Beyond Performance Management: A Networked Production Model of Public Service Delivery

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe use of outcome-based performance management as a means of coordinating and monitoring the production of decentralized public services has been growing. At the same time, it has been associated with significant problems, notably difficulty in controlling opportunistic behavior. However, alternative service delivery models based on open collaboration and coproduction, which can control opportunism, require initial trust between partners, and are often vulnerable to corruption, complacency, and rent-seeking. Thus, open collaboration models appear to need additional mechanisms that would promote trust building between partners even where trust is initially low, together with ensuring accountability and reducing opportunism. Based on a review of the recent business literature on networked production, the paper puts forward a service delivery model based on benchmarking, iterative planning and design, and error detection and correction mechanisms.