and for the center to contribute to the overarching goal of reducing climate gas emissions from consumption.Despite the intention to collaborate and favorable starting conditions, it proved difficult to get stakeholders to commit to developing the concept of the reuse-center.Examining the process of how the municipality sought to collaborate with stakeholders about the concept development of the reuse center can provide valuable insight into the challenges of collaborating despite favorable starting conditions.The following sections will describe how the municipal administration took on different leadership roles and used institutional design to pursue and balance public values.

The municipality as a pivotal sponsor
The idea to establish the reuse center in collaboration with other stakeholders to increase the amount of reuse in the municipality came from the municipal administration and was inspired by a similar concept in Sweden called Retuna.To show other relevant municipal actors the opportunities with the concept, a trip to Retuna was organized with people from the administration, politicians, recycling stations, and work training centers.One informant from the municipal administration explained that it was important to ensure that the other municipal actors had the same insight into the concept as the administration.The trip contributed to excitement among the politicians and seemed important for securing political support for proceeding with the idea.
Afterwards, a consultancy firm was engaged in conducting a feasibility study to examine whether a similar concept could work in Asker.The feasibility study uncovered that there was interest among stakeholders in collaborating with the municipality on circular projects and concluded that Asker could move forward by establishing a reuse center and a digital platform.A political decision was made to develop the center in collaboration with businesses and voluntary actors.The municipality applied for and received funding on several occasions from the Norwegian Environmental Agency to develop the concept.The project is also funded by the municipality's own budget.In 2021, a project organization was established, including a management group representing both the public and private sectors.The management group was set up to make final decisions regarding project development.
These findings illustrate that the municipal administration acted as a sponsor by securing political, financial, and institutional support to be able to move forward with developing the reuse center in collaboration with other stakeholders.Taking on the role of a sponsor supporting collaboration to achieve the goal of increased reuse indicates an initial focus on effectiveness as the public value pursued by the administrative actors involved, in terms of pursuing predetermined goals by collaborative activities.

The municipality as a steward deciding on institutional design features
Following the political decision, the municipal administration acted as a steward by initiating dialogue with stakeholders about developing and realizing the reuse center Again.To bring stakeholders together and establish a collaborative group, the administration arranged dialogue meetings and webinars.
Furthermore, decisions regarding the features of the institutional design created the framework for the collaboration to unfold.When it comes to participatory inclusiveness, the municipality wanted to collaborate with local actors with circular ideas.This included larger businesses with linear business models that wanted to adopt a more circular direction, smaller businesses with circular business models, such as reuse stores, entrepreneurs wanting to establish circular businesses, voluntary organizations, and organizations for work training.An informant from the municipality explained the following: "We have not limited ourselves in terms of whom we are inviting.It is rather the opposite."Informants from the municipality described a commitment to ensuring equal opportunities for everyone due to the role of the municipality and legal reasons related to providing everyone equal opportunities to access public support.One municipal administrator put it as follows: "The municipality is supposed to be something for everyone.We are not supposed to favor anyone, and we should especially not come in as a competitor for the businesses."The municipal administration thus adopted an open approach when inviting stakeholders to the co-creation process to collectively develop the center.Organizing the collaboration about the reuse center as a project where everyone was invited to participate, thus providing everyone with equal opportunities, made it possible to collaborate with and promote stakeholders for the project period.The commitment to the open approach to the inclusion of actors indicates the pursuit of the public value of accountability in terms of being able to explain and justify to relevant accountability forums that the process was in accordance with the role of the municipality and the legal framework.
During the fall of 2021, nine actors, including smaller and larger businesses, voluntary organizations, and a research partner, signed a letter of intent with the municipality, committing themselves to a dialogue about the development and organization of Again.The findings do not point to the articulation of clear rules for the collaborative process of developing the concept of the reuse center, but the letters of intent broadly define the form of this collaborative process.
Regarding the design of forum exclusiveness, municipal administrative officers argued that the advantages of collaborating and co-locating actors working on circular strategies in the reuse center would be the creation of a network of circular actors and the facilitation of economies of scale.Through previous experiences, the municipality has gained insights into the challenges of the economic viability of circular business models.The reuse of products requires many manual processes, such as transportation, reparation, and cleaning.Sharing these processes facilitates economies of scale and makes it easier for stakeholders to work with circular initiatives.Furthermore, the municipality would be able to subsidize the rent for actors at the center and offer reuse goods from the municipal recycling stations, contributing to the reduction of the financial risk for the actors working with circular initiatives.Designing the collaboration as an exclusive forum with access to these advantages indicates the pursuit of effectiveness as a public value by increasing the likelihood of stakeholders participating being able to achieve the goal of collaboratively realizing the reuse center.
When it comes to the institutionalization of transparency, the municipality strove for openness regarding the development of the project.The municipal administration provided accounts of project progress to local politicians and to the national Norwegian Environment Agency.Efforts have also been made to disseminate open accounts of progress through different channels, specifically through an open-access newsletter available to anyone interested.By providing open accounts, the municipal administration provided information about the project's progress and enabled actors to monitor progress, showing an effort to ensure the public value of accountability.
The above findings illustrate that the municipality took on a leadership role as a steward by bringing together relevant actors and making decisions regarding the features of the institutional design, creating a framework for collaboration.The institutional design was characterized by participatory inclusiveness, forum exclusiveness, and transparency.

Challenging to act as a mediator facilitating a shared vision for the reuse center
However, the municipality encountered the challenges of acting as a mediator in terms of facilitating the construction of shared meaning.Municipal administrative officers referred to "municipality 3.0" as the municipality that co-creates solutions with other actors.In line with this role, the municipality adopted an open approach to the creation of the reuse center to co-create it with stakeholders.This open approach contributed to uncertainty among potential collaborative actors related to the concept, location, and who would end up participating in the reuse center.In an interview, one business actor described the uncertainty in discussions regarding the center as follows: "You talk about that it is going to be a meeting point and it is going to be a place where you can come to borrow and share, it is going to be a competence hub.And it is a bit unclear to me."This uncertainty made it difficult for stakeholders to imagine their concepts in the collaborative arena.
In addition to the open approach regarding the concept of the reuse center, the municipal administrative officers also adopted an open approach to inclusion of actors.The open approach to the inclusion of actors contributed to many different interests that needed to be reconciled.The municipality's main goals were to increase the reuse rate and facilitate circular business development and social inclusion through work training.For businesses, economic viability is crucial.Although there was a shared interest between the actors in reuse, the actors had different priorities within the concept of the reuse center.
Moreover, there were also different interests among businesses, for example, in terms of customers.Some of the larger businesses expressed concerns about being associated mostly with smaller stores with different business models for reaching different customer groups.One business actor explained that they would like to have "some of the famous brands" involved in the collaboration to make the reuse center more mainstream.The stakeholders thus had opinions regarding the inclusion of actors but got the impression that the municipality needed to be careful in terms of approaching specific actors to be part of the center to not favor anyone.Municipal administrative officers explained in interviews that it was challenging to balance the role of what they called "municipality 3.0".Informants described that, as this was a new way of working, it was time-consuming to figure out how they were able to collaborate with and promote circular stakeholders within the legal framework.
The commitment to an open approach to the co-creation process in line with the role as "municipality 3.0", as well as the open inclusive approach to ensure accountability, seemed to hinder the construction of a shared vision for the reuse center.As the vision for the reuse center remained unclear it was difficult for stakeholders to consider whether it would be worth it to participate.The uncertainty regarding the concept in combination with limited capacity among stakeholders to contribute to concept development seemed to hinder commitment to the collaboration.Limited capacity was a challenge for both smaller businesses and larger businesses.For smaller businesses with limited personnel, it was difficult to dedicate people to contribute to the collaborative project.This was also a challenge for larger businesses because they too had limited personnel working with circularity.Given the uncertainty regarding the concept and the limited capacity to contribute, it seemed challenging for businesses to evaluate whether it would be worth the investment.The open approach to inclusion thus challenged the opportunity to align perspectives and seemed to hinder the pursuit of the public value of effectiveness.
Moreover, there were different perspectives among stakeholders on the role of the municipality as a sponsor and facilitator of the collaboration.Some businesses were supportive of the municipality initiating and facilitating collaboration regarding the Again project, as illustrated by the following quotation from one of the business actors: "We think it is fun to try out and test and fail and learn along the way.But it is clear that it is quite hard work with all that.So, we could wish for, and we use to say, yes, it is fun to walk first in the skiing tracks for a little while, but at some point, you want a plow truck." As the circular economy is a new business area for many stakeholders, it is challenging to explore the opportunities within the legal framework, and some businesses therefore expressed an expectation that public actors, such as the municipality, would help them discover the opportunities.
However, the facilitation of the collaborative governance of Again also created dissatisfaction, which challenged the pursuit of legitimacy in terms of creating satisfaction with the collaborative arrangement.One of the informants from the municipality explained that they received some feedback that the municipality comes with a "freight train and will just like take over."The following quotation from one of the business informants describes some of these concerns: "What you, from the business perspective, fear or are skeptical of is that this kind of project as Again contributes to the municipality performing tasks that the commercial sector actually can and should undertake."Some actors from the voluntary sector and smaller businesses feared competition from the new reuse center, which could potentially take over part of the market in terms of customers and reused goods.
Although the intention of the municipality behind the collaborative project was to facilitate and help local actors, some informants from these groups expressed that they would have preferred that the municipality support existing concepts instead.The municipal administration arranged separate dialogue meetings with some of the actors who expressed dissatisfaction to address these concerns, where they discussed opportunities regarding participating in the Again project and alternatives.The effort to facilitate the exchange of perspectives and provide different opportunities indicates an effort to pursue the public value of legitimacy by restoring satisfaction regarding the collaborative arrangement.
In sum, the open approach to the co-creation process and to inclusion of stakeholders contributed to differing perspectives among potential collaborators on the reuse center concept as well as on the role of the municipality.With the municipality committed to remain the open approach to make sure everyone had equal opportunities to participate in the project, it seemed challenging to align the different perspectives and create a vision for the reuse center corresponding to the differing needs among potential collaborators.

Difficulties in acting as a catalyst contributing to a hierarchical turn
Showcasing the advantages of collaborating on a reuse center, including opportunities for economy of scale and networking with other circular actors, shows that the municipal administration attempted to act as a catalyst by identifying value-creating opportunities.Yet, it proved challenging to mobilize stakeholders to pursue these opportunities.It was difficult for the relevant actors to prioritize participating in the collaborative arena with so many unanswered questions regarding the business model and the uncertainty of what would be the end result.As described by a business actor: "The challenge is that we cannot kind of start a reuse store, that we do not earn money from."The location of the center was of particular importance as it was expected to largely influence the rent and visiting customers.
The municipal administration thus figured that it was important to find a location for the reuse center to better visualize the opportunities for value creation and invite stakeholders to participate in the center afterwards.This contributed to taking the project in a more hierarchical direction.With the challenges of collaborating with stakeholders on concept development without clarity regarding the location, the project management group moved the project forward by deciding on a location for the center, and actors were invited to join the center through a public procurement process.This indicates that the pursuit of effectiveness as a public value in terms of establishing the reuse center within the timeframe of the project contributed to taking the project in a more hierarchical direction, in the sense that the municipality resorted to a traditional leadership role to achieve the goal.

Discussion
The analysis shows how the municipal administration used leadership and institutional design to pursue different public values and how effectiveness, legitimacy and accountability represent demands influencing decisions regarding these governance tools.Table 2 captures this interaction and provides a summary of the main findings related to the theoretical concepts.
The municipal administration acted as a sponsor, as described in the first row in Table 2, by securing political, financial, and institutional support for the collaboration.The municipality initiated collaboration with businesses and voluntary actors to increase reuse and acted as a sponsor in the pursuit of this goal.This initial focus on taking on a leadership role in the pursuit

Municipal leadership roles Public values pursued
The municipality acted as a sponsor by securing political, financial, and institutional support for developing the reuse center in collaboration with stakeholders.
The municipality acted as a sponsor in the pursuit of effectiveness to achieve the goal of establishing the reuse center, thus increasing the amount of reuse in collaboration with stakeholders.However, political and financial support also increased demand for accountability.The municipality acted as a steward by bringing together stakeholders in dialogue meetings and making decisions regarding the institutional design.The municipality established participatory inclusiveness, forum exclusiveness and transparency.
Adopting an open approach to inclusion of actors and ensuring transparency indicated the pursuit of accountability, in terms of being able to explain and justify to accountability forums that the process was in accordance with the role of the municipality and legal framework, by providing all actors equal opportunities.The municipality acted as a mediator by facilitating exchange of perspectives but encountered challenges of constructing a shared vision of the reuse center.The municipality also arranged separate dialogue meetings with stakeholders showing dissatisfaction with the collaborative arrangement.
The open approach to inclusion of actors to respond to accountability demands increased the interests that needed to be aligned, challenging the opportunity to construct a shared vision for the reuse center thus hindering effectiveness.The municipality's efforts to address dissatisfaction from stakeholders in separate dialogue meetings indicates the pursuit of legitimacy.The municipality acted as a catalyst by identifying value-creating opportunities of co-locating actors in a reuse center but encountered challenges of mobilizing stakeholders to pursue them.The challenges of acting as a catalyst contributed to taking the project in a more hierarchical direction.
The challenges of acting as a catalyst mobilizing stakeholders to pursue the value-creating opportunities in the collaborative project contributed to the municipality adopting a more hierarchical leadership role in the pursuit of effectiveness by moving the project forward within the given time and resources.
of effectiveness supports arguments in the collaboration literature, that "collaborations are generally initiated with an instrumental purpose in mind" (Huxham et al., 2000, p. 340), to pursue goals difficult to achieve by a single organization (Emerson et al., 2012).While securing political, financial, and institutional support from high-level decision-makers is considered crucial to engage stakeholders in the co-creation of solutions, this study shows how taking on the leadership role as a sponsor also increased demand for hierarchical accountability.
The commitment to accountability influenced how the municipal administration acted as a steward and made decisions regarding the institutional design.As described in the second row in Table 2, the municipality acted as a steward by inviting a broad range of stakeholders to dialogue meetings, creating forum exclusiveness and institutionalizing transparency.The findings show a strong commitment from the municipal administration to invite a broad range of stakeholders, to ensure everyone had equal opportunities to participate in the circular project the municipality supported.Ansell and Gash (2008) argue that inclusion might be the most fundamental design issue, as it determines who has access to the collaborative process.Inclusion decisions are described by Ansell and Torfing (2021) as a balancing act.However, this study shows how perceived demands for the public value of accountability reduce the maneuvering room for participatory inclusion and exclusion.As the municipality supported the collaborative project and is not supposed to favor any actors, it was crucial to be able to justify to the accountability forums that the project was conducted in line with the role of the municipality and legal framework, by ensuring all stakeholders had an equal opportunity to partake in the project.
This study thus shows how taking on the leadership role as a sponsor at an early stage in the collaboration process influences the opportunities to act as a steward making decisions regarding institutional design at later stages.The municipal administration felt restricted regarding the inclusion process because they had to ensure everyone had equal opportunities to take advantage of public support.Financial support from the public sector consequently entails a dilemma.On the one hand, it can be important to strengthen forum exclusiveness and increase the likelihood of actors participating in the collaboration.On the other hand, it increases accountability demands and may reduce freedom regarding participatory inclusiveness.The fear that businesses will receive inappropriate benefits is a common criticism of cross-sector collaborations (Page et al., 2015), and it is crucial to ensure accountability as a public value to redress the democratic deficit, as lack of accountability may serve as a barrier to co-creation (Bentzen et al., 2020).
As described in the third row in Table 2, the municipality acted as a mediator by facilitating exchange of perspectives between the stakeholders but encountered challenges of constructing a shared vision for the reuse center.The findings indicate that an institutional design characterized by broad inclusion may challenge the opportunity to serve as an effective mediator, aligning the perspectives of stakeholders.Despite the shared interest between actors in the circular economy and reuse, the broad inclusion of actors increased the interests that needed to be aligned to create a shared vision for the reuse center.Ansell et al. (2022) refer to this as the conflict challenge and argue that highly inclusive networks might have difficulties in reaching the collaborative advantage.This study provides empirical support for the claimed tensions between the inclusion of actors and goal effectiveness in urban climate governance (Hofstad et al., 2022).While a more exclusive process in terms of inclusion may have contributed to ease the alignment of interests and increase the effectiveness of the collaboration, the public value of accountability represented a demand reducing freedom regarding this institutional design feature.
In addition to the difficulties of facilitating construction of a shared vision for the concept of the reuse center, there were also different perspectives among stakeholders on the role of the municipality and the collaborative project.Despite an institutional design characterized by an open approach to include stakeholders and transparency expecting to contribute to legitimacy by increasing satisfaction of the collaborative arrangement, there was evidence of dissatisfaction about the collaborative arrangement among some stakeholders in the studied case.Some stakeholders expressed concerns that the municipality would facilitate a collaboration that would outcompete them by enabling other actors to remove their customers and reused goods.This kind of risk of outcompeting other actors when local governments take the lead in the circular economy has previously been pointed out in other studies (Palm et al., 2019).Although the stakeholders were invited to participate in the project and take advantage of the public support, the stakeholders expressed they would have preferred support for their own concepts instead.
Thus, despite open approach to inclusion there was evidence of dissatisfaction toward the collaborative arrangement, and the municipal administration acted as a mediator by facilitating exchange of perspectives in dialogue meetings with some of these actors, indicating efforts to increase legitimacy.
As described in the fourth row in Table 2, the municipality acted as a catalyst by identifying value-creating opportunities of co-locating circular actors in a reuse center but encountered challenges of mobilizing stakeholders to pursue these opportunities.With the challenges of simultaneously pursuing effectiveness, accountability and legitimacy through collaborative governance, the municipality turned to a more hierarchical leadership approach, focused on achieving the predetermined goals within given resource constrains.Effective collaborative leadership is expected to be time, resource, and skill intensive (Huxham et al., 2000), and collaborative governance is thus not likely the best strategy when decisions are to be made and implemented quickly (Ansell & Gash, 2008, p. 563).This study indicates that political and financial support for collaboration may increase demands for effectiveness in terms of achieving the goal within the given resources.

Conclusion
This study responds to the call for research on whether there are inherent tensions between the conditions of collaborative governance supporting different desired outcomes (Cristofoli et al., 2022).It examined how leadership roles and institutional design are used to pursue three different public values: effectiveness, legitimacy, and accountability.The Norwegian municipality of Asker, attempting to accelerate the transition to a circular economy through collaborative governance, was selected as a most likely case with favorable starting conditions expecting to facilitate collaboration as well as a policy area with conflicting public values.
The study contributes empirical evidence on how the institutional design and leadership of collaborative governance are used when pursuing and balancing conflicting public values.The findings are that taking on the leadership role as a sponsor, ensuring political and financial support, was crucial for the collaboration in the pursuit of effectiveness.At the same time, taking on the role as a sponsor increased demand for accountability, which influenced the leadership roles at a later stage in the collaboration.In the role as a steward making decisions regarding the institutional design, the municipality committed to an open approach to inclusion, to ensure stakeholders have equal opportunities to access public support.The open approach to inclusion challenged the ability to act as a mediator constructing a shared meaning between the stakeholders.While a more exclusive process might contribute to ease alignment of interests and ensure effectiveness, accountability demands may limit the maneuvering room regarding participatory inclusion.
Previous studies have identified that the quality of collaboration will influence public project performance (Satheesh et al., 2023).Although this study showed that the process of developing the reuse center was not as collaborative as the municipality had hoped for, the intention was for the reuse center to serve as a platform for facilitating future collaboration between circular actors in the municipality.The creation of physical and online platforms and arenas serving as infrastructures with dedicated resources is emphasized in the literature as a way of spurring collaboration (Ansell & Gash, 2018;Ansell & Torfing, 2021;Page & Stone, 2023, Chen & Chang, 2020) and may be a way forward for public administrators.As argued by Ansell and Torfing (2021), decisions regarding the institutional design of spaces for co-creation of public value outcomes are not so much about making the right choice, "but more a question of being prepared to adjust the balance between extremes in response to shifting conditions and context" (p.204).Following this, practitioners should be prepared to take on different leadership roles and alter the design according to changing contexts and goals.As collaborative leadership is expected to be resourceintensive, public administrators should reserve capacities and initiate formats to facilitate collaboration, as also pointed out in other recent studies on collaborative governance (Nolte & Lindenmeier, 2023).
Following the contingency approach to collaborative governance (Ansell & Gash, 2008), this study has theoretical implications in terms of understanding how leadership roles and institutional design may vary according to the goals of the collaboration.Whereas Ansell and Gash's (2008) model does not pay attention to the relationship between conditions and different outcomes, this research supplements their model by suggesting that designing and leading collaborative processes involves dilemmas between ensuring different public values.The study suggests that the simultaneous pursuit of effectiveness, legitimacy, and accountability requires different types of leadership, as suggested in the literature (Ansell & Gash, 2012;Crosby & Bryson, 2010;Waters, 2013).However, the study also shows that there can be inherent tensions between the leadership roles and institutional design decisions supporting the different desirable outcomes.Furthermore, one of the advantages of conducting in-depth case studies is that they capture the nonlinear dynamics of collaborations (Ansell & Gash, 2008).The analysis shows how public values also represent demands that influence decisions regarding the use of leadership and institutional design to manage collaborations.
As this study is based on an in-depth analysis of a single case and only a selection of the conditions expected to facilitate successful collaboration, there is a need for further research to examine whether different combinations of leadership and institutional design are required for different public values.In doing so, qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) provides a promising path forward to further advance the contingency approach to collaborative governance.The recently established database for cases of collaborative governance (Douglas, Ansell, et al., 2020) provides the opportunity to conduct a comparative analysis of how these governance tools are combined to produce different outcomes across countries and policy domains.

1
The three interviews were conducted by colleagues for the research project "Re-Making Consumption?Exploring the Transformative Potential of Local Initiatives for More Sustainable Consumption" as part of the research project Include and 4) to what extent and how effectiveness, legitimacy and accountability were pursued.

Table 1 .
Operationalization of leadership roles, institutional design, and public values.

Table 2 .
Interactions between leadership, institutional design, and public values.