Explaining Coordination Quality in Public Service Delivery

Abstract

Governments manage coordination problems with different levels of success. The existing literature suggests that organizational features are important for explaining coordination quality, that is, how successful governments are in managing coordination problems. However, few studies have systematically compared coordination quality in multiple political systems. This article examines how governments’ organizational features explain variations in the coordination quality of public services in 259 local political systems in Norway. Three organizational features are considered, namely governments’ use of coordination instruments, their structural specialization, and task interdependence between their services. For the analysis, the article combines existing and original survey data on the coordination of public service delivery. Multilevel regression analysis indicates that public managers perceive coordination quality to be better when local governments introduce more coordination instruments and when task interdependence is higher. However, local governments’ structural specialization does not correlate with perceived coordination quality. These findings are important because they suggest that local governments have the capability to facilitate coordination. Moreover, local governments’ coordination efforts inform how public managers perceive their own abilities to address coordination problems and, by extension, foster more coherent service delivery.