Collaborative Public Management Research Articles

Trapped in the hierarchy: the craft of Dutch city managers

ABSTRACTThe position of top public managers implies management in three directions: up (political office holders), down (creating organizational capacity), and out (boundary spanning). We know however, little about what these managers do. I present a close-up analysis of city managers using diary analysis, shadowing, and interviews with stakeholders. The analysis interprets their craft as managing up, down, and out. It finds that despite the contemporary emphasis on collaborative public management, the prevalence of boundary spanning activities in top managers’ activity patterns is easily overestimated. Working in the governmental hierarchy consumes most of the managers’ attention.

Collaborative public management and systems thinking

PurposeOver the 30 years, public management and administration scholars have crossed disciplinary boundaries to build a body of scholarship on collaboration for public good, services, and values. The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approachPublic management and administration researchers need to integrate the scholarship on collaboration through systems thinking. How do we define collaboration? How do we distinguish among the categories of collaborative public management (CPM), collaborative governance (CG), and networks? How do systems and institutional context shape collaboration in these categories? Within these categories, what are our units of analysis: individual leadership, organizations, or groups in collaboration processes? How do we apply what we know to practice and design?FindingsThe work requires that the authors examine CPM, CG, and networks in their larger and nested institutional contexts to determine how they are related to and shape each other. The Institutional Analysis and Development framework may inform this work. CPM or networks may be nested in CG processes and structures in inter-governmental contexts.Research limitations/implicationsResearchers need more clarity as to the context within which CPM, CG, and networks occur, and in units of analysis and the roles of individual people as managers and as agents of organizations, as distinguished from organizations as constructs.Practical implicationsScholars need to apply research to practice related to designing systems and structures in which collaboration occurs.Social implicationsAs humankind faces increasingly complex and multifaceted policy problems that cross inter-governmental and international boundaries and require inter-sectoral work, managers and organizations must improve both the design of collaboration in governance and management and mastery of essential skills to participate in collaboration.Originality/valueCPM, CG, and network research does not sufficiently incorporate or control for institutional context into research design.

Collaborative Health Impact Assessment and Policy Development to Improve Air Quality in West Yorkshire—A Case Study and Critical Reflection

Air pollution is increasingly recognised as a significant problem for cities, with wide ranging impacts on health and quality of life. Combined knowledge of the legal context and health impacts led to air pollution becoming a priority in West Yorkshire. A health impact assessment methodology was used to explore the impacts of low emissions zones, demonstrating significant gains from the implementation of such a measure. This fed in to the collaborative development of the West Yorkshire Low Emissions Strategy (WYLES), resulting in policy changes and an incorporation of health and wellbeing concerns into transport and infrastructure planning, amongst other successes. This case study describes the collaborative approach taken to tackle air pollution locally and summarises key outputs and outcomes of work to date, before providing a critical reflection on what can be learnt from the West Yorkshire experience. This paper will thus interest advocates and stakeholders who are facing similar challenges. Key lessons revolve around broad stakeholder engagement and developing shared ambition. We finally discuss air pollution as a wicked problem, applying the lens of transitions management, a multidisciplinary systems change theory and discuss the local experience in relation to the literature on collaborative public management.

Collaborative capital budgeting in U.S. local government

This article explores collaborative capital budgeting in U.S. local governments. To date, the capital budgeting literature has focused on practices within individual governments. This leaves a gap in our understanding because a large portion of capital planning, acquisition, and maintenance occurs through collaboration between two or more local governments. Drawing on the capital budgeting and collaborative public management literature, and on illustrative cases of collaborative capital budgeting in the United States, an inductive approach is used to: (1) identify and categorize the different objectives that motivate local officials to pursue collaborative agreements, (2) examine common patterns in the types of assets involved in collaboration, and (3) discover common institutional arrangements in collaboration agreements. The research findings demonstrate significant heterogeneity in the objectives, patterns, and institutions of collaborative capital budgeting.

A Preliminary Examination of Citizen Orientation and Multiple Dimensions of Organizational Performance

ABSTRACTIn this article, I discuss citizen orientated public management in relation to extant frameworks and theories in public management and organization research, including the role of the public servant, collaborative public management, citizen coproduction, and relational bureaucracy. Following the discussion, I hypothesize about the relationship between public organizations’ citizen orientations and multiple dimensions of organizational performance. I use data from approximately 900 New York City elementary and middle schools from 2008 to 2011 to examine the relationship. Preliminary findings indicate that a citizen orientation is positively related to multiple dimensions of public organization performance.

Many Hands Make Light Work: The Role of Collaborative Management in Improving Environmental Information Management by Local Authorities

ABSTRACTWhat is the role of collaborative management (CM) in enhancing environmental outputs? Does CM enable local municipalities to be better environmental performers? The present article addresses these two questions by means of a study of all urban localities in Israel (80% response rate). The aims of the study are to contribute to current research in two main ways. First, by addressing the question: Does CM enable local municipalities to be better environmental performers? In doing so, the study expands the very small number of studies conducted to date that examine performance and policy outputs of collaboration versus collaboration processes and procedures. Second, the study contributes to enlarging the very small number of relatively large N studies on collaborative public management that examine policy outputs. The main finding of this study highlights the important and positive role of CM in regard to local authorities’ environmental outputs.

Emerging coordination practices of European central governments

This symposium deals with new coordination practices that have emerged among European public sectors to cope with complex societal challenges. Governments struggle to deal with multifaceted policy problems that defy simple solutions and straddle the borders of organizations and ministerial areas of responsibility as well as administrative levels. Thus, public-sector coordination has become a key asset in governments’ policy capacity (Governments for the Future, 2013; Painter and Pierre, 2005). Traditional coordination by hierarchy has been supplemented by New Public Management (NPM) solutions relying on market and competition as well as by post-NPM initiatives attempting to (re-)integrate fragmented administrative apparatuses. Transboundary coordination arrangements such as networks, partnerships and shared performance targets have been introduced and a variety of new coordination practices have emerged across Europe to tackle contemporary policy challenges (Laegreid et al., 2014). These coordination practices vary in shape and form and go under different labels, such as whole-of-government, joined-up government, holistic governance, new public governance, networks, partnerships, connected government and collaborative public management.

Taking a Relational Turn in Leadership Studies

is assistant professor in the Humphrey School of Public Affairs and academic codirector of the Center for Integrative Leadership at the University of Minnesota. Her research and teaching focus on organizing stakeholder engagement, col-laborative public management, leadership for collective impact, and building resilience to address complex public policy challenges.

Making Collaborators Happy

Collaboration is essential to public management. In the Chinese culture, collaborators’ satisfaction is considered key to quality of collaboration. Focusing on the role of negotiation in collaboration, this article presents an integrative negotiation theory that explores the development of collaborators’ satisfaction during negotiation process. Priming methodology was adapted to explore the causal relationship between collaborator’s level of satisfaction and its predicting variables, such as experienced emotions during negotiations and sense of profitability. The results were pertinent to the field of collaborative public management and negotiation.

Boundaries as Junctures: Collaborative Boundary Work for Building Efficient Resilience

This article is a theoretical contribution to reconsidering the boundaries that are central features of collaborative public management. We identify two contrasting ways of doing boundary work: one oriented to treating them as barriers that promote separation and the other to treating them as junctures that enable connecting. We describe three general practices for creating junctures: translating across, aligning among, and decentering differences. We argue that orienting boundary work in collaboration to making connections supports efficient resilience, making it possible for systems to work even when they are disrupted or when resources are constrained. We illustrate the practices and their benefits with examples from collaborative public management.

Collaborating to manage: a primer for the public sector

Preface 1. To Manage Is to Collaborate 2. Intergovernmentalization and Collaborative Public Management 3. Conductive Public Agencies 4. Forging External Agreements 5. Managing Agency Connections 6. Processing Deep Collaboration: Managing in Networks 7. Identifying and Overcoming the Barriers to Collaboration 8. The New Public Organization 9. Conclusion: Collaboration Works! Appendixes A. The Lower Platte River Corridor Alliance B. Lower Platte River Regulatory Study Guide C. Ten Challenges in Contract Management D. Explicit Knowledge Management Activities E. Tacit Knowledge Management Activities F. Twenty-Two Public Values Contributed by Networks G. Alternative Dispute Resolution Processes H. Milestones in Metro School's Development References Index

Collaborative Public Management as a Hunger Prevention Strategy

Collaboration between public and private partners in the food assistance network is critical to reducing hunger. Access to safe, nutritious, and affordable food is a public health concern best addressed through a multi-sector, multi-prong approach. Extension programs across the United States provide community-based responses to hunger and can use their considerable resources to partner with governmental and nonprofit actors to boost participation in federally funded nutrition assistance programs to take full advantage of the dollars already appropriated for hunger relief and to generate economic benefits for communities at large.

Suvokiamas Socialinis Teisingumas ir jo Reikšmė Regionų Plėtrai

Increasing impact of global market economy today accelerates changes in people's living and working conditions, increase migration and significantly exacerbates social problems. The purpose of this study is to disclose the relationship between social justice and social sustainability, to assess the set of social justice-forming factors, to evaluate the assumptions and opportunities of implementation of the social justice principles in the spatial planning. The database of the international population survey was employed for the purpose of connecting perceived justice to macro socioeconomic factors. This connection provides insights into the perception of justice and its relationship with social sustainability indicators, and reveals the problems and tendencies related to the implementation of the socioeconomic development models of the society. The methods of comparative analysis of scientific literature, statistical descriptive and correlation-regression analysis methods are applied for investigation. Findings show that despite similar economic development and the same socioeconomic development models there were significant differences in the assessment of social justice of a country by its population and countries with higher ratings of confidence after a while tend to have a more cohesive society with lower levels of migration and social exclusion. The investigation also confirms occurrences of conflict at micro level and macro level in spatial planning procedures. Application of principles and methods of collaborative public management could be considered as the possible solutions for emerging issues.

Public Governance and School Performance

According to the New Public Governance paradigm, this paper analyses the institutional and organizational conditions that can lead to an improvement in student learning (a typical co-produced outcome) by acting on the promotion of genuine collaborative relationships. The distinctive features of Italian distributed governance and the challenges for school management are discussed by examining TIMSS and INVALSI data. The results show that collaborative public management supports schools in improving student learning, confirming the research hypothesis for primary schools (IV grade) and schools that operate in socially and economically poor contexts.

In Search of Collaborative Public Management

This paper describes how managers from disparate organizations collaborated to implement a crime programme through the mechanism of a multi-layered crime partnership. The case is analysed using three theoretical models: collaborative public management (CPM), new public management (NPM) and public administration (PA). A case study research strategy was adopted with eighteen managers from the partnership being interviewed and ten partnership meetings being observed, to enhance understanding of management practice under partnership. This paper provides evidence for CPM, a model of management suited to deliver on the shared outcomes required by government from the varied organizations involved in crime programmes.

A comparative study of e-government XBRL implementations: The potential of improving information transparency and efficiency

This study examines the e-government implementation of eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) to increase accountability and transparency in business and financial information. The business and financial information gathered in XBRL format is machine-readable and interoperable, thereby improving the ease of public dissemination and analysis. This study focuses on identifying and examining the determinants of successful XBRL implementation and draws from several bodies of literature: e-government, institutionalism, collaborative public management, regulatory compliance, and management information systems to identify determinants of successful implementation. This study selects four diverse implementations: the Netherlands, Australia, the United States, and Singapore. Empirical analysis follows a comparative case study method. The findings of this exploratory study underscore the importance of program goals and strategic alignment in achieving information transparency and efficiency, the advantage of strategies correlating to institutional setting, the critical need to provide incentives for adoption, and the usefulness of incremental implementation. The managerial and theoretical implications of these findings as well as future research opportunities are explored.

Knowledge production: public management and the market spectacle

PurposePublic management is moving towards more control by executives in the name of the people. Executive knowledge is privileged by initiatives such as new public management and collaborative public management that promote the market spectacle. The purpose of this paper is to employ a “radical,” or critical, interpretation based primarily on concepts and social critiques developed by Marx, by Weber and by Debord, to offer a position, polemic, and perspective regarding the nature and effects of public management on the American polis.Design/methodology/approachThe authors develop a social critique of bureaucracy and government towards domination governance of the polis primarily by developing and using the theoretical work of scholars such as Marx, Weber, and Debord for this analysis.FindingsThese developments towards more control by executives are corrosive to the last vestiges of representative democracy in the USA.Originality/valueThe question remains as to whether it is too late to reform, or turn back, the onset of the new public managerialism and whether the current condition of public administration is a symptom of the overall market spectacle trend.

Collaborative Public Management

This article analyzes the most important issues, concepts, and ideas in collaborative public management research and practice today. The issues, concepts, and ideas are (a) competing definitions of collaboration; (b) changes in the environment of public management that have encouraged the growth of collaborative public management; (c) “thinking DaVinci”—lateral thinking and interdisciplinarity; (d) the management challenges of working in networks; (e) the paradox of balancing autonomy and interdependence; (f) factors to consider before collaborating; (g) the importance of the individual; (h) the shifting leadership challenge; (i) weaknesses in collaborative public management research; and (j) the missing link between theory and practice. The authors conclude that the study and practice of collaborative public management is generally fragmented with low level of consensus. From a research perspective, it is a low-paradigm field. The authors close with a view to the future. To advance the study and practice of collaborative public management the authors urge (a) agreement on definitions of commonly used terms, beginning with the term “collaboration”; (b) agreement on pressing collaborative public management challenges and substantive research and practice questions; (c) more precise theoretical models of behavior; and (d) agreement on the measurement of relevant variables.

Management Movements and Phases of the Image

Public administrators always seem to be looking for a fix to the field’s “big” problem of ineffective government. One popular solution was (and perhaps still is) New Public Management reforms based on market values. Collaborative Public Management and related suggestions emerged thereafter to return the field to its democratic roots. The problem is, though, that both these constructs are pegged as “new” when nothing particularly innovative exists. This article uses Baudrillard’s phases of the image to trace developments within two popular governance constructs, showing, chiefly, how phases can loop back when appropriate historical roots of the object (nostalgia) are revealed.

Federalist No. 51: Is the Past Relevant to Today's Collaborative Public Management?

Federalist No. 51 is another of the most recognizable and important of the Federalist Papers, famously arguing that one first must enable government to control the governed, and then oblige it to control itself. The authors suggest that part of this obligation involves effective collaboration within a system of separate powers. They then ask how this “collaboration imperative” can be exercised in today’s contentious political environment.