the restructured landscape of economic development: challenges and opportunities for regional...

Economic Development Quarterly2015, Vol. 29(2) 150 –166© The Author(s) 2015Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navDOI: 10.1177/0891242414566151edq.sagepub.com

Research and Practice

More than a decade after the enactment of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA), regional workforce development sys-tems and collaborations have garnered much attention across academic, political, and practitioner circles. An experimental by-product of the restructured programmatic and administra-tive directives of workforce development efforts under WIA, studies have argued that regional workforce development systems are invaluable networks through which long-term economic sustainability and growth can be ensured (Dabson, 2010). Regional workforce development systems constitute those processes and institutions that finance, regulate, pro-vide services, maintain, and link the core functions and activ-ities necessary to prepare and support workers while also responding to the human resources needs of employers. Such systems correspond to a labor market typically inclusive of a central metropolitan area and its surrounding political and local governance jurisdictions requiring the collaboration of several different types of institutions with often disparate missions.

According to Mattessich, Murray-Close, and Monsey (2001, p. 9), collaboration is defined as “a mutually beneficial and well defined relationship entered into by two or more organizations to achieve common goals.” For the purpose of this study, we define a regional workforce development collaboration as a

coordinated effort among public and private entities that sup-port the workforce development system within a regional con-text. Working within larger network government structures, these collaborations integrate workforce development policies mandated by agencies such as the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) and workforce investment boards (WIB) within a regional context through collaborations with locally-minded organizations that have a good understanding of the local economy.

Research indicates that regional collaborations in workforce development have several advantages. Dabson (2010) argues that these collaborative governance structures allow agencies to cross real and imaginary boundaries, tackle complex problems, and enable organizations to take advantage of opportunities otherwise unattainable individually. In addition, regional

566151 EDQXXX10.1177/0891242414566151Economic Development QuarterlyMeléndez et al.research-article2015

1Hunter College, New York, NY, USA2Clark University, Worcester, MA, USA3University of California, Davis, CA, USA4Boston University, MA, USA

Corresponding Author:Edwin Meléndez, Hunter College, Urban Affairs and Planning, 695 Park Avenue, Room E-1409, New York, NY 10065, USA. Email: [email protected]

The Restructured Landscape of Economic Development: Challenges and Opportunities for Regional Workforce Development Collaborations

Edwin Meléndez1, Ramon Borges-Mendez2, M. Anne Visser3, and Anna Rosofsky4

AbstractRegional workforce development collaborations have emerged as a notable approach to tackle complex problems within workforce development systems. While much of the existing research on workforce development documents the importance of promoting regional workforce development collaborations, little research exists that adequately identifies the specific barriers that organizations encounter in establishing and maintaining these collaborations. Through several sets of interviews over a 10-year period, this article examines the experiences of three detailed case studies of regions—Greater North Bay area, CA; Greater Fort Wayne/Northeastern IN; and Greater Pittsburgh/Southwestern PA—to identify the barriers and emerging strategies for creating regional workforce development systems. The authors identify three primary barriers: high initial upfront costs, competition, and fragmentation. They also find that an effective regional workforce development system is promoted primarily through an anchor organization that possesses programmatic and jurisdictional authority throughout a region.

Keywordsworkforce development, regionalism, economic development, Workforce Investment Act

at UNIV CALIFORNIA DAVIS on July 21, 2015edq.sagepub.comDownloaded from

http://edq.sagepub.com/

Meléndez et al. 151

collaboration has been viewed as beneficial in integrating local economies into larger economic structures and expanding eco-nomic and political jurisdictions to address new challenges in regional and local economic development, such as the growth of industrial clusters, declining inner-suburban areas, and urban sprawl (Blackwell, Bullard, Ferris, & Powell, 2007; Fowler & Chernus, 2005; Jacobson, 2001; Mason, 2008; Mattessich & Monsey, 1992).

Yet, although studies have clearly documented the impor-tance and difficulty of promoting regional workforce develop-ment collaborations, little research exists that adequately identifies the specific barriers organizations encounter in estab-lishing and maintaining these collaborations. This study seeks to address this gap in the literature through a longitudinal com-parative case study of regional workforce development systems in the United States. Specifically, the study identifies and exam-ines the barriers that workforce development organizations and intermediaries face when engaging in regional collaborations and illuminates effective strategies employed by policy actors to overcome challenges associated with regional workforce col-laborations. Data for this study are derived from a comprehen-sive qualitative data set inclusive of several sets of interviews with top executives from 25 workforce development programs across the United States over the course of 10 years (2001-2011). Further in-depth analysis of regional workforce development collaborations was also undertaken across three geographies: Southwestern Pennsylvania, the Greater North Bay area in northern California, and Northeast Indiana. Data for these case studies were collected in 2001, 2008, and 2011, so as to control for and better understand the impact of external economic shocks that these collaborations experienced during the Great Recession and in the “Recovery Period.”

Through our analysis of this rich data set, we identified three primary barriers to regional workforce development and high-light the best practices used to overcome them. We find that effective and sustainable regional workforce development initia-tives are created and promoted through an anchor organization that has programmatic and jurisdictional authority throughout a region, through state government initiatives that promote regional workforce collaboration, and when the geographic and programmatic capacity of regional workforce development organizations is bolstered. The implementation of these changes can all be made possible through the coordinated efforts of pol-icy makers and professionals, especially when state govern-ments delegate to quasi-public organizations the regional coordination of workforce development programs.

The Policy Context of Regional Collaboration in Workforce Development

Over the past two decades, the public workforce develop-ment system in the United States has undergone significant

changes. The implementation of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998, in addition to administrative devolution of employment and welfare policies of the 1990s, began a series of substantive realignments in the policy system. As a policy platform, WIA sought to promote a regional approach to employment and training by encouraging state agencies and regional organizations to cooperate around a region’s eco-nomic performance. In doing so, WIA streamlined the work-force system by combining all major employment and training programs overseen by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), and by mandating increased coordination of local-level programs by restructuring federal funding into block grants. The reorganization of the delivery system sought to increase system flexibility and provide clear guidelines for increased performance by requiring that local jurisdictions evaluate systems based on participant outcome measures including job placements, wages at placement, wage gains, and job retention.

In addition, WIA required the creation of WIBs1 at the state and local levels, charged with distributing federal funds. WIBs were viewed as a conduit through which to provide more control, autonomy, and flexibility to state and local authorities in the development and implementation of work-force development systems (Buck, 2002; King, 1999; Meléndez, 1997, 2004; Moore, Zell, & Hamilton, 2009; O’Shea & King, 2001; Patel & Savner, 2001). This auton-omy and flexibility was manifested through One-Stop Career Centers, formed by each regional WIB, that served as univer-sal access points of all individuals looking for work. Although WIA mandated the overall structure of services and the cre-ation of one-stops, state and local WIBs were afforded the ability to innovate their programs so as to respond to local economic conditions. In addition, WIBs were provided flex-ibility to allocate their funds by choosing how quickly an individual may be granted more expensive tiers of service delivery2 (Decker & Berk, 2011).

In the years following the implementation of the WIA, numerous organizations that had previously not been involved began to enter into the workforce development pol-icy arena. The infusion of these new actors, combined with administrative devolution, provided significant leeway within jurisdictions for agencies to experiment with a wide range of workforce development collaborations throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s. Such collaborations incorpo-rated a broad range of groups such as community-based organizations (CBOs), community colleges, training institu-tions, local economic development organizations, private sector workforce development intermediaries, and other actors (Cordero-Guzmán, 2004; Fitzgerald, 2004; Meléndez, 2004; Wolf-Powers, 2004).

In 2005, noting that global competition demanded the cre-ation of knowledge-based industries and high-value jobs through diversification, adaptation, and innovation at the regional level, the George W. Bush Administration announced



152 Economic Development Quarterly 29(2)

the creation of the Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development initiative (WIRED) (Atkinson & Correa, 2007; Saxenian, 2006). Based on the understanding that national economic competitiveness was dependent on regional pros-perity, WIRED sought to improve on developments achieved under WIA to create linkages between vital communities across the economic development and workforce develop-ment fields and to provide the skilled workforce required by emerging markets in local economies (Almandsmith et al., 2008; Hollenbeck & Hewat, 2009; Hollenbeck & Hewat, 2010; U.S. Department of Labor, 2008). Two key compo-nents of WIRED were the creation of strategic partnerships between economic development and workforce development organizations and the strengthening of regional identity and economy so as to leverage resources to implement programs regionally (Hollenbeck & Hewat, 2009; Hollenbeck & Hewat, 2010).

In addition, WIRED monies were provided to localities with the means to act as a catalyst to secure additional public and private resources and to establish the leadership and shared vision argued to be vital to collaborative success and sustainability (U.S. Department of Labor, 2008). Facing con-cerns over funding, the DOL/ETA announced in May of 2007 that WIRED initiatives would be continued through the granting of Regional Innovation Grants (RIG) (U.S. Department of Labor, 2008). Aimed at state workforce agen-cies and local WIBs, RIGs were meant to help regions coun-teract the effects of economic shocks by supporting the creation of regional strategic planning based on the princi-ples of the WIRED initiative (U.S. Department of Labor, 2008).

As a result of this growing emphasis on regional collabo-ration in workforce development across policy communities, research has also focused on the impact that regional collab-orations have on economic development. Chapple (2005) argued that regional collaboration provided benefits both in terms of programmatic and geographic breadth and scope of workforce development initiatives—especially when work-force and economic development organizations are linked (Chapple, 2005). Fitzgerald, Perry, and Jaffe (2002) found that collaborative regional workforce development initia-tives improved the functioning of local labor markets by increasing the flow of information within the system and highlighting the needs of the local labor market to the avail-able workforce supply. In a 2009 study, Moore et al. found that areas with a high density of agencies involved in work-force development provided an environment that enabled agencies to efficiently utilize resources to accomplish orga-nizational goals collaboratively and have effective informa-tion flow throughout the network.

Yet studies have also highlighted the inherent difficulties of engaging and maintaining regional collaborations in workforce development. Austin (2000) notes that organiza-tional participation in collaborations is subject to a

“collaboration value construct;” that is, how an organization perceives the potential value of engaging in collaboration. According to Austin, collaborations are driven by a variety of factors including alignment of strategy, mission and val-ues, personal connection and relationships, and “the more centrally aligned the partnership is to each organization’s strategy and mission, the more important and vigorous the relationship appears to be” (p. 78). The importance of a shared construct as grounds for engaging in regional collabo-ration underscores the need for effective leadership and com-munication in maintaining successful regional collaborations (Gershwin, 2000; Mattessich & Monsey, 1992)—aspects that are difficult and time consuming to develop in network governance structures.

Moreover, although current federal policies have contin-ued to support the establishment of regional collaborations, the extent to which regional initiatives are able to be both established and sustained has been limited. These limitations are exacerbated by the realities facing the contemporary workforce development system of competition in the face of limited resources and rising performance standards. These include the mandating of fiscal monitoring reviews and the development and dissemination of an accountability frame-work under the ETA.

Such changes, coupled with the significant impact of the Great Recession, has reduced employment opportunities for emerging workers while simultaneously reducing public, private, and philanthropic support for regional initiatives. These cuts include federal funding for workforce initiatives, where the federal budget for WIA initiatives for adults, dislo-cated workers, and youth in 2013 was $370 million lower than the funds for 2010 (http://www.nationalskillscoalition.org/federal-policies/federal-funding/federal-funding-chart .pdf). The remaining monies are primarily oriented toward job placement rather than training workers for the specific skills needed to respond to regional economies (Wolf-Powers & Andreason, 2012). Cuts in job training significantly hinder the connection between economic development and work-force development, a large component of regional workforce collaboration.

Yet even with these challenges, many regions have been able to forge ahead and transform their workforce systems in ways that supported the alignment of workforce develop-ment efforts despite the failure of public initiatives to address inherent weaknesses of the system, as our research in this article shows.

Data and Method

Data for this study were derived from a longitudinal qualita-tive data set consisting of interviews to multiple regional stakeholders and content analysis of documents and research reports, as well as three in-depth case studies of regional workforce development systems from 2001 to 2011. In




identifying organizations to be included in our study, we first undertook a national scan of regional workforce develop-ment collaborations in 2001 to identify agencies and organi-zations engaged in these types of collaborations. From this list, 25 organizations were selected for inclusion in the longi-tudinal analysis, given their capacity to represent a mix of stakeholders in workforce development systems, including private sector organizations, WIBs, CBOs, professional associations, lobbying organizations, trade unions, and aca-demics. Although this is was a nonrandom sample, many organizations were selected based on their ability to illustrate types of situations, including atypical or unique organiza-tional adaptation under WIA regulations.

As with all longitudinal studies, our sample was not immune to issues of attrition. By 2008, only 13 of the origi-nal 25 organizations remained in our sample. Of the 13 orga-nizations, 9 were no longer in operation and 4 had declined to continue participation in the study. Many of these organi-zations were those organizations that characterized atypical and unique organizational arrangements. A comprehensive list of organizations included in the study is presented in Appendix A.

To more clearly articulate the challenges faced in regional collaborations, three geographic regions were identified for inclusion in a longitudinal comparative case study analysis. The three case studies are pulled from the 13 regions under study. These regions included southwestern Pennsylvania, the Greater North Bay area in northern California, and Northeast Indiana. Data for these case studies were collected through in-person site visits, document analyses, and in-depth interviews with individuals in 2001, 2008, and 2011. The timing of these visits was done so as to better understand the impact of external economic shocks that these collabora-tions experienced during the Great Recession and in the “Recovery Period.” These geographies were selected for fur-ther in-depth case study, given that these areas were identi-fied by several informants as areas with highly dynamic organizations and collaborations in workforce development. Moreover, these geographies differed in their local and regional economic structures allowing for an analytical com-parison to highlight the deeper form and functions of the regional workforce development system. At the same time, these regions were selected because they represented more common or typical regions, not necessarily the exceptional regions that are often studied such as Silicon Valley. In addi-tion, focusing on these regions allowed for the assessment of multijurisdictional workforce development efforts that pro-vide prototypes of emerging regional workforce develop-ment collaborations. Each of these cases is described briefly in Appendix B.

The importance of the longitudinal perspective provided by our comprehensive data set lies in a reality that few avail-able studies of workforce development systems exceed 2 or 3 years. Such a limited time window is significant given that

literature suggests a wide acknowledgment by academic and policy practitioners that it may take regions decades to rein-vent themselves into more agile economies and recreate the workforce development system infrastructure to comple-ment the region’s economy. The decade of accumulated field research in the present study allows for an understanding of how regions have adapted to a new economy of rapid struc-tural change and globalization, the paths used to reinvent and restructure their economies and their workforce systems in the changing economic landscape after the Great Recession. For more information on data collection and methods, see Appendix C.

Case Studies

The analysis of the three selected cases indicates that the degree to which there is greater programmatic cohesiveness in the system is largely a function of (1) how the local and state governments have aligned resources and organized the provision of services, (2) whether the publicly-funded sys-tem has adopted a truly regional perspective in its deploy-ment of program activities, and (3) the degree to which the leading organizations command any significant authority over the various streams of financial support for employment and training services broadly conceived. Although we find similar themes among the three cases under study to attain a successful regional workforce development system, each of the cases was unique in its restructuring for WIA mandates, changing regional economies, and responses to the Great Recession.

In the Greater North Bay area, regional collaboration pre-dated WIA and therefore hit fewer barriers in meeting WIA mandates, connecting to businesses, and adapting to its shift-ing economy over the study’s 10-year span. Northeast Indiana started out as a very fragmented system and strug-gled to respond to its multiple industrial shocks and WIA’s new regulatory environment. However, by 2011, state-led restructuring drove Northeast Indiana to transform into a completely streamlined regionally focused system. In south-western Pennsylvania, the dramatic industrial shifts over the past 30 years motivated broad regional partnerships led by businesses early on in our study. The region’s workforce development system, however, still remains fragmented and continues to face barriers related to geographic and jurisdic-tional authority over the region. Here, we will give a brief summary of the economic and industrial history of each case and the formation of their workforce systems.

Greater North Bay Area

The Greater North Bay area has a historically diverse eco-nomic base. This industrial diversification has historically helped the region to manage external shocks and preserve relative economic stability. Over the past 30 years, the city




and the region have seen a significant inflow of research, development, and manufacturing facilities. Directly prior to the 2007 economic recession, construction, health care, real estate, and public sector jobs were the fastest growing indus-tries in the region. However, the economic recession that began pummeled the jobs in the region, constituting a 135,000 job loss off of a high of 980,000 jobs. The region was relatively slow at bouncing back from the recession because of the fact that its fastest growing sectors were those hardest hit by the recession. The region, however, is now shifting from government to private sector employment in industries such as high technology, life sciences, health care, and clean energy technology, all of which require a new set of higher skilled workers (Sacramento Area Commerce & Trade Organization, 2013). By shifting to these more global industries further diversifying its labor market, the Great North Bay area’s job growth is expected to outpace the national average by more than double.

In the Sacramento region, the lead workforce and anchor organization is the Sacramento Employment and Training Agency (SETA). Established in 1978, SETA is a joint- powers agency of the city and county of Sacramento and has a five-member governing board of directors comprising local elected officials and one public representative. Together with the Sacramento Works, Inc. Board (the local WIB), which sets policy, the SETA Board of Directors reviews programs and collaborates on WIA funding decisions. SETA adminis-ters the Sacramento Works (OSCC) system of 11 centers in the region. The OSCC system is a cooperative effort of 41 government and community agencies.

Sacramento’s workforce development system illustrates that an ideal mechanism for the integration of services at the local level is the creation of a single state agency that oversees WIA and Welfare-to-Work funding on a regional scale. Additionally, Sacramento’s workforce system is closely connected to several intermediaries with which SETA partners. These include the Sacramento Area Commerce and Trade Organization and Linking Education and Economic Development (LEED). These partnerships have allowed the region to efficiently shape its training programs to fit industry needs.

The long-run presence of a regional workforce develop-ment system has been advantageous for the region’s job seekers and for the efficiency of the region’s service delivery. In 2001, interviewees noted that a regional outlook was nec-essary for SETA and the state WIB to identify serious service gaps that remained during the early stage of implementing WIA. Ten years later, the economic recession forced the labor market to diversify at a faster pace, both to create new job opportunities and to increase product exports as a way of bringing in more money to the region (D. Butler, personal communication, November 21, 2011). As a result, regional-ism allowed the system to quickly provide new industry-based training to quickly fill these jobs with the growing number of unemployed.

Regionalism has also been effective in addressing SETA’s primary and perhaps most important role: to respond to the needs of disadvantaged workers. Over the years, SETA has continued to expand its service platform, most recently form-ing new academic partnerships, providing training aimed at the region’s newly developed clusters, and a new collabora-tion with the energy commission. The executive director of SETA, Katherine Kossick, placed emphasis on “managing growth,” where simply keeping a job is becoming too expen-sive, rather than growing within a job, especially for the population of low- and moderate-income job seekers (K. Kossick, personal communication, October 19, 2011). According to Kossick, the problem can only be achieved through a regional approach, as workers are moving farther away from Sacramento County at an increasing rate and commuting longer distances into the county, or vice versa. Regionalism is also perceived as a mechanism to address the heterogeneity of the Greater Sacramento region labor force (and its spatial distribution), where the racial and ethnic diversity of the labor force is not just a central city phenom-enon but affects the whole region.

Southwest Pennsylvania

In comparison to the Greater North Bay area, Southwestern Pennsylvania had a relatively homogeneous industrial base until the 1970s based in steel. However, in the late 1970s to mid-1980s, the region went through dramatic economic restructuring, seeing a 40% drop in manufacturing employ-ment (Portz, 1990). Since then the region has been coping with the shock of deindustrialization, shifting its economy to hospitality, retail, and energy (nuclear, alternative, and natu-ral gas extraction). Like the rest of the nation, the economy of Southwestern Pennsylvania was affected by the 2007 to 2010 economic recession, but fared much better than most other regions. In fact, the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program determined that Pittsburgh’s economy was the eighth strongest performing in the nation throughout this recession (Belser, 2011). This resilience is due to the region’s lack of strong construction or the automobile industries that experienced significant “boom and busts.” Additionally, the region’s new reliance on jobs in natural gas extraction through the Marcellus Shale Coalition, which is more heav-ily connected to the global than the national economy, helped the region to stay afloat by providing thousands of jobs (Treado, 2010).

The Pittsburgh region is divided into six workforce invest-ment areas served by five WIBs. These five WIBs are essen-tially regional entities that coordinate comprehensive employment services for the counties that they serve. WIB activities center on the operation of one-stop centers called CareerLink Centers. Each WIB is involved in several work-force development projects that cross WIA-drawn jurisdic-tional boundaries. Some of the WIBs in the region have




authority only over the allocation of WIA funding, whereas in other jurisdictions they oversee the allocation of funding streams that include Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) and other resources. This type of disparity among WIBs, with respect to funding and program authority, results in differences in their operational flexibility and capacity to engage in programs that promote a more organic regional integration. The public sector infrastructure is primarily ori-ented toward supporting a network of one-stop career cen-ters. The administrative structure is organized so that each WIB oversees programs in two or more counties.

Noticeable differences exist in authority over funding streams and the functions delegated to the WIB by local authorities. Some of the WIBs only administer WIA funding, whereas others have policy and administrative authority over a broader set of programs. Thus, there is tremendous varia-tion in terms of the WIBs’ capacity to influence industry and to serve as a catalyst for change at the regional level. Only one of the five WIBs possess integrated authority over the most important funding streams, an organic connection to the educational system, a comprehensive business services structuring industry participation, and ownership of public sector programs. Other WIB participation in regional initia-tives is therefore more of a complement to other initiatives undertaken by intermediaries than a direct investment in pro-gram development on a regional scale.

The region’s anchor organization, Allegheny Conference on Community Development and Affiliates, is a public– private partnership between four prominent economic and workforce development organizations. This organization has been a leader in linking businesses, prospective employees, and learning providers through a network of brokers and intermediaries. By fostering regionalism in different sectors of workforce development and economic development, par-ticipating intermediaries have been able to work around jurisdictional restrictions imposed by WIA and structural issues on the state and federal levels, without the help of the state government. For instance, Laura Fischer of the Allegheny Conference discussed the regional footprint of the Marcellus Shale project, which requires collaboration with surrounding states. To work within this “regional footprint” and outside of WIA jurisdictions, intermediaries have been forced to “roll up their sleeves” to create a uniform training system throughout the region.

Northeast Indiana

From World War II until the early 2000s, manufacturing was the dominant sector in northeast Indiana. Despite multiple blows to the industrial economy, the region’s auto-manufacturing indus-try remained strong, providing hundreds of thousands of jobs (Indiana Business Research Center, 2000). Around 2000, the region was hit by a first recession, severely affecting manu-facturing jobs. Consequently, industrial modernization and

relocation started to dominate the manufacturing sector, requir-ing higher skilled workers and shrinking the availability of tra-ditional manufacturing jobs. More recently, however, several contextual components exerted pressure on the regional econ-omy, including rapid globalization of the automobile market and the more recent deceleration of the manufacturing industry. In response, the region has shifted from auto manufacturing to advanced manufacturing, the defense industry, and medical device production.

The shift in industrial composition of the region has caused high rates of unemployment. Workforce development programs have also been forced to quickly adapt to the needs of the emerging industrial sectors. The multiple industrial shocks led to major changes in the technological and market characteristics of the new manufacturing, which in turn demanded new training strategies and a more effective way of balancing employers’ and workers’ needs. The added impact of the 2007 recession put greater stress on the region, resulting in an unemployment rate peaking at 12.3% in 2009, primarily effecting manufacturing.

Prior to the implementation of WIA, JobWorks, estab-lished in 1987 as a 501(c)(3), provided workforce develop-ment services to the region. When we first started researching this region in 2001 after WIA implementation, it was severely fragmented with little multiple WIBs and little authority over funding streams. The succession of multiple blows to the region’s economy and the need to make the system more transparent motivated the state to take initiative in restructur-ing Indiana’s entire workforce development system. In 2004, the governor developed specific economic development regions based on research related to commuting patterns, location of educational institutions, and types of regional industries. As a result, Northeast Indiana was able to create its own workforce board that was able to closely oversee the WorkOne system, eliminate duplication, streamline the delivery of services, increase efficiency, and better align the various agencies in each region doing workforce develop-ment programming. Northeast Indiana consolidated all of its WIBs and designated Partners for Workforce Solutions, Inc. as the region’s singular WIB. As the principal WIB, Partners for Workforce Solutions, Inc. oversees all programmatic and funding aspects of the WorkOne (OSCC) system.

In reaction to the government’s leadership reshaping regions, northeast Indiana economic development and work-force development leaders recognized the need for a single partnership that would support economic development efforts, advance marketing collaboration efforts in the region, and reduce fragmentation. As a result, regional leaders created the Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership to ensure quality control in workforce development and establish a service scope that effectively responds to indus-try needs. It is composed of several intermediaries, business-led organizations, workforce development agencies, and universities and research institutions. The Northeast Indiana




Regional Partnership (NEIRP) is northeast Indiana’s anchor organization, as it has become the center for regional eco-nomic and workforce development collaboration. Its close partnership with Partners of Workforce Solutions makes the northeast Indiana workforce system unique in its ability to make changes in its workforce programs and training that are so closely linked to business. As a result, the region is able to equally provide training and job placement services to the rural and urban populations based on business needs and to more efficiently use its resources on targeted training programs.

Barriers to Regional Collaboration

Each of the three cases experienced several barriers in form-ing a regional workforce system and continue to experience challenges in the face of changing regional economies and industries. Our longitudinal analysis illuminated three pri-mary and persistent barriers to regional collaboration present in the local workforce delivery system. These include com-petition within funding and policy constraints, high initial upfront costs, and fragmented governance stemming from the geographic and political changes introduced into the workforce development system over the past two decades. Our analysis further finds that these barriers are not exclu-sive to one specific type of organization, but that the type of regional collaboration and the actions of organizations within them influence the extent to which these barriers are medi-ated and indicate broader challenges to the workforce devel-opment system as a whole. Each of these barriers is examined below.

Competition

Meléndez (2004) argues that scarce resources and the infu-sion of new actors into the workforce development system under WIA resulted in increased competition among service providers. Previous studies in network governance suggest that regional collaborations have the capacity to mitigate ten-sions surrounding limited resources, given the advantages associated with collaboration. Such advantages include pool-ing resources, the potential to streamline services, and the capacity to capitalize off the good performance of existing organizations and programs (Austin, 2000; Koehn, 2010). Our data suggest, however, that despite being engaged in regional collaborations, competition persists in the system and is fueled by multiple factors innate to the structure of the public workforce development system. These factors include the continuing erosion of resources, the introduction and importance of performance measures, and conflicts with local economic development councils.

The majority of the organizations interviewed noted that continual erosion of federal funding was perhaps the most sig-nificant source of competition. As Barry Maciak of World-Class

Industrial Networks, LLC, from the southwestern Pennsylvania region states, “From a state perspective, a lot of traditional long term funding has either disappeared or has been significantly reduced over the last 10 years” (B. Maciak, personal communi-cation, October 18, 2011). Reductions in federal funding have led many states to support the coordination of workforce devel-opment collaborations requiring organizations with diverse mis-sions and different aims engage in obligatory partnerships. Such mandated partnerships, however, have the capacity to erode for-merly successful collaborations. An increase in actors, com-bined with little commitment to increase available government resources, results in more actors vying for already limited resources. As a result, “what has happened in the last couple of years is that newer, broader players with other perspectives that have not previously been collaborative are bringing in political and other driving factors into the mix. It messes up the system” (B. Maciak, personal communication, October 18, 2011). Thus, the primary priority of many workforce development agencies has been the sustainability of their own programs, creating an interesting tension between organizational survival and collab-orative success.

In addition, organizations in southwestern Pennsylvania and in northeast Indiana stated that a heavy emphasis placed on performance under WIA further encouraged competition among individual actors within the workforce development policy system. Under WIA, federal and state monies were available depending on organizational performance, making performance measurement vital to continued funding and sustainability. The organizations we interviewed noted that participation in regional collaborations required reliance on other organizations and programs to ensure the success or failure of these initiatives. The loss of both autonomy and control in light of a demand to continually show successful performance significantly reduced the likelihood of organi-zations participating in regional collaboration.

Increased attention and importance placed on perfor-mance also led to competition among counties within regions. Such competition results from what John Stafford of the Community Research Institute notes are a reality that “folks are turf oriented and want to control their own pro-grams” (J. Stafford, personal communication, October 18, 2011). Under the new public workforce investment system, projects are awarded to more economically competitive counties viewed as capable of succeeding under federal per-formance measures, thus creating tensions between county WIBs. This was a striking reality in northeastern Indiana where a large disparity existed in business attractiveness between Fort Wayne—the main city in the region—and other rural counties.

Finally, although much research has been generated on the importance of partnerships between workforce develop-ment agencies and local economic development councils (Garmise, 2009; Markusen, 2004; Olberding, 2002), our data suggest that there is great difficulty in enacting these




partnerships at the regional level. Although partnerships between local economic development councils and work-force development organizations have been noted to be ben-eficial and relatively easier to enact at the local level (Blakely & Bradshaw, 2002; Porter, 2000), at a regional level these partnerships are plagued by competition between the respec-tive local economic development councils. Bidding wars emerge as councils attempt to attract perspective businesses to their localities, making it difficult to design strategies and attract businesses at a regional level and infuse even more competition into an already complex system.

High Initial Costs

Austin (2000) notes that successful collaborations require that organizations share a “value construct;” that is, a shared perception of the potential value of engaging in collabora-tion. Regional workforce development collaborations require bringing together diverse and competing groups to address labor market issues that are diverse in size and origin. Consequently, creating a shared value construct demands a significant investment of time and resources—especially during the initial stages of collaboration. In addition, the cur-rent policy system has no built-in incentives for regional col-laborations making encouraging collaborations in workforce development a significant challenge, especially during times of economic decline.

Throughout our study, organizations continuously noted that the benefits of regional collaboration are almost always long term. As a result, initial investments in regional collabo-ration are quite high and require that organizations have the resources and the capacity to spare such resources before the benefits of collaboration—often years down the line—are experienced. To achieve a fast return on investments, the organizations we interviewed indicated a preference for entering into collaborations with organizations that held sim-ilar service or clientele interests, creating a cluster type of collaboration “driven by interest in assuring long-term talent needs” (K. Kossick, personal communication, October 19, 2011). For example, in northeastern Indiana clusters were formed around advanced manufacturing, as well as around defense and aerospace industries. In the Greater North Bay area clusters were formed around green jobs and in Pittsburgh, around natural gas.

Cluster approaches to regional collaboration are viewed as capable of creating common goals and of focusing regional workforce development efforts, given their governance structures. By forming these clusters or industrial partner-ships, corporations with similar interests are brought together so as to not sacrifice competitive interests. However, although these “cluster-specific” collaborations appear effi-cient, their exclusivity was noted as a significant barrier to encouraging comprehensive regional economic development initiatives by many of the organizations interviewed. Such

exclusivity was most significant for community colleges included in our study, which tend to concentrate a competent supply of workers to one specific industrial sector rather than taking a comprehensive approach to skill development. As a result, workforce development organizations, which must take a comprehensive approach to skill improvement and workforce development such as those implementing “work-first” or short-term job readiness programs, are limited in their ability to collaborate with community colleges.

Fragmented Governance

Regional collaborations are large and incorporate a wide range of actors across public, private, and nonprofit land-scapes. Combining multiple organizations, each with their own governance and accountability structure, can create a fragmented governance structure wherein loose power net-works and affiliations exist and an accountability system needed to ensure the proper functioning of the collaborative networks is absent (Feiock, Lee, Park, & Lee, 2010). The absence of a centralized authority through which leadership, accountability, and governance can be provided may signifi-cantly hinder workforce development collaborations (Grell & Gappert, 1993).

Our data suggest that at the root of this problem is a real-ity that most regional collaborations are only established through memorandums of understanding (MOUs). Almost every organization we interviewed noted that, although MOUs are symbolic in nature and do express an agreement to work together, they are not powerful enough to address the very important governance questions. Such questions include issues surrounding the provision and allocation of resources and accountability. In addition, organizations noted that MOUs do not provide adequate mechanisms to ensure par-ticipation in regional collaborations. As a result, many of the organizations we interviewed identified a need for additional forms of accountability and defined leadership to ensure suc-cess and organization of their programs. Such attributes are important, and as Aoki (1984) notes, without the trust and insurance that organizations will contribute their share to the collaboration, such agreements face a large risk of collapse.

Many of the organizations we interviewed also noted that the political and geographical barriers constructed under the WIA further promoted fragmentation within governance structures and hindered regional collaboration. Geographic boundaries defined under WIA limited the scope in which organizations could provide services and where funding was delegated. In southwestern Pennsylvania, differences exist in authority over funding streams and the functions delegated to the WIB by local authorities. Some of the WIBs only administered WIA funding, while others had policy and administrative authority over a broader set of programs. Such realities result in tremendous variation in terms of the WIB’s capacity to serve as a catalyst of change at the regional




level, even though WIBs are often the go-to organization for collaboration.

A prominent example currently facing workforce devel-opment leaders in southwestern Pennsylvania is coordinating ShaleNet workforce programs. ShaleNet is the grant avail-able to workforce organizations and other training centers for use in natural gas extraction-related jobs in the Marcellus Shale geological formation. Natural gas extraction from this formation is currently permitted in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Therefore, coordination for job training is not just multijurisdictional but it also crosses state geographic boundaries. Organizations that provide training for this newly emerging industry have therefore found it difficult to coordinate efforts because of geographic restrictions imposed by WIA and other grants that are aimed at specific localities and regions.

Best Practices

Our data suggest that barriers to regional workforce develop-ment collaborations are a by-product of both the structure of the public workforce investment system as well as the very nature of network governance, in general. Indeed, structural changes in the policy system throughout the 1990s increased and diversified the number of actors engaged in the system, creating a policy implementation structure hallmarked by fragmentation and competition. Such structural realities have only been further influenced by declining public resources produced by the external economic environment and increased actors vying for these resources, making network governance and long-term collaboration difficult. Such reali-ties suggest that the public workforce investment system is embedded in a landscape that will make implementing and sustaining regional collaborations in workforce development difficult for quite some time.

Yet, although our data suggest that barriers to regional collaborations in workforce development are likely to persist across time and geography, our analysis also finds that over-coming these barriers to effectively promote and sustain regional collaboration is possible. Successfully initiating and sustaining regional workforce development collaborations is due in large part to effective leadership within the network governance structure of regional collaborations. Effective leadership is best and most often embodied in what we iden-tify as the “anchor organization” within regional workforce development collaborations. Anchor organizations are single labor market intermediary organizations that serve as the center point of the governance structure for the collabora-tion. These anchor organizations are often supported by the state and have the resource capacity to provide and maintain necessary communication channels to organize the multiple and competing actors in ways that adequately respond to the demands and needs of local economic climates. Effective leadership by anchor organizations allows for the mitigation

of diverse goals and interests, the streamlining of policy ser-vices, and the capacity to help sustain the collaboration despite a fragmented governance structure.

As our research has shown, competition and fragmenta-tion within the system are significant barriers to regional workforce development collaborations. The influx of new actors and the tightening of available resources makes the already difficult task of combining multiple and diverse organizations even more cumbersome. Network governance theory suggests that combining multiple organizations, each with their own organizational culture and norms of gover-nance, creates a fragmented governance structure wherein loose power networks and affiliations exist. This is second-ary to the anchor organization that has the authority to miti-gate this competition. As such, an accountability system needed to ensure the proper functioning of the collaborative networks is necessary (Feiock et al., 2010). Anchor organiza-tions provide the necessary authority, leadership, account-ability, and governance that are needed to promote successful workforce development collaborations.

The capacity of anchor organizations to create ways through which regional collaborations can be responsive to WIA performance standards, and thus competitive for fed-eral funding, are key to reducing the high up-front costs asso-ciated with regional collaborations. Providing the capacity to be more responsive and competitive for federal funding allows anchor organizations to centralize authority within the governance structure to streamline services and reduce fragmentation within the system helping promote more effective and efficient service delivery. For example, in Sacramento (part of the Greater North Bay area of northern California) the SETA, the anchor organization of the region, was formed as a joint-powers agency of the city and county. SETA was given both the programmatic and geographic authority over the majority of the region’s workforce-related practices, making it easy for SETA to adapt to WIA standards with relative ease. Additionally, its credibility with commu-nity, business, and government actors resulted in SETA’s for-midable influence over efforts of other similarly minded organizations by encouraging them to assume a regional focus. To further decrease jurisdictional fragmentation, SETA developed a partnership between unemployment insurance and OSCC services and played a key role in designing and evaluating Welfare-to-Work programs that influenced the ability of the region to receive federal funds. Such activities helped establish SETA as the centralized authority within the regional collaboration and mitigate the fragmentation and competition that plagues regional work-force development collaborations.

As also evidenced in northeast Indiana, the presence of anchor organizations that connect businesses and workforce development agencies was necessary to provide the proper training for dislocated workers for the jobs that are available. Northeast Indiana’s anchor organization is an economic




development partnership that does all of its work in conjunc-tion with the region’s WIB. For Sacramento, SETA is the region’s principal WIB and anchor organization that works closely with several prominent regional economic develop-ment organizations. Either way, these two regions are able to more efficiently and transparently make programmatic changes where they are needed with the presence of WIBs that have programmatic authority over the region.

In addition to mitigating the structural challenges of the public workforce investment system, the centralization of programmatic and geographical authority within an anchor organization can also help provide incentives for participa-tion in regional collaborations through the leadership and vision these organizations provide. In this sense, anchor organizations provide effective leadership and means of communication that help promote a unified vision needed for regional workforce collaborations to succeed and can help promote and define the value construct needed to ensure effective collaborations. Such aspects, although key for par-ticipation and sustainability of these regional collaborations, are often difficult and time consuming to develop in network governance structures.

The Northeast Indiana region evolved from a system of fragmentation to one of cohesion through three key steps: (1) streamlining the workforce system based on a state gov-ernment initiative to create coterminous workforce regions, (2) developing a regional vision around the local economy and workforce needs, and (3) creating an anchor organiza-tion that could successfully coordinate businesses and workforce development organizations. To streamline the workforce system, the region merged its separate regional WIBs into one single WIB that was given all geographic and programmatic authority for the region, much like the Greater North Bay area’s workforce system. The regional WIB reports directly to the state WIB, handles all alloca-tion of funds, and oversees all one-stop career centers. This approach significantly mitigated the any barriers related to fragmented governance.

To begin the process of unifying businesses and work-force development organizations, leaders in the field devel-oped a unified vision for the region’s workforce system named “Vision 20/20.” The vision provided the platform on which all policy and programmatic efforts were focused. Each “pillar” of the vision had one focal structure on which collaborations and partnerships for funding and service delivery were formed, providing the skeletal structure of regional activity. This foundation further provided the under-pinning of coordinated regional economic and workforce development efforts that evolved into the development of the region’s newly formed anchor organization, the Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership.

These collaborative efforts around “Vision 20/20” were described by John Sampson, chief executive officer of the Northeast Indian Regional Partnership, as “structures [through

which] collaboration will occur, and the integrity of those col-laborations will be maintained going forward” (J. Sampson, personal communication, October 31, 2011). Such an approach allowed for coordinated and meaningful interaction among and between various actors aligned with the vision and goals for the region as presented by the Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership. The involvement of various intermediaries in the partnership balanced the distribution of resources to areas/counties with lesser planning capacity to ensure a more even distribution of resources among counties in the region. As a result, competitive tendencies were mitigated by the partner-ship’s overarching governance structure, which was anchored by various participating intermediaries. In addition, industry clusters were woven in the practices of the Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership. Despite the aforementioned barriers, industries clusters became an important approach to mitigate competitive interests between industries in all three of the cases in the present study.

The capacity of the partnership to drive and steer regional efforts in this way increased the credibility of the larger col-laborative structure, creating an environment of natural incentives and influencing participants to commit time and resources. The partnership’s growing credibility made high initial costs for participation a negligible issue, as participa-tion in the collaborative became an incentive in itself and as the region’s “unified vision” was becoming ubiquitous in most workforce and economic development programming. Leaders of the partnership were also able to utilize high ini-tial costs as a tool for accountability of participating organi-zations, further increasing its legitimacy.

Northeast Indiana’s approach to workforce development regionalism differs slightly from that of the Greater North Bay area’s approach. Northeast Indiana has two principal organizations that work jointly to merge the local economy and workforce development regionalism. The Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership works as the business arm to inform the work and practices of the regional WIB. The Greater North Bay area’s SETA is the one principal organiza-tion that merges economic and workforce development activities. Though two different approaches, they have the same goal of unifying economic and workforce development activities under one regional vision.

Southwestern Pennsylvania was also involved in developing an anchor organization to centralize workforce and business needs. The establishment and role of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development (ACCD) as the region’s coordi-nating organization helped reduce the daunting scope of service delivery and the plethora of diverse workforce development organizations present in the region. ACCD helped create lines of communication and organize actors around a central regional workforce goal by undertaking a regional analysis that researched the needs of employers and job seekers. In addition, the ACCD made this research accessible to the various work-force development organizations in the area and promoted its




findings as a cornerstone of what was needed in the region to successfully promote economic development. These efforts provided consistency among service providers and helped establish cluster strategies that were actively supported by WIBs. Through this work, the ACCD achieved credibility within the broader workforce system by creating performance measures that were accessible and adaptable to the data require-ments of WIA, WIRED, and RIG—making the region more attractive to public-sector investment.

However, when compared to the anchor organizations of the Greater North Bay area and Northeast Indiana, ACCD lacks authority over workforce programs and geographies, a characteristic that SETA and to some extent NEIRP possess. Despite the workforce development coordination improve-ments that ACCD brought to the region, the absence of this vital characteristic of an anchor organization with authority over programmatic authority over the multiple local jurisdic-tions within the region is one of the principal reasons why southwestern Pennsylvania still lacks a streamlined and well-connected workforce system.

Although our findings suggest that anchor organizations are important mechanisms through which to develop and sustain regional collaborations, our data also suggest that the success of regional collaborations is directly linked to the characteristics of the anchor organization. Anchor organiza-tions are most successful in sustaining regional collabora-tions if their interests in the local labor markets are diverse and they effectively provide and ensure incentives for par-ticipation. Such incentives include continued funding for increased capacity and pooled resources available to organi-zations through the regional collaboration. Anchor organiza-tions with close-knit ties to the state are most effective in providing these resources, as they have easy access to state monies, such as California’s Senate Bill 70, thus slightly decreasing the initial up-front costs of participation in regional partnerships. Proximity to public funds and the ability to pro-mote communication and resources in ways that streamline ser-vices and promote performance are undoubtedly the strongest predictors of effective anchor organizations—making effective anchor organizations powerful predictors of successful regional collaborations. With close state connections, anchor organi-zations are given geographic and programmatic authority, allowing them to decrease fragmented governance structures and mitigate competition according to the region’s specific needs.

Recommendations

In a time of limited resources and a competitive and frag-mented policy system, it is clear that regional workforce development collaborations have the potential to promote economic growth. However, initiating and sustaining regional collaborations is difficult, given the barriers identi-fied in this study. Thus, to realize the potential of regional

workforce development collaborations, policy efforts must seek to promote and create settings that are supportive of these efforts. After reviewing our findings, we have identi-fied two key recommendations that could promote the devel-opment and implementation of successful and sustainable regional workforce development collaborations including promoting regional collaborations within the workforce development system through state government regional ini-tiatives and increasing the capacity of workforce develop-ment organizations through both federal and state policies.

As highlighted in our study, fragmentation within the workforce development policy system and the competition among relevant actors presents a significant barrier to regional collaborations. Promoting regional workforce col-laborations through state government initiatives is an effec-tive strategy in mitigating both the forces of competition and the fragmentation embedded within the system. A good example of this is the actions of the Department of Workforce Development in both Indiana and California, which legis-lated regional collaboration to define the geographic and pro-grammatic scope of these initiatives. In defining economic regions, the state effectively mediated competition between workforce and economic development actors and stream-lined programmatic services within the policy implementa-tion structure. Moreover, these state initiatives assigned one regional WIB both geographic and programmatic authority helping centralize authority within an anchor organization that ensured compliance with WIA mandates to remain inde-pendent of state government interference.

In addition, efforts must be undertaken to increase the capacity of workforce development organizations to support collaborative activities by continuing to allocate monies toward regional workforce development activities through state and federal programs such as WIA, WIRED, and RIG. Over the years, WIA has incorporated a more diverse group of organizations, involving CBOs, universities, businesses, and governmental organizations. Workforce development policy should continue along an interorganizational focus to more easily bring together workforce development, eco-nomic development, and education actors into regional col-laboration. Federal departments such as the Department of Labor, Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services, and Department of Energy can all earmark their funds and develop policies and programs with a regional focus that supports the regional integration of the local work-force infrastructure. Federal departments and programs such as WIA, WIRED, and RIGs help provide organizations engaged in collaborations needed resources and help reduce the high initial costs to collaboration by requiring that these organizations devote fewer existing programmatic resources.

Finally, these federal policies and programs should give enough flexibility to the state to allow allocation of its own monies. With this flexibility, states can allocate funds and support policies around encouraging regional collaboration




and increasing capacity of workforce development organiza-tions. For example, Partners for Workforce Development in northeast Indiana and SETA in the Greater North Bay area were designated as fully compliant WIBs, which granted them increased authority over their funding and programs, and streamlined all workforce development programs and services. State initiatives like these that consolidate opera-tions help increase the capacity of workforce development organizations. Similar initiatives in other states will help to expand the ability of organizations and particularly anchor organizations to attract additional resources needed to initi-ate and sustain regional collaborations.

Conclusions

Barriers to regional collaboration have continued to persist in the public workforce delivery system over the past 10 years despite efforts to streamline the policy implementation structure. While political issues and constraints on organiza-tional capacity have embedded competition and fragmenta-tion into the system contributing to the persistence of these barriers, our findings present a unique opportunity to more accurately address them. Our recommendations introduce incentives into the system and present methods to leverage available resources. Such actions have the capacity to pro-mote critical activities needed to implement and sustain suc-cessful regional collaborations. In addition, they also identify a reality that state-level policies that consolidate regional and programmatic authority are vital to advancing workforce regionalism.

The establishment of an anchor organization that has both programmatic and geographic authority, a proximity to state policies and funds, and an ability to coordinate economic needs with workforce development is the key to establishing a regional workforce system. By identifying this need, Northeast Indiana was able to create a streamlined system and overcome barriers of competition and fragmentation to a system much like that of the Greater North Bay area. In the absence of WIA reform, Indiana’s Department of Workforce Development took initiative to streamline the state system and establish official workforce regions within the current

WIA framework. This government-led initiative allowed regions to gain more authority to respond to local economic and workforce needs. Though restructuring in northeast Indiana was feasible without WIA reform, infusing competi-tive WIRED funds into programs that encourages regional collaborations will be an impetus for states to overcome frag-mentation, especially if the funding is aimed at working toward workforce systems similar to those of California and Indiana.

At the same time, we acknowledge that our study presents some limitations. Similar to all longitudinal case studies, the attributes that make our specific areas and organizations of focus unique present multiple contexts through which the par-ticularities of space and time must be considered. It is these unique attributes and the length of time in the field, however, that makes our analysis even more important in light of an environment surrounding the public workforce investment system that suggests only the continuance of a policy environ-ment rife with competition and fragmentation.

Over the decade we have spent in the field, we have watched regional collaborations succeed, survive, or perish under the conditions of a burgeoning credit and financial crisis and have observed their struggles to contend with a changing economic landscape during the recovery period. Yet these circumstances are likely to be faced by any new regional workforce develop-ment collaboration and our longitudinal analysis of multiple types of organizations identifies best practices to ensure success. As a result, our study provides an important understanding of how to better promote regional collaborations in workforce development and identifies where the policy and support sys-tems surrounding regional collaborations should focus. Although the enactment of many of our recommendations will likely be difficult, incorporating flexibility within federal poli-cies that allows states to address the structural factors that induce the barriers to regional workforce development is vital to the success of regional collaborations in workforce development. Given the potential for regional collaborations to contribute to the growth and development of local economies and ultimately to the sustainable recovery and growth of the larger national economy, it is vital that policy efforts do more to support regional collaborations.




Appendix A

Organizations Interviewed

Case Location Type Regional collaboration

WIB/Workforce Services Corporation

Landover, MD Public/private partnership

A private business services organization that operates and is overseen by Prince George County WIB. Its signature Metro-Tech Program services people within 50-mile radius of D.C. It is working to serve private sector planning and coordination needs across jurisdictions. Collaboration predates WIA and involves organizations in the business and public sector.

NOVA Workforce Board

Sunnyvale, CA Public/private partnership

Recently undertook a labor market analysis and used partnering mission statements. This is considered to be one of the more innovative collaborations in the Silicon Valley, and gears collaboration toward broader clusters with a focus on target populations.

The Workplace, Inc. Bridgeport, CT Public/private partnership

It is completely customer oriented and focuses on individual needs. H1B grants available through the DOL offer opportunities for collaboration that are built into federal requests. Received a $5 million WIRED grant to fund the Southwestern CT WIRED project.

San Diego Workforce Partnership

San Diego, CA Public/private partnership

Focus training on military bases, teacher capacity building, and website to build skills. Have centered efforts on high tech and biotech and focus on career advancement.

Three Rivers WIB Pittsburgh, PA Local government Covers two substate areas that research regional development and workforce data to identify critical issues in workforce development. Organization continues to build a common voice for workforce development. Focuses on clusters and broad development issues.

Centralina Job Training Consortium

Charlotte, NC Local government One-Stop Centers are annually re-chartered to ensure innovation. Moving toward sectorial clusters. Chamber of commerce focuses on targeted sectors to maximize results.

Montgomery County Workforce Development Corporation

Montgomery, MD Local government Involved in statewide projects, with a high level of collaboration in high-tech training among stakeholders and service providers. Has received multiple WIRED and Emergency Worker grants through the DOL.

Sacramento Employment and Training Agency (SETA)

Sacramento, CA Local government Government multiservice agency collaboration that serves Sacramento County and the region. Cross-geography collaboration is a strong component of 5-year strategic plan, which includes multiple stakeholders to provide vocational training and system integration.

HERE Atlanta City, NJ Union or community college-led collaboration

An AFL-CIO affiliate that serves the entire state and Ocean City, MD (difficult coordination because of seasonal business). Partners include WIBs, CBOs, and others.

King County Labor Council

King County, WA Union or community college-led collaboration

Has a county-wide mission but some initiatives are statewide. Collaborations include community organizations, academia, and labor-based organizations. Strong emphasis on promoting family-wage jobs.

Fresno City College Fresno, CA Union or community college-led collaboration

Established 8 vocational centers in Fresno communities. Collaborates with Fresno Health and Human Services, Fresno Leadership Foundation, Fresno County Economic Opportunity Commission, and the Housing Authority within the CalWorks Program. Long-standing association with local service agencies. It serves as a labor market intermediary in the provision of skill and vocational instruction, and improving retention and access to better paid jobs for students.

Partners for Workforce Solutions

Fort Wayne, IN Nonprofit/CBO A nonprofit firm based in Fort Wayne, Indiana. It was selected in 2009 by WorkOne Northeast (the region’s WIB) as a Regional Operator for Regions 2 and 3 to deliver workforce development and training services.

HART Job Center Hartford, CT Nonprofit/CBO Ended workforce development initiatives in 2004.




Appendix B

Regional Case Studies

Region Anchor organizationComprehensive regional system Governance structure Funding

Greater North Bay Region

Sacramento Employment and Training Agency (SETA)

Strong SETA administers the OSCC system through the three regional WIBs, each of which is in charge of a different number of separate OSCCs. The three WIBs operate as a unified policy board, and coordinate programs with 41 government and community agencies.

WIA funding decisions and program reviews are determined by SETA Board of Directors and Sacramento Works, Inc. SETA also receives ARRA funding for a large portion of workforce development programming.

Southwestern Pennsylvania (SWP)

Allegheny Conference of Community Development and Affiliates (ACCD)

Weak The Pennsylvania WIB, which ultimately reports of the PA Department of Labor and Industry, oversees the five southwest PA WIBs, all of which oversee CareerLink Centers (OSCCs) throughout the region. However, these regional WIBS have little interaction with businesses and limited regional and programmatic authority.

The Pennsylvania Bureau of Workforce Development administers funding under WIA, Wagner-Peyser employment services, and TAA among other formula grants, while the remainder of funding comes from project grants. Just 25% to 30% of all funding flows through the regional WIBs. There is no single organization with a full view of all funding, programs, and performance.

Northeast Indiana (NEI)

Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership (NEIRP)

Grew from weak to strong

The state WIB oversees all regional WIBs. NEI’s one regional WIB, Partners for Workforce Solutions, has all geographic and programmatic authority, oversees all WorkOne (OSCC) Centers in the region. Community colleges, propriety schools, and declarative programs serve as partners to the OSCC system.

All funding is controlled by regional WIB, which makes allocation decisions through NEIRP to respond to business needs. Funding includes WIA Title 1, Wagner-Peyser Act, TAA, HUD, and block grants.

Appendix C

Research Methods. The study was conducted in multiple parts during 2001 to 2011: a national scan of various types of orga-nizations and their involvement in regional collaboration and a closer examination of three individual regions.

National Scan. The first step in the implementation of the study was to conduct a national scan of various types of organizations and their involvement in regional collaborations,3 and follow these organizations throughout the time period 2001 to 2011. The “national scan” selected (nonrandomly) 25 experiences from a universe obtained from interviews with regional and national workforce development experts, including a broad

range of practitioners and academics. Thirteen individuals and organizations were consulted for constructing the universe for the national scan. They include a mix of workforce develop-ment stakeholders representing various levels of government, private sector, WIBs, CBOs, professional associations, lobbying organizations, trade unions, and academics.

After performing the first set of interviews in 2001, we developed an organizational profile based on information through various methods and multiple sources, such as phone interviews, research reports, and public documents. We orga-nized each profile along five categories: (1) Lead Organizations and Background Information, (2) Actors and Institutional Architecture, (3) Labor Market Characteristics and Workforce Development Service Delivery Geography, (4) Stakeholders




Dynamics, and (5) Views on Innovative Initiatives and Collaborations. Each selected case for the national scan met the criteria of organizations actively engaged in regional efforts aimed at responding to the labor market needs of the region (to contribute to our understanding of the prospects of collabora-tion) across geographic boundaries and otherwise (program-matic lines) under the new policy regime structured by the WIA. Some of the cases met this criterion fully, although others did so to a lesser degree and were excluded from the study. Several of the cases were selected for what they could contrib-ute to illustrate some atypical situations that seem to be emerg-ing within the context of the WIA implementation or because they showed distinctive organizational adaptation to cope with unusual circumstances, like the absence of institutional infra-structure in certain locales.4 The nature of the organizations varied substantially, from locally-, regionally-, and nationally-based organizations and consortiums, to sector-specific AFL-CIO-related and population-specific organizations.

The results of the national scan revealed great diversity in the types of organizations taking the lead in promoting, structuring, and institutionalizing regionalism. These organi-zations range from very complex consortiums operating in a networked fashion to single CBOs trying to fulfill integrated functions and deliver workforce services to employer col-laborations and community colleges. To facilitate the discus-sion, we grouped the different types of collaborations based on the managing or more dominant partner leading the proj-ect. Based on this approach, we have grouped the cases into the following four categories: Public/Private Partnerships, Local Governments, Nonprofits and CBOs, and Union or Community Colleges (see Appendix A).5

Choosing Case Studies. From the universe of potential cases offered by the national scan of leading organizations structur-ing regional programs and collaborations, we selected three cases in 2001 to gain a deeper understanding of the dynamics of regional workforce development initiatives and to illustrate in more detail the complexities of such dynamics when vari-ous types of organizations lead the regional collaborations. The three case studies were chosen strategically from among the 12 regions for various reasons. First, the three cases repre-sent “common/typical regions” of the United States and not so much exceptional ones such as Silicon Valley (CA), Route 128 (MA), or the Research Triangle (NC). The selected metropoli-tan areas offer a clear contrast in terms of the structure of the local and regional economy. One of our main concerns in this study was to assess how leading organizations and other part-nerships and collaborations address the needs of workforce development stakeholders regionally. In particular, the selected cases allow us to assess how economic, structural, institu-tional, or regulatory obstacles are hindering regional or multi-jurisdictional workforce development efforts. The cases offer a clear contrast in terms of the size of the metropolitan areas, mainly midsize cities, administrative attributes, industrial structure, and population characteristics.

Second, the selected cases provided examples of key proto-types of organizations leading emerging regional workforce development collaborations. In one case, the anchor of the sys-tem was the public sector (Greater North Bay area), in another case it was the private sector (Southwest Pennsylvania), and in another case it was the rather “balanced” combination of the three (weakened) sectors (Northeast Indiana). In that regard, the bulk of the interviewing after the first “broad scan” of regions focused on the three chosen cases. In sum, the selected cases represent a cross-section of experiences that allow us to ascer-tain the changing roles and functions of various actors in estab-lished and emerging regional workforce development collaborations.

Interviews. Data for the 25 “mini cases” in the general scan were systematically planned and all interviews were con-ducted following a common protocol. To provide for some continuity, the individual protocols for each of the major cases preserved some of the same questions throughout the three rounds of interviews. We conducted interviews with the exec-utive directors of local WIBs, county employment and training agencies, and nonprofit organizations. In general, we inter-viewed a minimum of two informants from the organization and the region for each of the selected cases in the original interviews in 2001. However, the individual protocols for each of the major cases were also adapted to inquire about the responses of institutional actors/stakeholders to the regional environmental conditions and regulatory changes, as well as to perceived barriers to collaboration at the particular point in time in which the interviews were performed.

In 2001, starting date of the study, the inquiry was not intentionally planned as a decade-long inquiry. Over time the richness of the data and the cases motivated and convinced us to extend the length of the inquiry to capture the evolution of the regional systems. Throughout the decade, both the structure and the leadership of the organizations in regional systems evolved and changed, thus our research strategy was adapted so we could keep track of such changes while main-taining continuity in the range of issues we were concerned with, such as the obstacles to collaborations, changes in funding streams, and maturation of programs. Because orga-nizations and stakeholders changed through time, we had no ability to interview the exact same group of leaders, execu-tives, or staff of organizations, even though we interviewed some of the same key players in each of the three rounds of interviews. For example, we were able to interview some executives in the workforce development system in all three rounds, yet we were unable to interview some elected offi-cers whose terms had expired. Our intent was to capture the general logic of evolution of the systems, so our inquiry was not so much concerned with following the activities of stake-holders on a monthly basis.

We also had little control over the date in which stake-holders were available for interviewing or when our funding would allow us to visit our sites. In such regard, during each




of the rounds of interviews the interviews did not take place during the same month of the year. Thus, as a whole, the interviews with stakeholders were used to keep up with orga-nizational/structural changes taking place in the systems, characterizations of the economic and employment condi-tions in the specific geography, and collaborative practices as well as emerging obstacles.

In addition to collecting interview data, we used administra-tive documentation in two ways. First, it was used as a source of information to understand the mission and structure of organiza-tions, programmatic development and planning, compliance with regulatory regimes, fundraising efforts, and in cases, the performance of the organizations and programs. Second, the administrative documentation was used to determine the overall level of agency of stakeholders in some key areas of policy development. For example, we analyzed the content of adminis-trative documentation to determine the depth of collaborations or the commitment of some stakeholders to an overall “vision/mission” of regionalism. For example, a critical aspect of grow-ing a “regionalist view” could be seen in the documents of some universities who seem committed to rally actors around com-mon, new goals.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research received generous support from the Ford Foundation and the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution.

Notes

1. Workforce Investment Boards are areas that are designated as a key conduit for businesses to provide policy direction to WIA programs, inclusive of a multitude of actors including economic development organizations, industry, businesses, education, and government. WIBs help construct workforce development policy that is comprehensive in its approach to regional workforce development.

2. WIA has three tiers of service delivery: core services (job list-ings, resume writing), intensive services (individual assess-ment and employment plans), and training.

3. Borges-Mendez, Ramon and Edwin Meléndez, “Regional Prospects of Workforce Development Collaborations” (report presented at the Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy, The Brookings Institution, November 25, 2001).

4. Among these were the cases of (1) HART in Hartford, which has decided to challenge and “bypass” the WIA regime in an attempt to build a parallel system; (2) Fresno City College and “Su Parte” in New Mexico, which are anchored in com-munity colleges that have become strong stakeholders in the emerging workforce development systems; (3) the cases of SER-Jobs from various locales that illustrate how, even under the umbrella of one national organizational structure, there can be significant variation in collaborative practices along

geographic and programmatic lines; and (4) New Communities Corp. in Newark, a CBO attempting to become the backbone or “hegemonic” actor in organizing multiple aspects of the workforce development system in its surrounding area.

5. An explanation of the attrition from 25 cases to 13 cases rein-terviewed in 2008 is discussed in the Data and Method section.

References

Almandsmith, S., Walshock, M., Magill, K., Barker, L., Surko, P., Vencill, M., . . .Chocheles, J. (2007). Early implementation of generation I of the Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development (WIRED) Initiative: 2007 Interim evaluation report (Series No. ETAOP 2008-03). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Labor. Retrieved from http://wdr.doleta.gov/research/FullText_Documents/Early%20Implementation%20Gen%20I%20WIRED%205-20-08.pdf

Aoki, M. (1984). The co-operative game theory of the firm. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press.

Atkinson, D., & Correa, D. K. (2007). The 2007 State New Economy Index: Benchmarking economic transformation in the states. Retrieved from http://www.itif.org/files/2007_State_New_Economy_Index.pdf

Austin, J. (2000). Strategic collaboration between nonprofits and busi-ness. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 29(1), 69-97.

Belser, A. (2011, March 22). Recession hit region lightly but recov-ery not as upbeat. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved from http://www.post-gazette.com/business/top50/2011/03/22/Recession-hit-region-lightly-but-recovery-not-as-upbeat/sto-ries/201103220341

Blackwell, A., Bullard, R., Ferris, D., & Powell, J. (2007). Regionalism: Growing together to expand opportunity to all. Retrieved from http://community-wealth.org/sites/clone.com munity-wealth.org/files/downloads/report-johnson-et-al.pdf

Blakely, B., & Bradshaw, T. (2002). Planning local economic development. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Buck, M. (2002). Charting new territory: Early implementation of the Workforce Investment Act. Philadelphia, PA: Public/Private Ventures.

Chapple, K. (2005). Building institutions from the region up: Regional workforce development collaboratives in California (Working Paper No. 2005-01). Berkeley, CA: Institute of Urban and Regional Development.

Cordero-Guzmán, H. (2004). Interorganizational networks among community-based organizations. In E. Meléndez (Ed.), Communities and workforce development (pp. 411-438). Kalamazoo, MI: W. E. Upjohn Institute.

Dabson, B. (2010, November). Perspectives on regional collabo-ration. Retrieved from http://www.rupri.org/Forms/Regional_Collaboration_Final.pdf

Decker, P. T., & Berk, J. A. (2011). Ten years of the Workforce Investment Act (WIA): Interpreting the research on WIA and related programs. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 30, 906-926.

Feiock, R., Lee, I. W., Park, H. J., & Lee, K. H. (2010). Collaboration networks among local elected officials: Information, commit-ment and risk aversion. Urban Affairs Review, 20(10), 1-22.

Fitzgerald, J. (2004). Beyond the first job: Career ladder initia-tives in information technology industries. In E. Meléndez (Ed.), Communities and workforce development (pp. 357-407). Kalamazoo, MI: W. E. Upjohn Institute.


http://www.itif.org/files/2007_State_New_Economy_Index.pdf

http://www.post-gazette.com/business/top50/2011/03/22/Recession-hit-region-lightly-but-recovery-not-as-upbeat/stories/201103220341

http://www.rupri.org/Forms/Regional_Collaboration_Final.pdf

http://wdr.doleta.gov/research/FullText_Documents/Early%20Implementation%20Gen%20I%20WIRED%205-20-08.pdf

http://community-wealth.org/sites/clone.community-wealth.org/files/downloads/report-johnson-et-al.pdf



Fitzgerald, J., Perry, D., & Jaffe, M. (2002). The new metropolitan alliances: Regional collaboration for economic development. Boston, MA: CEOs for Cities.

Fowler, D., & Chernus, K. (2005). The center of the web: Workforce development partnerships. Community College Journal, 75(6), 48-50.

Garmise, S. (2009). Building a workforce development system as an economic development strategy: Lessons from US pro-grams. Local Economy, 24, 211-223.

Gershwin, M. (2000). From stakeholders to partners: Organizing community partnerships for workforce development (Workforce Innovation Series). Boston, MA: Jobs for the Future.

Grell, J., & Gappert, G. (1993). The new civic infrastructure: Intersectoral collaboration and the decision-making process. National Civic Review, 82, 140-148.

Hollenbeck, K., & Hewat, N. (2009). Nurturing America’s Growth in the Global Marketplace through Talent Development: An Interim Report on the Evaluation of Generations II and III of WIRED. U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, November. Retrieved from: http://research.upjohn.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=reports

Hollenbeck, K., & Hewat, N. (2010). Evaluation of Regional Collaborations for Economic Development: Lessons from the Employment and Training Administration’s WIRED Initiative. Employment Research 17(3): 1-4. Retrieved from: http://research.upjohn.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1174&context=empl_research

Indiana Business Research Center. (2000). Indiana recaptures man-ufacturing employment strength. In Context, 1(7), 8-9.

Jacobson, D. (2001). An agenda for education partnerships: Stakeholder learning collaboratives. Change, 33(5), 44-53.

King, C. T. (1999). Federalism and workforce policy reform. Publius: The Journal of Federalism, 29(2), 53-71.

Koehn, C. P. (2010). An analysis of the collaborative leadership process of a local workforce investment board (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Cardinal Stritch University, Milwaukee, WI.

Markusen, A. (2004). Targeting occupations in regional and com-munity economic development. Journal of the American Planning Association, 70, 253-268.

Mason, S. G. (2008). Policy design and regional cooperation under the WIA. State and Local Government Review, 40, 101-114.

Mattessich, P., & Monsey, B. (1992). Collaboration: What makes it work: A review of research literature or factors influencing successful collaboration. St. Paul, MN: Amherst H. Wilder Foundation.

Mattessich, P. W., Murray-Close, M., & Monsey, B. R. (2001). Collaboration: What makes it work (2nd ed.). St. Paul, MN: Amherst H. Wilder Foundation.

Meléndez, E. (1997). The potential impact of workforce develop-ment legislation on CBOs. New England Journal of Policy, 13, 175-186.

Meléndez, E. (2004). Workforce development in the era of devolu-tion. In E. Meléndez (Ed.), Communities and workforce devel-opment (pp. 1-36). Kalamazoo, MI: UpJohn Institute.

Moore, R., Zell, D., & Hamilton, V. (2009, July). Networking on the edge of chaos: The emergence of informal networks in the U.S. WIA program. Presented at the Journal of Vocational Education and Training Conference, Oxford, England.

Olberding, J. (2002). Does regionalism beget regionalism? The rela-tionship between norms and regional partnerships for economic development. Public Administration Review, 62, 480-491.

O’Shea, D., & King, C. T. (2001). The Workforce Investment Act of 1998: Restructuring workforce development initiatives in states and localities (Report No. 12). Albany, NY: Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government.

Patel, N., & Savner, S. (2001). Implementation of individual train-ing account policies: Under the Workforce Investment Act: Early information from local areas. Washington, DC: Center for Law and Social Policy.

Porter, M. (2000). Location, competition, and economic devel-opment: Local clusters in a global economy. Economic Development Quarterly, 14(1), 15-34.

Portz, J. (1990). The politics of plant closings. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.

Sacramento Area Commerce & Trade Organization. (2013). Sacramento regional report 2012/2013. Retrieved from http://www.sacto.org/index.cfm/regional_data/2012-2013-regional-report/

Saxenian, A. (2006). Regional advantage: Culture and competi-tion in Silicon Valley and Route 128. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Treado, C. D. (2010). Pittsburgh’s evolving steel legacy and the steel technology cluster. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 3, 105-120.

U.S. Department of Labor. (2008). WIRED. Retrieved from http://www.doleta.gov/wired

Wolf-Powers, L. (2004). Beyond the first job: Career ladder ini-tiatives in information technology industries. In E. Meléndez (Ed.), Communities and workforce development (pp. 253-283). Kalamazoo, MI: W. E. Upjohn Institute.

Wolf-Powers, L., & Andreason, S. (2012). Aligning secondary and post-secondary credentialization with economic devel-opment strategy, or If Low Educational Attainment = Poor Metropolitan Competitiveness, what can be done about it? In L. Perna & S. Wachter (Eds.), Preparing today’s students for tomorrow’s jobs in metropolitan America (pp. 231-258). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Author Biographies

Edwin Meléndez, PhD, is a professor of urban affairs and planning at Hunter College and the director of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies. His research interests are in the areas of Latino studies, economic development, labor markets, and poverty.

Ramon Borges-Mendez, PhD, is an associate professor at the Community Development and Planning Program at Clark University (Worcester, MA). He researches workforce develop-ment, labor markets, regional planning, and immigration.

M. Anne Visser, PhD, is an assistant professor of community and regional development in the Department of Human Ecology at the University of California, Davis. Her research interests focus on issues of socioeconomic inequality and incorporation, urban policy, and governance.

Anna Rosofsky holds an MA from Clark University in environmental science and policy. She is currently a Ph.D. student at Boston University School of Public Health. Her research interests are in childhood envi-ronmental health and environmental inequalities.


http://www.sacto.org/index.cfm/regional_data/2012-2013-regional-report/

http://research.upjohn.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=reports

http://research.upjohn.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1174&context=empl_research
