The Pearl River Delta (PRD) is one of the largest and fastest growing urbanized deltas in China and the world. Its municipalities hope to attract investors, firms, high-quality labour force and residents in line with ecological modernization. They do so by using a variety of attractive city labels, such as eco city, low carbon city, and smart city. The physical shape these city labels take is best exemplified in the emergence of large new towns at the fringes of existing urban areas. Few studies to date unearth empirical evidence as to how municipal governments in China implement their smart eco city ambitions. This study does precisely that by examining how concrete policy networks at the local level develop new towns in the Pearl River Delta. The Policy Network Theory is used to map the positions actors have in three different new town projects in Shenzhen, Foshan, and Zhuhai respectively. It explains project progress or lack thereof by studying the organizational constellations that structure the interactions among actors and how the constellations affect their resources exchange. Our analysis suggests that in the various arenas where policy actors meet each other and are supposed to exchange resources and work out viable policy packages, blockades exist preventing such exchanges from happening. This creates impasses to which different cities have found different institutional and organizational answers.

Getting what you want - even if you are the boss - isn’t always easy. Almost every organization, big or small, works among a network of competing interests. Whether it’s governments pushing through policies, companies trying to increase profits, or even families deciding where to move house, rarely can decisions be made in isolation from competing interests both within the organization and outside it. In this accessible and straightforward account, Hans de Bruijn and Ernst ten Heuvelhof cast light on multi-stakeholder decision-making. Using plain language, they reveal the nuts and bolts of decision-making within the numerous dilemmas and tensions at work. Drawing on a diverse range of illustrative examples throughout, their perceptive analysis examines how different interests can either support or block change, and the strategies available for managing a variety of stakeholders. The second edition of Management in Networks incorporates a wider spread of international cases, a new chapter giving an overview of different network types, and a new chapter looking at digital governance and the impact of big data on networks. This insightful text is invaluable reading for students of management and organizational studies, plus practitioners - or actors - operating in a range of contexts.