Hybrid organisations in the provision of local public services

Abstract

The aim of this work is to investigate the risk of anti competitive behaviour implied by temporary groups of service providers. The point bears policy implications as local authorities, following European Union directives, have stressed the role of such alliances in the public procurement of services. We first summarize the fragmented literature on temporary horizontal alliances in public works and services. We then deal with a case study on local public transport in order to evaluate the performance of temporary groups of service providers. The coopetitive perspective is finally discussed as an explanation stressing that, within firms’ groups, both processes of value creation and value sharing take place.