Hybrid Organizations: No Cause for Concern?

Hybrid organizations mix the characteristics of state, market, and civil society. Critics have suggested that such organizations pose severe risks to the public sector, both financially and culturally. However, these assertions are based mostly on theoretical claims or single case studies. No systematic evidence has been collected to support them. The findings of a large research program in The Netherlands in several policy fields show that the concerns over hybrid organizations appear to be overstated, since theoretically defined risks have not materialized. Conditions such as the presence of active regulators and a high degree of professionalism appear to dampen the risks.     

Distinguishing Different Types of Coproduction: A Conceptual Analysis Based on the Classical Definitions

Coproduction of public services means that services are not only delivered by professional and managerial staff in public agencies but also coproduced by citizens and communities. Although recent research on this topic has advanced the debate considerably, there is still no consensus on precisely what coproduction means. This article argues that rather than trying to determine one encompassing definition of the concept, several different types of coproduction can be distinguished. Starting from the classical definitions of Elinor Ostrom and Roger Parks, the article draws on the literature on professionalism, volunteering, and public management to identify the distinctive nature of coproduction and identify basic dimensions on which a typology of coproduction can be constructed. Recognizing different types of coproduction more systematically is a critical step in making research on this phenomenon more comparable and more cumulative.     

Professionals and Shifts in Governance

The position of professionals in public services is affected directly by public management reforms. This article systematically links different types of governance to professionalism, using Osborne's (2010 Osborne, S.P. 2010. The new public governance, London: Routledge. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) distinction between Public Administration, New Public Management and New Public Governance. In the development of professionalism in the context of public management, one can observe an increasing fragmentation of sources of legitimacy, an accumulation of different professional requirements and a growing difficulty to distinguish professionals and non-professionals.     

Soft Governance, Hard Consequences: The Ambiguous Status of Unofficial Guidelines

Soft governance is an approach to policy implementation in which the central government relies less on hierarchy than on information to steer local organizations. This allows for a combination of formal accountability and professional autonomy that improves the quality of public services in both the short and the long term. Guidelines of an advisory, unofficial status are one tool that central government can use for this purpose. However, an inherent problem with this approach is that even though guidelines have no official legal status, in practice, they can take on the character of formal regulation when local organizations suspect that they cannot choose alternative courses of action, however well reasoned, without being sanctioned. It is a situation that encourages conformist behavior and diminishes the long-term potential for innovation. This phenomenon is illustrated with an analysis of disaster management in the Netherlands.