Partnerships in public management: rural enterprise alliances

This paper addresses public management implications of a certain form of network: the rural enterprise alliance, a formal nonmetropolitan partnership among producers, distributors, labor unions, employer associations, credit institutions, and government agencies. Six alliances are examined as examples of “postmodern” public organizing, as it fits into emergent “bottom up” approaches to economic development. Organizing locally for global competition is bringing on more decentralized, flexible, yet comprehensive public management approaches, emphasizing demand programming, self-management, incentives and information, leverage and engagement, and de-differentiated structuring. Public managers must increasingly deal with challenges like those related to the emergence of alliances.