The jurisdictional approach is a relatively new concept and only gained popularity in the early 2010s, and as such, there is no one jurisdiction that have actually progressed through the entire theory of change (TOC). This thesis will make the contribution of providing a better understanding of the TOC for the jurisdictional approach, and its practical implementation on the ground. It uses a potentially influential jurisdictional approach, the Roundtable of Sustainable Palm Oil Jurisdictional Approach (RSPO JA) implemented in Sabah, a state in Malaysia Borneo, as a case study. The objectives are to determine if Sabah is undergoing a transformational change through the RSPO JA, to identify its collaborative governance challenges, and to understand the perception of stakeholders on what should be the outcomes of the RSPO JA. The transformational change theory using a political-economy lens, collaborative governance theories, and the literature on landscape and jurisdictional approaches were used. Data collection drew primarily from (i) interviews with 29 respondents from the government, civil society, business and industry, and the research sectors, and supplemented by (ii) the review of grey literature such as policy documents, reports, and newspaper articles. The first objective used a case study method while for Objectives 2 and 3, the Q-methodology was used. The first objective concluded that Sabah did intend to transform but struggled to implement its ambitious policies because of the patronage system that is still very much in existence. The second objective examined the challenges of the RSPO JA. Securing higher-level political commitment, and the stakeholders not having a shared understanding of the common goals, which was attributed to the RSPO JA being a new initiative, were identified as the main challenges. The third objective helped illustrate the second objective on the “no shared understanding”, as three different perspectives for the jurisdictional approach outcomes pertaining to the environment, ...