The Dynamics of Multi-organizational Partnerships: an Analysis of Changing Modes of Governance

Multi-organizational partnerships are now an important means of governing and managing public programmes. They typically involve business, community and not-for-profit agencies alongside government bodies. Partnerships are frequently contrasted with competitive markets and bureaucratic hierarchies. A more complex reality is revealed once partnerships as an organizational form are distinguished from networks as a mode of social co-ordination or governance. Data from studies of UK urban regeneration partnerships are used to develop a four-stage partnership life cycle: pre-partnership collaboration; partnership creation; partnership programme delivery; and partnership termination. A different mode of governance - network, market or hierarchy - predominates at each stage. Separating organizational form from mode of governance enables a richer understanding of multi-organizational activity and provides the basis from which theory and practice can be developed. The key challenge for partnerships lies in managing the interaction of different modes of governance, which at some points will generate competition and at other points collaboration.     

Conceptual Issues in Inter-Agency Collaboration

Inter-agency collaboration – or partnership as it now commonly termed – is central to New Labour's agenda, but the general support for a partnership approach conceals disputes about definitions and approaches. This article begins by examining the shift to more complex and ambitious partnerships in health, social care and regeneration, which require new modes of governance. The three main modes – market, hierarchy and network – are briefly described and contrasted, and located within the recent history of public service development. It is argued that they are best seen as overlain and co-existing, resulting in a hybrid mode of governance which is characterised by tension and contradiction. The article goes on to discuss the issues this raises for real partnerships in trying to understand the collaborative imperative and the barriers to its effective achievement. Although the network mode has its attractions, there are complex issues of membership, management and culture which need to be addressed. It is concluded that hierarchy, markets and networks will co-exist better where each acknowledges its own limits and the strengths of others.     

An Empirical Examination of Partnership Frequency and Design within International Nongovernmental Organizations (INGOs)

Despite the increase in public and nonprofit partnerships, there is little understanding of the organizational factors associated with partnership frequency and design. Through negative binomial and multinomial logistic regressions, this study analyzes data from interviews with 149 leaders of international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), to first examine partnership frequency, and to then examine the formation of different partnerships structures: principal-based partnerships, agent-based partnerships, and shared power-based partnerships. The findings suggest that improving results and increasing funding are the primary goals of partnership adoption, and that the most management intensive forms of partnerships are only adopted when INGOs have sufficient organizational capacity.     

Management information bulletins and social services managers

Partnership and participation have co-evolved as key instruments of New Labour's agenda for the ‘modernisation’ and ‘democratic renewal‘ of British local government. It is often assumed that partnerships are more inclusive than bureaucratic or market-based approaches to policy-making and service delivery. This article argues that partnership working does not in itself deliver enhanced public participation; indeed, it may be particularly difficult to secure citizen involvement in a partnership context. The article explores the relationship between partnership and participation in a wide range of local initiatives, exemplifying difficulties as well as synergies. The article concludes that public participation needs to be designed-in to local partnerships, not assumed-in. A series of principles for the design of more participative local partnerships is proposed.     

How do professionals perceive the governance of public–private partnerships? Evidence from Canada,the Netherlands and Denmark

In public–private partnerships (PPPs), the collaboration between public and private actors can be complicated. With partners coming from different institutional backgrounds and with different interests, governing these partnerships is important to ensure the projects' progress. There is, however, little knowledge about the perceptions of professionals regarding the governance of PPPs. This study aims to exlore professionals' viewpoints about governing PPPs, and to explain potential differences using four theoretical governance paradigms. Using Q methodology, the preferences of 119 public and private professionals in Canada, the Netherlands and Denmark are explored. Results show four different viewpoints regarding the governance of PPPs. Experience, country and the public–private distinction seem to influence these viewpoints. Knowledge of these differences can inform efforts to govern PPPs and contribute to more successful partnerships.     

Public–private partnerships (ppps) in global health: the good,the bad and the ugly

Global Health Partnerships (ghps) have become ubiquitous within global health governance (ghg). Even before the onset of the global financial crisis public–private partnerships (ppps) were an omnipresent policy tool in global health and in the current austerity climate ppps have been heralded as an effective way to address a growing resource gap in ghg. Despite their omnipresence, ghps have not received adequate attention from critical scholars; few efforts have been made conceptually and theoretically to grasp how ppps are transforming the logic of ghg. We argue that ghps have contributed to the emergence of a complex global health governance architecture in which private solutions (market mechanism) are generally privileged over public approaches. Drawing on Gramscian conceptualisations of public/private, we suggest that the reshaping of the private and public realm inherent to ppps represents a further deepening of the neoliberal management of individuals and populations, allowing private interest to become more embedded within the public sphere and to influence global and national health policy making. This undermines the attempt to improve global health results as the inequitable distribution of social determinants of health, especially poverty and social exclusion, remain the main barriers to achieving health for all.     

PUBLIC–NONPROFIT PARTNERSHIP PERFORMANCE IN A DISASTER CONTEXT: THE CASE OF HAITI

During disasters, partnerships between public and nonprofit organizations are vital to provide fast relief to affected communities. In this article, we develop a process model to support a performance evaluation of such intersectoral partnerships. The model includes input factors, organizational structures, outputs and the long‐term outcomes of public–nonprofit partnerships. These factors derive from theory and a systematic literature review of emergency, public, nonprofit, and network research. To adapt the model to a disaster context, we conducted a case study that examines public and nonprofit organizations that partnered during the 2010 Haiti earthquake. The case study results show that communication, trust, and experience are the most important partnership inputs; the most prevalent governance structure of public–nonprofit partnerships is a lead organization network. Time and quality measures should be considered to assess partnership outputs, and community, network, and organizational actor perspectives must be taken into account when evaluating partnership outcomes.     

The Public Governance of Collaborative Spaces: Discourse, Design and Democracy

This article investigates the relationship between democratic practices and the design of institutions operating in collaborative spaces, those policy and spatial domains where multiple public, private and non-profit actors join together to shape, make and implement public policy. Partnerships are organizational manifestations of institutional design for collaboration. They offer flexibility and stakeholder engagement, but are loosely coupled to representative democratic systems. A multi-method research strategy examines the impact of discourses of managerialism, consociationalism and participation on the design of partnerships in two UK localities. Analysing objective measures of democratic performance in partnerships and interpreting the discursive transition from earlier practices in representative democratic institutions we find that institutional designs for collaboration reflect different settlements between discourses, captured in the distinction between club, agency and polity-forming partnership types. The results show how the governance of collaborative spaces is mediated through a dominant set of discursively defined institutional practices.     

The Reform of Skill Formation in Russia: Regional Responses

Abstract

Effective systems of vocational education are crucial to economic and social development. However, the coordination of labour market demand and the supply of skill requires either well-functioning labour market institutions or institutionally embedded strategic partnerships among government, labour and employers. In particular, the transplantation of German-style dual education methods to a different environment poses significant institutional dilemmas. Russia presents a useful case for examining the conditions under which such arrangements can be established. Based on a series of interviews in six Russian regions and a set of case histories, we seek to draw testable hypotheses that can be applied to other settings.     

Local Government Partnerships in Urban Management: The Case of South Asia

The article examines emerging partnerships in local government in South Asia. It argues that public private partnerships at local authority level tend to emerge where existing service deficiencies are greatest and most often involve the private voluntary sector. These partnerships typically function as 'hybrid' concessions where the private operator performs a service and collects a fee but without responsibility for capital investment. Many of the most successful partnerships have operated at the most localised level involving a coalition of stakeholders under local authority co-ordination. However, few partnerships have developed adequate mechanisms for joint planning, management and monitoring of services.     

TRANSPARENCY IN PUBLIC–PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS: NOT SO BAD AFTER ALL?

Scholars' criticism of transparency in public–private partnerships (PPPs) often focuses on ‘external’ transparency, that is, the extent to which internal information is visible to the outside world. However, to achieve external transparency, internal transparency – the availability and inferability of information for the public procurer and the private party – is crucial. In this article we analyse input, process, and output transparency from three different perspectives (institutional, cognitive, and strategic) in four PPPs in the Netherlands. We conclude that input transparency is high, but process and output transparency less so. Moreover, output transparency has gained importance in PPPs. Whether this is problematic depends on the PPPs' institutional environment. In some partnerships the desired output is uncontested and predetermined by clear standards in the institutional environment, whereas other PPPs deal with contested output norms, decreasing the partnerships' transparency. These results nuance the current debate on the lack of transparency in PPPs.     

The Formation of Public-Private Partnerships: Lessons from Nine Transport Infrastructure Projects in The Netherlands

Despite high expectations, in The Netherlands the formation of public-private partnerships (PPPs) in the field of transport infrastructure is stagnating. This article addresses the question of why this is the case. On the basis of a comparative analysis of 9 case studies concerning the building of partnerships, 3 patterns are identified. The first is the successful formation of partnerships resulting in enriched projects. The second pattern is that of early interaction resulting in ambitious proposals for which there is no support. The third pattern shows ineffective market consultations followed by unilateral public planning, leading to stagnating contract negotiations.
These patterns are coherent and are caused by a number of generic factors. An important explanation for stagnation is the lack of interaction. As a result, public and private parties will fail to reach a common understanding, will be unable to contribute to the enrichment of the project content and will fail to develop mutual trust. If parties engage in early interaction, the lack of embeddedness of their efforts may result in an uncritical piling up of ambitions and an absence of the capability to realize trade-offs and generate support. These explanations are related to the absence of conscious and systematic attempts to manage and arrange interaction processes aimed at the formation of PPPs. On the basis of these findings the author formulates a number of suggestions to improve the quality and effectiveness of these processes.     

The Outcome of Renegotiations between Institutionalized Public–Private Partnerships and Their Public Clients: Data on the Public–Private Partnerships of the German Federal Armed Forces

This study analyzes the renegotiations that take place between institutionalized public–private partnerships (PPPs) and their public clients drawing on survey data on the PPPs of the German Federal Armed Forces. Generally, both the party that initiates such renegotiations and the time at which renegotiations are launched determine the outcome of the PPP’s renegotiated remuneration. This effect is moderated by the degree of contract specificity and by a decrease in demand. Specifically, when the public client initiates the renegotiation of an incomplete contractual agreement due to a decrease in demand, it can successfully reduce the remuneration of the PPP.     

Public–Private Partnerships in Urban Regeneration: Democratic Legitimacy and its Relation with Performance and Trust

Public-private entities set up specifically to manage and implement urban regeneration projects have been observed across several nations. In these urban regeneration partnerships, public and private partners often work together to improve languishing neighbourhoods. One of the core ideas driving the establishment of these partnerships is that, in order to more effectively tackle the challenging regeneration process, these organisations should function at arm's length from the political institutions that oversee them.

A specific question concerning these partnerships is how representative mechanisms work and how the partnership process is linked to traditional representative bodies or in other ways is connected to principles of democratic legitimacy. This paper explores the so-called democratic legitimacy of urban regeneration companies, as a form of public–private partnership, in more detail. It makes a distinction between three types of democratic legitimacy: accountability, voice, and due deliberation. Using material from a survey among managers of urban regeneration companies (URCs) in The Netherlands, this paper examines the impact of these three forms of democratic legitimacy on outcomes and trust of these URCs.

The results show a fairly strong correlation between some criteria of democratic legitimacy, especially due deliberation on the one hand and performance and trust on the other hand.     

Shared services in Brazilian local government: Urban development in small counties

In this article we break new ground by investigating cooperative agreements in urban development services, which include urban development, housing and sanitation for small local governments in Brazil (i.e., those with fewer than 20,000 residents in 2013–15). We find that public expenditure on urban development can be explained by both horizontal (intermunicipal cooperation) and vertical (public–public partnerships) cooperation. Regarding the impact of public sector cooperation on public expenditure, our results show that housing and sanitation services are less costly under intermunicipal cooperation. By contrast, urban development services are less costly when local authorities do not cooperate with other public entities. For public–public partnerships (with the state or federal government) cooperation leads to an increase in public funding, which implies that cooperative agreements might not lead to lower public expenditure. The findings in this article provide useful empirical insights into the administrative reorganization of Brazilian local government.     

Developing New Forms of Partnership With the ‘Market’ in the Procurement of Public Services

This article provides a conceptual framework for understanding the key differences between newly emerging ‘market’ relationships and more traditional forms of procurement by public sector organizations. It highlights how multiple relationships between service clients in the public sector and other stakeholders mean that service clients may often co‐produce welfare changes in their communities in ways which professional and commercial providers cannot easily control and may not fully understand. It highlights the very different nature of collaborations which affect single commissioners and contractors (relational contracting), multiple commissioning bodies with a unified procurement policy (partnership procurement) and multiple commissioning bodies with diverse procurement policies empowered by a single purchasing body (distributed commissioning). The article suggests that traditional conceptions of the ‘market’ and of ‘market management’ are now outdated and need to be revised to take into account the potential of collaborative relationships between multiple stakeholders in the public domain.     

A GENDER ANALYSIS OF WOMEN IN PUBLIC–PRIVATE–VOLUNTARY SECTOR ‘PARTNERSHIPS’

The nature of work and traditional notions of the public sector have been changing with increasing collaborative governance and delivery of public services among public, private and voluntary sector organizations. In the UK, governments at national and devolved levels of government have adopted collaborative governance for service delivery through various networks and partnerships. This article explores collaborative governance from a gender perspective, specifically the perceptions of women in public–private–voluntary sector partnerships. While previous research in this area has explored aspects of collaborative governance such as power, trust, accountability, decision‐making, performance, exchange of information and participation, there is very little research on women within these networks. The article therefore provides a gendered analysis, disaggregating survey data to better understand the dynamics, for women, of collaborative governance and partnerships among public, private and voluntary sector organizations.     

PUBLIC‐PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP CONTRACTS: A TALE OF TWO CITIES WITH DIFFERENT CONTRACTUAL ARRANGEMENTS

This paper analyses regulation by contract in public‐private partnerships (PPPs) for infrastructure services. Although the benefits of competition for the market and subsequent regulatory contracts are recognized, the literature also identifies contract design failures. When considering these limitations, it is useful to distinguish between contracts associated with purely contractual PPPs (concessions) and contracts for institutionalized PPPs (mixed company). Two cases from the Portuguese water sector are used to illustrate problems arising in the preparation of public tender documents: the ‘best’ bidder is often not the winner. Often, risks are not allocated correctly nor is effective monitoring ensured. Comparisons between the two types of contracts show how external regulation can be useful in mitigating contractual problems. This examination of bidding procedures and contract design yields several implications for policy‐makers; in addition, the study presents recommendations for improving regulatory contracts.     

Public hospitals as competitors for medicaid revenue: the case study of St. Louis regional medical center

Medicaid revenues may determine whether public hospitals will survive. Public hospitals participate aggressively in the public market competition for their states’ Medicaid dollars. States must decide whether the survival of public hospitals, as providers of last resort to both Medicaid and uninsured patients, is of continuing importance to their Medicaid programs. Cities, if the states were willing, alternatively could voucher uninsured patients and direct Medicaid patients to the private hospitals that would outlive closed public hospitals. In fact, Medicaid's managed care programs already have heightened this competition, by organizing sufficiently large populations of prepaid Medicaid patients to attract networks of private providers to offer discounted prices, in competition with public hospitals for this market.

Although Medicaid has been a comparatively poor payer, nationally, almost half of public hospitals⁷ funding comes from this source of revenue. Urban public hospitals can barely live with Medicaid revenues, but the extent to which they can live without Medicaid revenues is being determined by surprising new turns in market competition for the revenue. A period of expansive and expensive new congressional mandates for the joint federal-state program was followed in the early 1990s by the introduction by the states of Medicaid revenue maximization strategies. The states’ funding levels, the bases for matching federal contributions, were artificially elevated by provider taxes, provider donations, and intergovernmental transfers. The revenue from all these sources was returned to these providers through the Disproportionate Share Hospital subsidy program for Medicaid-dependent hospitals, as soon as the federal revenue match was calculated, based upon the inflated figures. These practices currently are being stymied, and states simultaneously have escalated competitive bidding by private market managed care providers for Medicaid patients. Missouri has been in the forefront of states moving to maximize the federal Medicaid revenue match and to return Disproportionate Share Hospital funds to providers. St. Louis's public hospital, Regional Medical Center, has been weaned off its local government subsidies, as the intergovernmental transfer and DSH enticements compromised the stability of that hospital's revenue picture. Now, unprotected by an integrated healthcare system or other major role in a regional hospital network, this urban public hospital must struggle to survive within its Medicaid managed care competitive market. The question for the state of Missouri is whether perpetuating a future for Regional will ensure its Medicaid patients a traditional caring public medicine alternative as a fallback position, if Medicaid's present foray into the private market goes awry. For Regional and the city of St. Louis, the question is whether they can any longer count upon traditional state Medicaid revenue and financial support.     

Public Values in Public–Private Partnerships

Although public–private partnerships (PPPs) are often evaluated in terms of efficiency, their impact on public values is often neglected. In order to find out what we know about the public values–PPPs relation, this article reviews public administration literature and describes two opposite perspectives. The first perspective argues that public values are at stake whereas the second argues they are safeguarded or even reinforced. We argue that the assumptions of both perspectives are biased and incomparable due to the fact that each perspective holds a different ontological understanding of the concept of public values. Finally, we provide some ideas for further research.