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Foundations of Public Administration Collaborative Public Administration

Michael McGuire, Robert Agranoff and Chris Silvia

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The Foundations of Public Administration Series is a collection of articles written by experts in 20

content areas, providing introductory essays and recommending top articles in those subjects.

Collaborative Public Administration Michael McGuire, School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University Robert Agranoff, School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University Chris Silvia, Department of Public Administration, University of Kansas

Introduction

This essay provides an overview of what is

known about collaborative public manage-

ment. It draws extensively, though not exclu-

sively, from articles published in Public Admin-

istration Review since the journal’s creation in

1940. Two of the authors of this essay first

defined collaborative public management as a

“concept that describes the process of facilitat-

ing and operating in multiorganizational ar-

rangements for solving problems that cannot

be achieved, or achieved, or achieved easily, by

single organizations” (Agranoff and McGuire

2003). Managing collaborative arrangements

involves more than just the requisite “getting

together” across multiple organizations; insti-

tutions are created and specific actions are tak-

en to solve problems through collaborative

mechanisms. As public management has in-

creasingly externalized through grants, con-

tracts, partnerships, regulatory activity, and the

like, collaboration among govern-ments and

between governments and non-governmental

organizations has moved to the core of prac-

tice.

Michael McGuire, Ph.D. is a Professor, School of Public

and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University‐

Bloomington. His research focuses on public manage‐

ment in networks and collaboration, and has been pub‐

lished widely in public administration and policy jour‐

nals, including Public Administration Review, Public Ad‐

ministration, The Leadership Quarterly, and Journal of Public

Administration Research and Theory.

[email protected]

Robert Agranoff, Ph.D. is a Professor Emeritus, School

of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana Universi‐

ty‐Bloomington, U.S.A., and Professor, Government

and Public Administration Program, Instituto Universi‐

tario Ortega y Gasset, Madrid, Spain. He specializes in

public and intergovernmental management and in col‐

laborative and network management. Among his re‐

cent books are Managing Within Networks (Georgetown,

2007) and Local Governments and Their Intergovernmental

Networks in Federalizing Spain (McGill‐Queen’s, 2010).

Also, his recent research has appeared in Public Admin‐

istration, The Oxford Handbook of American Bureaucracy,

Contemporary Public Administration, and Governance and

Intergovernmental Relations in the European Union and the

United States.

[email protected]

Chris Silvia is an assistant professor in the Department

of Public Administration at the University of Kansas.

Chris received his MPA from Brigham Young Universi‐

ty and his Ph.D. from Indiana University. He has pub‐

lished articles in Public Administration Review, The Lea‐

dership Quarterly, and Public and Performance Manage‐

ment Review. His research focuses on collaborative go‐

vernance, public service delivery, and leadership.

[email protected]



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The essay is presented in four sections. First, we ad-

dress the “traditions” of interorganizational relation-

ships. These traditions include vertical intergovernmen-

tal relationships, coordination, and local level horizon-

tal relationships. The second section examines the de-

velopment of the concept of collaborative public man-

agement by looking at four basic elements of such

management, including organizational interdependence,

structural forms, managerial process, and actor roles.

The third section addresses what the literature tells us

about the practices that work best in collaborative situ-

ations. The final section offers concluding comments

about the future direction of collaborative public man-

agement research.

One must not begin the quest for solving the riddles of

collaborative public management without understand-

ing some basics about the American administrative sys-

tem. A way to start is with Kettl’s (2006) brilliant article

on “Managing Boundaries in American Administra-

tion.” He underscores the importance of ever changing

boundaries related to mission, resources, capacity, re-

sponsibility, and accountability, that, when subjected to

today’s interorganizational service networks, vastly

complicate administration. The U.S. system of federal-

ism and political culture manifest such boundaries, and

as such define what organizations are responsible for

doing and what powers and functions lay elsewhere.

The author argues that “the basic dilemma of American

public administration for the 21st century… [is] devising

new strategies to bring public administration in sync

with the multiorganizational, multisector operating real-

ities of today’s government. It requires a ‘collaborative,

network-based approach’” (17). However, these reali-

ties conflict with the imperatives of American politics

(symbolism, reorganization, restructuring of systems).

The “boundaries that served us so well in the past can no longer

solve either our administrative or political needs” (17, emphasis

added).

Interorganizational Traditions

Although the conscious study of collaborative public

management is characteristic of recent decades, the

practice goes back to the U.S. federal system’s earliest

days. In Daniel Elazar’s The American Partnership (1962),

he found evidence of federal-state cooperation at the

management stage in several programs, ranging from

informal contacts to formal program agreements. He

asserts that, “A substantial share of American govern-

ment has been the search for such methods to provide

for the necessary collaboration among the various units

in the system” (305). And the system does engender

great need for cooperation for two reasons. First, as

Stephen Skowronek’s (1982, 21) study of the emer-

gence of bureaucracy American style indicates, “sove-

reignty was to be shared between the new central gov-

ernment and the old regional units of government,

which retained their revolutionary designation as

‘states,’” ensuring their integrity and legal codes. For

most of the nineteenth century, he concludes, the na-

tional government was passive and left substantive go-

verning to states and through them loyalties, leading to

a “distinctive sense of statelessness in the political cul-

ture” (23).



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Second, in a United States with subnational govern-

ments, as Frank Goodnow (1900) noted early on, ad-

ministrative officials had inherited from England that

allegiance is owed to the law, not the hierarchy

represented by the crown and later some distant execu-

tive of another organization. “The result was to make

impossible any state administrative supervision over the

main body of officers entrusted with the execution of

the law...control which could be exercised in the inter-

est in producing coordination between the functions of

expressing and executing the will of the state had to be

found in the power of the legislature to regulate in de-

tail the duties of officers entrusted with the execution

of the law” (101). Enforcement was largely by the

courts as statutes were interpreted.

Coordinating federal-state, federal-local, and state-local

programs has provided a venerable stream of findings

on intergovernmental, collaborative program manage-

ment. One stream that emanates from the federal setup

is that of the kind of cooperative federalism Elazar

(1962) identified as existing in the 19th century. Simi-

larly, Jane Perry Clark (1938) recognized the federal

opportunities for “political and economic” experimen-

tation. Her study included the many modes of intergo-

vernmental administration—informal cooperation, in-

tergovernmental agreements and contracts, exchange of

personnel, interdependent legal action, grants-in-aid,

and tax policy. Clark described such cooperation as dis-

tinctly experimental and routine:

Much of the cooperation between the federal and state gov-ernments has been found in the sea of governmental activity without any chart, compass, or guiding star, for cooperation has been unplanned and uncorrelated with other activities of

government even in the same field. Nevertheless, a certain number of patterns may be traced in the confusion. Coopera-tion has frequently been a means of coordinating the use of federal and state resources, of eliminating duplications in ac-tivity, of cutting down expenses, of accomplishing work which could not otherwise be carried out, and in the federal system of the United States move more smoothly than would be oth-erwise possible (7).

Clark’s view of collaborative federalism was highly op-

timistic regarding officials’ problem-resolution ability.

Closer examination of collaboration arose because of

the federal-state grants programs of the Depression era.

Although they were supportive of cooperative federal-

ism in principle, studies were not always sanguine about

their success. V. O. Key, Jr., (1937) identified a “gap

between policy determination and the task of adminis-

tration” because the expenditure of money and per-

formance of function have been under the supervision

of state agencies “operating in a sphere of and tradition

of freedom from central control,” (228). Another well-

known study by John Gaus and Leon Walcott (1940) of

the programs of the U.S. Department of Agriculture

examined the role of cooperating governments. The

Department of Agriculture recognized the need to have

strong functioning units outside of Washington that

could participate in federal programs, but questioned

the operating capacity of many (particularly small) gov-

ernments to be cooperative partners. Regulations and

administrative supervision as a whole tend to be greatly

modified in practice by the ideas and prejudices of local

officials. The result of state supervision of local gov-

ernments is largely determined by a meeting of the

minds of state and local officials (Weidner 1944, 233).



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Not all collaborative management across levels of gov-

ernment in the first part of the twentieth century was

recognized as being problematic. For example, William

Anderson (1955) found relatively harmonious relations

in the day-to-day administration of federal programs

among administrative officials, many of whom were

from similar professional backgrounds. “They usually

worked together in trying to get changes in standards,

rules, budgets and personnel requirements to advance

the service” (201). He reported an absence of “crack-

down” orders from federal to state agencies; indeed,

state and local officials welcomed the presence, advice,

and help of federal field officials. Durisch points to

many “new federal-local relationships” (1941, 326) due

to the Tennessee Valley Authority’s “program inte-

grated on the basis of place or territory.” These author-

ities included dozens of signed memoranda of under-

standing, legal contracts, special municipal ordinances,

multiple conferences regarding the impact of the influx

of construction workers on local services, liaisons with

local law enforcement agencies, state-local consulta-

tions regarding highway relocations and access roads,

land acquisition issues, water supply-sewage disposal-

other public facility readjustments, property tax loss

adjustments, and several administrative improvements

in local governments. These changes emanated from a

recognition of the need for sound local governments

and the “cooperative nature” of the undertaking, as

well as the “grassroots approach to which the Authori-

ty is committed” (334).

Such a non-centralized approach was fundamental to

the Tennessee Valley Authority managerial experience

of David Lilienthal (1939). The essence of coordination

in the field involved:

1) The greatest number of decisions by operatives made in the field.

2) The active participation of the effected citizens, working with state and local agencies.

3) Coordination of the work of state and local gov-ernments, aiming toward common objectives.

As Waldo (1948, 149) observes, Lilienthal saw this de-

centralized collaborative strategy as essential for the

preservation of democracy in a large bureaucratic state

in order to overcome the drawbacks of centralization.

A cooperative approach was also observed at the state

level. Vieg (1941) analyzed federal, state, local, and pri-

vate organization cooperation in Iowa’s agricultural

programs in four areas: research, education, planning,

and programming. He suggests that different interests

work “physically side by side” forging out “a rational

division of labor and clear understanding of authority

and responsibility all the way around; there must be

close agreement on all questions…” (142).

During World War II, extensive program coordination

was required for heavily congested production areas.

The President’s Committee for congested areas facili-

tated all types of public services in these local areas,

after consultation with all levels of government and

non-governmental officials. The Committee, according

to Gill, provided common meeting ground for “across

the table discussion of common problems” (1945, 32).

How does one manage through the maze of multiple

interacting governments? Noncentralization and a sort



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of federal matrix is the established order in the federal

system. Daniel Elazar (1984) observes the U.S. noncen-

tralized nature, owing to de jure and de facto jurisdictional

constitutional diffusion and sharing of powers. As a

result, units have a propensity to operate independent-

ly. “The model for federalism is the matrix, a network

of arenas within arenas” (3). These arenas are distin-

guished by being larger or smaller rather than higher or

lower. This phenomenon of achieving federal goals

through state and local action involves coordination

with both the federal government and state and local

governments. Pressman and Wildavsky’s landmark

study, Implementation (1973), indicated the myriad steps,

negotiations, and tradeoffs in a single federal program.

“We have learned one important lesson from the [Eco-

nomic Development Administration] experience in

Oakland: implementation should not be divorced from

policy” (12-13). Initial design and reaching agreements

were easy, but the later so-called “technical questions”

did not resolve themselves as the program went along

and proved to be “the rocks on which the program

eventually foundered” (13).

Mosher (1980) paints a rather complete picture of the

extension of the federal government beyond its own

operations into how the “the nooks and crannies of our

economic, social, cultural and even personal lives seems

almost unlimited” (543). He documents that “the prob-

lems that the federal government is now called upon to

address and try to resolve are more numerous, more

complex, more interrelated than ever before in history”

(545). Operationally, this means a greater reliance upon

indirect administration through third parties; more re-

liance upon negotiations, collaboration inducements,

persuasion, and less on immediate direction and con-

trol; and greater concern and involvement on the roles

of organizations outside immediate federal government

control. He uses a tools (he calls these “devices”) ap-

proach to demonstrate the rise of federal external pro-

gramming through income support, grants, contracts,

regulations, tax expenditures, loans and loan guaran-

tees, and quasi-federal agencies. He concludes by stat-

ing the importance of top public executives, which in-

cludes personnel who are paid by the U.S. government

but work for organizations outside of federal control,

bringing to their work “an understanding of the rela-

tions and interdependence of the public sector and the

private, and of one level of government with others,

both above and below” (547).

This need to coordinate throughout comes about,

Sundquist and Davis explain (1969, 2), because in the

U.S. federal system programs are based on “goals or

objectives that are established by the national govern-

ment, through the actions of other governments, state

and local, that are legally independent and may be even

hostile” (12). Thus, coordination becomes almost “any

change in organization, relationships, policies, practices,

projects or programs that will resolve whatever conflict

or hiatus in the federal-state-local chain of relation-

ships…” (19). It is, he concludes, a matter of mutual

adjustment rather than that of central coordination.

Similarly, successful federal government supervision of

state enforcement activity amounts to the use of com-

munication, financing authority, and organization tools,

rather than top-down authority (Crotty 1988). Agranoff



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and McGuire (2001a) identified four extant models for

facing these multiple transactions and multiple instru-

ments of management:

1) Top-down legally based control and interaction over law.

2) Donor-recipient, that is, interjurisdictional bar-gaining.

3) Jurisdiction-based strategic adjustments that support various managers’ strategies.

4) Networking for adjustment and joint-action among interdependent governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

Although the first two models are long-standing, as

demonstrated in the aforementioned studies, and the

latter two are emergent, all four reflect the managerial

realities of collaborative public management.

Complicating the governmental mix is the movement

since the 1960s to engage non-governmental organiza-

tions and local off-budget authorities to deal with fed-

eral and state programs, which Kettl (1981) identifies as

the “Fourth Face of Federalism.” These bring on new

ties and the need for coordinative administration and

new partnerships with federal, state, and local govern-

ments in the pursuit of national policy goals. Lovell’s

(1979) study of “Coordinating Federal Grants from

Below” depicts effective local government linkages

among various federal grants with state grant programs

and with local governments’ own programs and private

endeavors. Three principal methods were used: orches-

tration by jurisdiction leaders, self-linking among func-

tional specialists, and meshing by community-based

organizations. Agranoff and McGuire’s (2003) study of

intergovernmental management revealed a variety of

activities that ranged far beyond those of grant-seeking

and regulation supervision:

Collaboration is more than seeking and managing grants or complying with regulations. Financial assistance in economic development also includes arranging loans, negotiating inter-est-rate adjustments, attempting to forge sale-leaseback ar-rangements, and a host of other financial transactions. It in-volves seeking relevant operating information, asking about interpretations related to running a program, seeking guid-ance regarding a proposed course of action on a program, as well as applying for technical assistance. Dealing with inter-governmental regulation does indeed include those activities related to compliance, but not every regulated government complies in every case. Some manage by seeking discretion. They do this by one of several means of “tweaking the sys-tem,” learning how to ask for, negotiate, and perhaps bar-gain for greater measures of discretion. These managers have attempted some basic regulatory or statutory adjustments, sought a policy change, or tried another way to “loosen up” the compliance game. Many local managers are actually out there “working the system” to adapt federal and/or state programs to jurisdictional needs (154).

One mechanism for linking federal and state programs

that serve similar clients at the operating level is servic-

es integration. Hagebak (1979) describes the problems

of non-integrated human services and argues for inte-

gration that is accomplished at the local level, is volun-

tary, and which recognizes the autonomy of each par-

ticipating agency. In the debate over connecting dispa-

rate grant-induced categorical services at the local level,

Terrell (1980) found that in six different program

areas—welfare, health, mental health, community ac-

tions, model cities, and community mental health cen-

ters—local agency executives generally supported fed-

eral efforts to consolidate programs through block

grants, and increased local discretion was supported by

revenue sharing as alternatives. Those areas that de-

pended directly on federal programs, for example,



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model cities and community mental health, wanted less

grant consolidation and more decentralization. Such

decentralization, where administration and service deli-

very were consolidated in Florida, facilitated discretio-

nary action by service workers at the delivery level

(Immershein and Polivka 1986). In a systems look at

community-based care for the elderly, Myrtle and Wil-

bur (1994) discuss the elusiveness of comprehensive

systems. They argue that unless policy makers and ad-

vocates begin to focus on the dynamics of relationships

among organizations, interorganizational fields, and

service delivery networks, integrating services will re-

main elusive.

The long-standing and emerging challenges of services

integration are delineated by Agranoff (1991), who

overviews the historical integration movement in public

administration, along with four key dimensions: conso-

lidating departments, improving policy, linking agen-

cies, and adapting direct services. He observed that the

“grand designs” around these issues in the 1960s-1980s

have given way to more focused, problem-oriented de-

signs, for example in youth employment, welfare-to-

work, or adapting disabled persons in their communi-

ties. “These challenges require a new form of transor-

ganizational management, that places operational em-

phasis on where the managerial task bridges the struc-

tural components of the single organization authority

structure” (540). The federal system and its multiple

arrangements have definitely challenged integration

management activities at the local level.

Coordinated management across boundaries is, of

course, a product of administrative complexity. But

such complexity is explained not by commonly as-

sumed public choice, interest group liberalism, or social

control theories. To James Q. Wilson (1992), it is a re-

sponse to the proliferation of interest groups who see

that activity is increasingly focused on the executive

branch. “They obtain that recognition by seeing to it

that agencies are organized in such a way that interest

group demands are institutionally preserved” (213).

American bureaucracies differ from Western European

bureaucracies, which are in greater control; group pres-

sure and court judgments lead to rules and regulations

that constrain them and make them work across lines.

Program coordination is one of the cornerstones of

classical public management. In Gulick and Urwick’s

(1937) classic papers on administration, James Mooney

defined coordination as the determining principle of

organization. He defines it as “...concerted action, ani-

mated by common purpose, responding to recognized

signals and utilizing practical skills...both a process and

a goal” (93). Cross-program coordination thus occurs

both by informal contacts to break “the long time

frames for messages to reach counterparts across lines,

because they are on the formal record, they preclude

exploration of new ideas, and working staff may want

to expose their ideas to superiors initially” (Downs

1967, 116). Thus, mechanisms are needed to overcome

interbureau communication and operation. Colin

Campbell (1988, 63) suggests three remedies to over-

come these problems: merging units so similar activities

come under unified direction, reliance on collective



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cross-department decision bodies, and devising coordi-

nating secretariats. The problem arises because of the

“complex and bewildering array of institutions adminis-

tering an almost bewildering array of programs” (55).

Of course, Campbell’s observation relates to a single

set of government agencies that may have multiple tiers

but are not independent in the sense that U.S. state and

local governments are in the federal system.

Interest in administrative cross agency collaboration

goes back as far as the 1930s in the public administra-

tion texts. Leonard White’s (1939; first edition 1926)

introductory text called for co-located administrative

districts, whose functions were interrelated and inter-

dependent. “The coordination of districts by joint use

of the same district, by building larger units from

smaller, by consolidating the number of separate boun-

dary lines, and by relating administrative districts to

units of government would tend toward simplicity, the

convenience of citizens, and better coordination of dif-

ferent phases of administration itself” (193-94). Admin-

istrative procedures regulations also generate collabora-

tive interactions. Charles Hyneman (1950) points out in

his Bureaucracy in a Democracy that the Administrative

Procedures Act of 1946 required that, “Interested par-

ties must be given an opportunity to say what they

think about the specific changes which he (executives)

proposes, and what they say must be given considera-

tion” (465). This means that the agency head must en-

gage in “coordinating administrative policies” (466).

Coordination between agencies and with the public,

however, is not an easy task. Through several editions,

Harold Seidman and later with Robert Gilmour (1986),

equated the search for coordination as equivalent to the

search for the philosopher’s stone. “If we can only find

the right formula for coordination, we can reconcile the

irreconcilable, harmonize competing and wholly diver-

gent interest, overcome irrationalities in our govern-

ment structures, and make hard policy choices to which

no one will dissent” (219). However, they also caution

that because so much criticism and emphasis is put on

improvement of coordination we create the false im-

pression that it rarely occurs:

This is by no means the case. Without informal or so-called lateral coordination, which takes place at almost every stage in the development and execution of national programs and at every level within the federal structure, the government probably would grind to a halt. Skilled bureaucrats develop their own informational networks. Managers who are moti-vated by a desire to get something done find ways and means of bridging the jurisdictional gaps. Informal coordination is greatly facilitated when people share the same goals, operate from a common set of legal authorities and information as-sumptions, agree on standards, have compatible professional outlooks, and can help each other. Where these conditions exist, there is no need for the intervention of third parties to secure harmonious action (225).

Thus, informal and less visible means of collaboration

are often overlooked as efficacious.

Informal modes of bridging departmental and jurisdic-

tional gaps have thus been recognized for some time.

In a compilation of lectures on British public adminis-

tration, S. E. Finer (1950) recognized the presence of

functionally aligned programs in ministries, interde-

partmental committees and conferences, and policy



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review committees. The key unifying element in British

administrative structure, however, is the habit of mind

of civil servants, their tradition of “civility.” The admin-

istrative corps is small but is the most homogenous

corporation in the Isles. “The long term cumulative

effect of informal collaboration—ringing up, chatting

at lunch, ‘dropping in to see’—is prodigious. Least visi-

ble publicly, it is the most powerful cement in the

whole executive structure” (68).

Along a similar line, Herbert Kaufman’s (1967) The For-

est Ranger, concludes that while rangers have considera-

ble field discretion, including the propensity to coordi-

nate while out in the field in the woods, they are held

together by a common understanding of programs and

core values held commonly. Thus, rangers have the

flexibility in the field to engage in collaborative man-

agement but are effectively “controlled,” that is, core

premises are maintained “without extensive use of

close supervisory and enforcement procedures…which

gives every indication of decentralization…” (23).

Holding such common value premises open up the

possibility for staff in a hierarchical organization to op-

erate collaboratively in the field.

A series of three articles on coordinating welfare and

employment and training programs involving Jennings

(1994), Jennings and Krane (1994), and Jennings and

Ewalt (1998) looks at the impact of policy goals and

design on enhancing linkages. Jennings (1994) examines

efforts by the states to engender coordination without

concentrated authority and clear lines of command and

control. His findings suggest that leadership, accep-

tance of the legitimacy and worth of multiple programs,

and the degree of effort put into coordination are criti-

cal. In a study of welfare reform, Jennings and Krane

(1994) find that the “Quest for the Philosopher’s

Stone” in coordination means to look at how systems

were created to link welfare and work. Although several

barriers exist, effective managers, expert leadership, and

interpersonal contacts, combined with a vision of client

service and agreement over the functional division of

service responsibility, leads to success coordination.

The link between coordination and policy performance

is examined in Jennings and Ewalt (1998), using job

training placement rates and wages. It is one of the first

assessments of coordination employing objective as

well as subjective measures of performance. Their evi-

dence indicated that both coordination and administra-

tive consolidation lead to higher levels of performance

along these dimensions.

In a profound and early study, Coordination without Hie-

rarchy, Donald Chisholm (1989) asserts that in situa-

tions where components of an organizational system

are functionally interdependent, the resulting uncertain-

ty creates pressures for coordination. Linkage becomes

the alternative to consolidation and integration into a

new whole, and as informal adaptations meet that need,

“…informal organization permits the continued exis-

tence of formally autonomous organizations in the face

of mutual interdependence, it can achieve other values,

such as reliability, flexibility, and representativeness,

that would otherwise be precluded or substantially di-

minished under formal consolidation” (17-18). Chi-

sholm’s study of coordination in public transit led to

the working decentralized system of an independent



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organization, the Bay Area Rapid Transit System in

Northern California.

Interlocal cooperation or horizontal relations has been

part of the collaborative agenda for some years (Martin

1965; Walker 2000), but empirical testing is more re-

cent. Befuddling interlocal cooperation is the growth

and proliferation of special units of government, as

Stephens and Wikstrom (1998) document. Most impor-

tant, they find district growth to be in those states

where general purpose governments are less centralized

in services delivery, which increases the issues of coor-

dination and accountability. Thurmaier and Wood

(2002) researched interlocal agreements in one metro-

politan area, looking at their value in connecting actors

and how they broker through exchange relationships.

They find that a culture based in a “norm of reciproci-

ty” predominates an economiz-ing value as the ratio-

nale for service-oriented policy connections. But inter-

local agreements are not simply managerial concerns;

city council also views such agreements as politically

important (Zeemering 2008). Collaborative connections

increase when managers participate in a regional associ-

ation or council of governments, and when they are

united by common professional norms, but it does not

necessarily increase formalized cooperation (LeRoux et

al. 2010). Interlocal collaboration, however, can be in-

creased by taking advantage of face-to-face interaction.

Examining interlocal cooperative agreements in eco-

nomic development, Feiock et al. (2009) draw on a

theory of “institutional collective action” that focuses

on transaction problems, including bargaining, infor-

mation, agency, enforcement, and division problems.

Predictive evidence to support this model is presented

that increase the prospects for cooperation, particularly

through informal connections. In a survey of Florida

local officials, Caruson and McManus (2006) found

such connections to have strengthened the intergo-

vernmental system through mandated interlocal colla-

boration.

Some research emphasizes the informal aspects of in-

tersectoral relationships, as opposed to the all-too-

frequent formal agreements in typical contracting re-

search. For example, Gazley completed an empirical

study of government-nonprofit partnerships in Georgia

and finds that these more relational forms of relation-

ships are based on trust, shared control, and reputation

where “the strength of a handshake is enough and so-

cial pressure cements relationships” (149). One of the

primary findings is that among the most active intersec-

toral partnerships reported by public and nonprofit ex-

ecutives in the state of Georgia, only half involve con-

tractual arrangements.

Collaborative horizontal connections can also be for-

mal. Government by contract involves collaboration

that is legally bound but remains as an interactive

process among parties. This concern is laid out well by

Van Slyke (2007), where he contrasts principal agent

and stewardship models of contracting. Heyman’s con-

cern with contracting predates the concern for the

“hollow state” by more than 30 years (1961). He refers

to the large number of federal employees that are be-

coming “invisible” as a result of the use of contracts,

grants, and other “instruments” (59). After looking at



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the benefits and problems of contracting, he concludes

that the presumed government/non-government di-

chotomy no longer exists. Providing additional evi-

dence of the prevalence and relevance of contracting,

Brown (2008) examined a large scale survey of gov-

ernment-to-government contracting in the low-risk pol-

icy area of public works and transportation, and high-

risk health and human services. Governments, seeking

to deal with the complexity of such services, are more

likely to use other governments for high-risk services.

Brown et al. (2006) offer operational advice for practi-

tioners of contracting, including important values to

maintain, tools-resources-constraints, and service main-

tenance of markets. They usefully put this framework

into action, as they cover “make-or-buy” decisions,

contract specifications, and contract management. Pub-

lic-private competition, what the British call compul-

sory competitive tendering (CCT), is examined by Mar-

tin (1997). He looks at anti-competitive practices, as

well as impacts on organization structure, services costs

and quality, management and organization, among oth-

ers, as potential lessons for U.S. governments.

The collaborative literature is also replete with studies

of public-private partnerships. Koppenjan and Ense-

rink (2009) review the literature on partnerships and

identify the governance practices that hinder or help

private sector participation in urban infrastructure

projects designed to promote urban sustainability.

Leach’s (2006) look at governance in 76 western wa-

tershed partnerships concludes that seven normative

ideals—inclusiveness, representativeness, impartiality,

transparency, deliberativeness, lawfulness, and empo-

werment—permeate most partnerships. Teisman and

Kiln (2002) examine ambiguity in partnerships, balanc-

ing new governance approaches with governmental

procedures and restrictions. Governments continue to

rely on “self-referential” organizational decisions. In a

broad look at public-private partnerships on a global

scale, Hodge and Greve (2007) focus on long-term in-

frastructure contracts. They find contradictory results

of their success and suggest that evaluations need to be

designed independent of their “policy cheerleaders.” In

an article that lays out the nature and operation of pub-

lic-private partnerships, Forrer et al. (2010) look at the

accountability of public-private partnerships, that is,

their ability to provide goods and services consistent

with public sector goals along six dimensions: risk,

costs and benefits, political and social impacts, exper-

tise, collaboration, and performance measurements.

Developing the Concept of Collaborative Pub-

lic Management

The development of the concept of collaborative pub-

lic management can be traced back, in general, to the

interorganizational traditions elucidated in the previous

section. However, the research suggests four elements

of the collaborative concept that provide a cause for its

inclusion in the field of public management: (1) inter-

dependence, (2) structural types, (3) process, and (4)

roles. Each of these is addressed in the following sec-

tions.



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Organizational Interdependence

In a very basic sense, collaborative public management

involves establishing and facilitating interorganizational

connections. The need for collaboration emanates from

the inability of single organizations to deal with socie-

ty’s most difficult problems, giving rise to states of in-

terdependence. Parties then explore their concerns

through collaboration. In a ground breaking work on

the process, a veritable manual of how to collaborate,

Barbara Gray (1989, 5) explains that “Collaboration is a

process through which parties who see different as-

pects of problem can constructively explore their dif-

ferences and search for solutions that go beyond their

own limited vision of what is possible.” Beverly Cigler

(2001, 78-81) identified nine preconditions for collabo-

ration:

1) Approaching a serious problem.

2) Conditions of fiscal dependence.

3) Availability of external capacity/technical assis-tance.

4) Internal collaborative skill-building expertise.

5) The existence of locally based policy lead-ers/entrepreneurs.

6) Engaging in building a political constituency for cooperation.

7) Securing early elected official support.

8) Promotion of the advantages of coordination.

9) Focusing on reachable strategies.

Her empirical research demonstrates how these condi-

tions helped move along multisector cross-community

projects in small towns and rural areas. In the era of

contracting, government and its interlocutors are highly

interactive and interdependent. As Romzek (2006) con-

cludes, public manager intervention is necessary “in

contracts involving complex networks of contractors

and subcontractors. For their internal workings, people

in public agencies tend to operate hierarchically; in

building and maintaining relationships with contractors,

those people are obliged to work through complex ho-

rizontal interdependencies” (167).

Early examinations of interdependence placed the locus

for such study in American metropolitan areas. In the

middle of the twentieth century, Grant (1954) be-

moaned the fact that studies of federal-city relations

exist “side by side” with studies that describe the go-

verning of metropolitan areas. He looks at the areas

and devices for federal influence upon metropolitan

integration, including consultation, federal spending,

contracts, and promotion of interstate compacts,

among others. This is one of the early attempts at ar-

guing for the theoretical and empirical study of the in-

tersection of vertical and horizontal relationships.

There is no mention of collaboration per se, but it em-

phasizes the coordination of metropolitan aspects of

city-federal relationships. Like Grant (1954) before

him, Beckman (1966) discusses federal and state actions

that can affect metropolitan government. However, he

takes a more critical tone toward the fragmentation of

local governments in metropolitan areas, citing “un-

even allocation of fiscal resources among the local gov-

ernments in a metropolitan area, disparities in levels of

service among central city and suburban jurisdictions,

economically inefficient scale of operations, excessive

spillover of costs and benefits, and unresolved areawide



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problems” (96). His remedy is to look more carefully at

how the vertical dimension of intergovernmental rela-

tions can strategically meet the needs of metropolitan

governance and create “a unity” between federal-state

activities and commonly accepted objectives for local

government (106).

In “A Lesson in Cooperation,” Berger (1956) describes

the multi-jurisdictional Bay Area Salary Survey, which

started in 1948 as a means to involve “federal, state,

and local agencies in a unified effort toward a common

goal”: providing a uniform personnel classification and

pay structure for the metropolitan area (188). He notes

graphically that an air traveler arriving over San Fran-

cisco would not see the “crazy quilt of cities, counties,

special districts, with an overlay of federal and state

activities covering everything” (187). Berger describes

essentially what Frederickson (1999) would much later

refer to as “administrative conjunction,” or the fact that

the provision of governmental services has little rela-

tion to the jurisdictional boundaries in a metropolitan

area. Similarly, Beaumont Hagebak (1979), a practition-

er with what was then the U.S. Public Health Service,

opens his article with a story about how, in the 1970s,

the Texas Governor’s Interagency Health and Human

Resources Council attempted to cross-index 196 state

programs that addressed human services. He notes that

“the resulting matrix…revealed an unmanageable 1,100

overlapping areas of joint agency participation in pro-

gram implementation. At the local level, federal human

service funds eventually reach[ed] some 28,000 local

units of government and an estimated 140,000 local

non-governmental agencies directly involved in service

delivery” (575).

Emergency management is one program area where the

interdependence of various organizations is par for the

course. For example, there are several obstacles to

overcome in coordinating medical responses: resistance

of physicians, autonomy and turf protection by health

care organizations, planning difficulties posed by in-

volving multiple local government jurisdictions, lack of

attention to prior planning, and isolation of plans from

other community emergency planning efforts (Tierney

1985). Rubin and Barbee’s (1985) look at disaster re-

covery and hazard mitigation cases found there to be

four critical concerns of interconnectedness:

1) Government’s ability to act strategically and technically, coupled with organizational flexibil-ity and adaptiveness.

2) Establishing a community direction with regard to its values and protecting and expanding its economic base.

3) Knowing what tasks to undertake;.

4) Understanding and using political support.

Looking at emergency management in the Hurricane

Katrina context, Comfort (2007) looks at the process as

a complex adaptive system that includes, among other

forces, self-organization and mobilization of a collec-

tive, community response system that is based on cog-

nition, communication, coordination and control.

Using several case reports from the U.S. Government

Accountability Office, O’Toole and Montjoy (1984)

found that as interorganizational interdependence in-



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creased with regard to the number of units involved in

program implementation, chances of success increased,

contrary to conventional wisdom. Crossing boundaries

in public administration is now prevalent, bringing on a

need for “indirect management,” which is based on

four major conditions: partial accountability, differing

objectives by implementers, program continuity, and

exchanges across organizational boundaries. Evaluating

and managing programs under such conditions creates

an environment in which administrative difficulties ab-

ound.

Collaborative Structures

How does one organize for collaboration? The struc-

tures through which collaborative public management

is practiced have evolved over time. Charles R. Wise

(1990) argues that interorganizational analysis “can

provide a framework for policy makers to understand

what they are trying to do and what is and is not possi-

ble” (145). He raises four “design” standards to deter-

mine what type of organization structure is appropriate

in a given situation:

1) Where the existing public organization(s) fits within the interorganizational field.

2) What the policy maker wants the interorganiza-tional field to produce.

3) What configuration of the organization net-work is most likely to produce the outputs.

4) What configuration of public organizations within the jurisdiction is more likely to facilitate the desired change in the relevant organization-al field.

Management is thus both institutional (single organiza-

tion) and transorganizational (across organizational

boundaries). He notes that the interorganizational field

of any activity of the public sector consists of a wide

variety of different types of organizations, public and

private. Wise accurately predicted that “public service

configurations” will be more rather than less complex

in the future, portending the recent increase in the sig-

nificance of collaborative public management.

Internal maximum flexibility allows for facilitating work

externally. Quinn’s Beyond Rational Management (1988)

calls for flexible models or the principle of “adhocra-

cy,” where the emphasis is on innovation and creativity.

“Here people are not controlled but are inspired” (40).

Saint-Onge and Armstrong (2004) similarly define Con-

ductive Organization, where each organization is posi-

tioned internally to also work across boundaries in or-

der to enhance its internal performance. As such, ad hoc

structures evolve. Agranoff (2007) found that Quinn’s

adhocracies slowly shift into some combination of de-

mocratically organized structures that change and adapt

with challenges and circumstances that he calls self-

managed “collaborarchies,” or counterpart structures

that are continuously readjusted to facilitate cross-

organization process (123). Thus, in some cases, colla-

borative public management involves informal linkages

and ad hoc adjustments to meet some agreed upon need.

In other cases, structures emerge out of the deliberative

process. For example, Agranoff’s (2007) study of 14

networks found that each evolved toward some form

of self-organized, adapted entity that fell somewhere

between the nonprofit organization voluntary elected



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board and bureaucratic task force or committee. Each

had some form of communication system (electronic

and face-to-face), internal power structure, along with

internal arrangements, for reaching agreements. Draw-

ing on their ongoing experiences in their agencies and

in nonprofit organizations, with internal teams, task

forces and workgroups, plus models provided by non-

profit organizations with boards and committees, col-

laborarchies are organized to facilitate the kind of

knowledge-based, multi-interest, multidisciplinary

problems that are so vexing that they require cross-

organization action. Thus, they are non-hierarchically

structured.

Short of organized collaborarchies are less formal

structures that are often used to promote collaborative

public management, namely communities of practice

and the epistemic communities that they often lead to.

The former are self-organizing systems that share the

capacity to create and use knowledge through informal

learning and mutual engagement (Wenger, 2000). Most

communities are self-organized and bring in new know-

ledge bearers when needed, from wherever they can be

found. Maintenance of communities of practice re-

quires efforts to keep different types of knowledge

bearers in, by challenging busy people with solving im-

portant public problems, and by calling on their expe-

rience and know how in an interdisciplinary manner.

Epistemic community can be facilitated by mobilizing a

multiagency group of professionals from different dis-

ciplines because they often share common outlooks

and similar solution orientations. Hass (1992, 3) sug-

gests that these persons can represent a variety of dis-

ciplines and share normative and principled beliefs

which provide a value-based rationale for action. They

also tend to share causal beliefs, notions of validity, and

a common policy enterprise. An epistemic community

normally produces consensual knowledge. Even in the

face of anomalous data the community may suspend

judgment in order to maintain their scientific legitima-

cy, maintaining for the moment its consensus as a

power resource (Haas 1990, 55). Epistemic communi-

ties can be important knowledge sustainers, as they can

have a disproportionate effect on organized learning

and behavior, and even though epistemic community

members may not constitute the most powerful agency

decision makers, they “are well situated to provide a

driving logic for cooperation” (Thomas 2003, 41).

Bringing together these communities for enhanced de-

liberation is among the emergent collaborative tasks of

public management. Both communities of practice and

epistemic communities in such areas as environmental

management, mental disabilities programming, com-

munity and economic development, and development

in third world countries regularly emerge as structures

between more ad hoc commissions and task forces, on

the one hand, and on the other hand, more organized

situations.

Perhaps the most visible collaborative structure (and

the most studied recently) is the network. The devel-

opment of the collaborative public management con-

cept is based in part on the emergent relevance of pub-

lic management networks. O’Toole’s (1997) now se-

minal article on networks is viewed as the beginning of



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a serious discussion in the U.S. about how to address

the increasing importance of public management net-

works and their management through collaborative

means. O’Toole suggests numerous reasons why net-

works are likely to be more relevant in the future. He

then sets out four research agendas for the public man-

agement field: the practical agenda, the conceptual and

descriptive agenda, the agenda for empirical theory, and

the normative agenda. Quoted and cited extensively,

the article calls on researchers to study public manage-

ment networks as a normal and salient part of adminis-

trative conduct.

However, usage of the term “network” in the public

administration context preceded O’Toole’s treatment

by several years. Kettl (1981) was among the first scho-

lars to use the term, arguing that there were network-

like changes to American federalism brought on by two

block grants from the Nixon era: the Comprehensive

Employment and Training Act (CETA) and the Com-

munity Development Block Grant [CDBG]. Although

there are many implications of these programs for local

administration, Kettl’s study of Richmond, Virginia,

highlights the degree of contracting out of the direct

administration of dozens of projects to non-city agen-

cies. He notes that the “complicated administrative net-

works that manage CETA and [CDBG] have simulta-

neously streamlined and muddied the problem of ac-

countability” (371, emphasis added). The use of the

term networks predates its common usage in the 21st

century.

Gage (1984) offers a prescient look at the role of net-

works in administering federal programs. While pre-

sented as a critical analysis of the creation and demise

of Federal Regional Councils (FRC), he observes that

the positions of actors/organizational units can be

represented pictorially as nodes, or “junctions when

there are multiple interconnections” (137). He empha-

sizes the role of politics in networking, and the necessi-

ty of formulating strategies, bargaining, and negotiating

in administration across governmental levels. His in-

depth depictions of national and local FRCs offer some

of the first such representations of network structures

in the public administration literature.

Rhodes (2003) cautions us that the term network holds

different meanings for each respondent who partici-

pates in empirical research. So while theorists sort out

the meaning of the term, so too do practitioners have

various conceptions of a network. Furthermore, not all

networks are alike. Agranoff’s (2007) typology of net-

works indicates that some networks have no authority,

even to jointly program; they merely exchange informa-

tion. Other types of networks also undertake education

that enhances the ability of the member organizations

to implement solutions, again at the individual organi-

zation rather than network level. Another network type

is involved in problem solving approaches, albeit indi-

rectly, as they blueprint strategies that are used by net-

work members as these members directly approach

client agencies. The most extensive type of network is

known as an action network. Unlike the other three

network types, action networks engage in collective ac-



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tion by formally adopting network-level courses of ac-

tion and often delivering services.

Myrtle and Wilber (1994) offer strategies for improving

service coordination by examining interorganizational

networks. They argue against vertical integration and

“rationalization” of the delivery of services through

interorganizational networks, but acknowledge that one

plausible solution is the creation of an organizational

structure to facilitate cross-network activities. This is

consistent with the findings of Provan and Milward’s

research on mental health networks (1995) and later

work on “hierarchical networks” for emergency man-

agement (Moynihan 2008). Interorganizational com-

plexity must be increased and an appropriate strategy

would be explore methods for creating collaborative

alliances between organizations within these networks

(251).

Managerial Processes

The “black box” of collaboration and management is

addressed in a great deal of scholarship, emphasizing

that the process of management is just as important, if

not more so, than the structure. Although framed with-

in the context of managing intergovernmental pro-

grams, Agranoff and Lindsay (1983) provide the empir-

ical foundation for the concept of collaborative public

management by examining the process of such man-

agement. Their study of six intergovernmental bodies

showed that the private sector must be considered

partners with government agencies, that joint actions

by managers—a “mutually carrying out of agree-

ments”—are necessary, and that, fundamentally, inter-

governmental administrative activities involve develop-

ing solutions to intergovernmental problems “instead

of contrived means of cooperation” (236). In a later

paper, Agranoff (1991) argues that mere program

coordination is no longer the answer for overcoming

managerial barriers. Instead, a type of “transorganiza-

tional management” is needed that places emphasis on

the development and integration of services. He con-

cludes that “a new paradigm must be invoked, where

the managerial task bridges the traditional structural

components of the single organization authority struc-

ture” (540) and involves forging directions by “joint

decisionmaking, engaging in goal-directed planning and

programming, and in developing operating agreements

executed by the mutual actions of disparate parties”

(541).

According to Thomson and Perry (2006), the black box

of collaboration can be thought of as involving five

dimensions: governance, administration, organizational

autonomy, mutuality, and norms. The concept of colla-

boration is defined in terms of formal and informal ne-

gotiation, joint creation of rules and structures and rela-

tionships, shared norms, and mutually beneficial inte-

ractions. The authors discuss the antecedents to these

dimensions and show that positive outcomes will result

for managers who understand these dimensions and

“manage them intentionally” (20). As Thomson and

Perry imply, the outcomes of collaborative public man-

agement are closely related to process, but the evalua-

tion of interorganizational networks has largely been

neglected in the public administration literature. Provan



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and Milward (2001) offer three levels of analysis of ef-

fectiveness: community level, network level, and organ-

ization/participant level. The three-fold analytical di-

mensions reflect the fact that so many stakeholders lay

claim to the outcomes of a network; customers/clients

do not make up the totality of the stakeholders. The

needs of constituents groups in the public sector are

many, and the number of groups is extensive. Further-

more, “network effectiveness of one level does not en-

sure effectiveness at the other two levels” (421).

Based on the examination of multiple case studies, Eu-

gene Bardach (1998) identifies a set of building blocks

in interagency operation that, when combined, build

“interagency collaborative capacity.” One pillar of such

“craftsmanship” involves creative opportunity, intellec-

tual capital, an implementation network, and supportive

advocacy groups. The other platform involves trust,

acceptance of leadership, and a communications net-

work. These platforms then combine to lead to im-

proved steering capacity, an operating subsystem and

continuous learning (274).

Internal process has similarly been identified by Mi-

chael McGuire (2002). He has developed a set of prop-

ositions that point to four key dimensions of managing

collaboratively: activating, mobilizing, framing, and syn-

thesizing. Activating involves identifying participants

for the network and including key stakeholders in the

process. The skills, knowledge and resources of these

potential participants must be assessed and tapped into.

Framing is defined as the behaviors used to arrange and

integrate a collaborative structure by facilitating agree-

ment on participants’ roles, operating rules, and net-

work values. It involves facilitating the internal struc-

ture and position of the participants, as well as influen-

cing the operating rules and the norms of the collabo-

ration. Collaborative managers also must induce indi-

viduals to make and keep a commitment to the net-

work. Mobilizing behaviors are used to develop com-

mitment and support for processes from participants

and external stakeholders. The fourth category of col-

laborative behavior posits that leaders employ synthe-

sizing behaviors intended to create an environment and

to enhance the conditions for favorable, productive

interactions among participants. Leaders try to create

and maintain trust among collaborative participants as a

means to build relationships and interactions that result

in achieving a purpose. McGuire’s four propositions

are based in contingency logic, as a way to test ideas

when, why, and how managers undertake these beha-

viors, as they strategically match behaviors with their

governing contexts. Thus, activation, mobilizing, fram-

ing, and synthesizing in relation to program objectives,

resource allocations, garnering stakeholder support,

resource allocation, and system maintenance are impor-

tant ways to study the manager in collaborative struc-

tures such as networks.

Stephen Page (2008) attempts to measure such capacity

to collaborate by looking at McGuire’s (2002) four

phases. He is concerned with the problems of account-

ing for the collective action issues of capitalizing work

across organizations. The four state human services

programs he studied used client “outcomes and indica-

tors to establish standards, rhetoric, incentives and



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communication regarding local collaboration” that

helped managers build the capacity to manage for re-

sults across agencies (158). Page concludes that it is

important for collaborating public agencies to provide

the resources, guidance, discipline and economies of

scale in gathering and analyzing performance data, and

of providing cross-site perspectives that worked in

practice.

Rethemeyer and Hatmaker (2008) extend the applica-

tion of these four collaborative management behaviors

by showing how public managers must be able to per-

form these behaviors “across policy, collaborative, and

fiscal networks within their home system as well as in

adjacent systems” (641). Management is not an explicit

function of just one person, and the actors in a specific

network may also be actors in other networks simulta-

neously. Contrary to McGuire (2002), who offers

propositions regarding the use of these behaviors by

assuming a single manager, the application of such be-

haviors is more complex. Managers must be “flexible

enough to tailor their network management activities”

(Rethemeyer and Hatmaker 2008, 641) to the different

interests of the manager’s home network and other ad-

jacent network systems.

Project success certainly depends on attention to

process during collaboration. Chrislip and Larson

(1994) examined 52 collaborative projects with the help

of the National Civic League. They explain that manag-

ing the process depends on:

1) Good timing and clear need.

2) Strong stakeholder groups.

3) Broad-based involvement.

4) An open and credible process.

5) Commitment of high-level leaders.

6) Political/governmental leadership support.

7) Work at overcoming mistrust and skepticism.

8) Building in small/interim successes.

9) Over time a shift to broader concerns (52-54).

This list from community development collaboration

emphasizes the importance of a) leadership and b) care-

fully orchestrated processes.

Collaboration involves more than reaching agreement;

it is also about enhancing trust among stakeholders and

generating political and social capital (David Booher

2008, 125). Judith Innes (2004) calls for a process that

includes own source ground rules, avoidance of posi-

tional bargaining, respectful dialogue, self-organizing,

fully shared information, consensus based on when all

interests have been explored, explicit and transparent

links to implementation, and public and stakeholder

review of any draft agreement (20). Similarly, John

Forrester (2009) calls for the process to approach the

real differences among parties:

Fostering dialogue can promote understanding and mu-tual recognition between parties, fostering trust and respect, beginning the work of relationship building—even as skeptics may always voice suspicions of this as “just talk.” Moderat-ing debate can sharpen arguments, identify crucial or missing information, and clarify critical differences between parties—even as such sharp argument always risks escalating antagon-isms and undermining relationships between the parties. Me-



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diating negotiation, in contrast, crafts agreements to act—signed commitments to give in order to get, to act together to satisfy the represented stakeholders’ interests—even as fur-ther, deeper structural issues require ongoing organizing. So, planners and community leaders must be clear, with them-selves and community members alike, in any given meeting: are we here to foster a dialogue, to moderate a debate between perspectives, or are we here to act, to agree together upon a plan of action (or, of course, do we want to combine these processes in some ways to serve our ends) (152-153)?

In this sense, Forrester concludes that differences in

priorities, interests, values, world views and perspec-

tives, political positions, cultural identities and more

may need to be honored and worked through rather

than ignoring them or sweeping them under the table.

In a seminal study of collaboration, Huxham and Van-

gen (2005) point to the painful and slow process of

erecting “collaborative advantage” to overcome the

many obstacles of “collaborative inertia,” that is, “a

mass of different aims that individuals and organiza-

tions will be aiming to pursue through the collabora-

tion, and that many of these will not be obvious be-

cause they will form parts of hidden agendas” (33).

Their theory of advantage “recognizes that managing

(rather than agreeing) aims is a central, continuous and

inherently difficult aspect of collaboration practice, ra-

ther than a precursory task to be got out of the way…”

(33). In addition, the authors point to the importance

of working processes, resources, communication and

language, commitment and determination, culture,

power, trust, accountability, democracy and equality,

and risk-taking as contributing to collaborative advan-

tage.

Collaborative Roles

The roles played by participants in a collaborative en-

deavor are important to consider. The literature on citi-

zen participation is broad and deep but only some of it

actually involves engagement as collaborative

processes. One stream is that of coproduction, where

citizens are involved in program implementation (Le-

vine and Fisher 1984). In the tradition of Elinor and

Vincent Ostrom’s work on service delivery in metro-

politan areas, Whitaker (1980) elaborates on the role of

citizens in producing—co-producing—and delivering

local services to the public. He explains that citizens

coproduce public services by requesting assistance

from service agents, by cooperating with service pro-

viders in carrying out agency programs, and by nego-

tiating with service agents to redirect activities. Promot-

ing participation and related partnerships, along with

community building and process orientation to man-

agement, are among the changes that have emerged

among local managers, as delineated by Nalbandian

(1999). In this regard, Kathi and Cooper (2005) devel-

op a model of citizen participation that brings neigh-

borhood councils into partnership with city councils

into a collaborative partnership. It is centered on inter-

active process in building trust and creating mutual un-

derstanding and agreement. In terms of city respon-

siveness to neighborhood organization interaction, five

possible determining factors may be at work: organiza-

tional culture, organizational leadership, organizational

rules and structure, dependence on stakeholder de-

mands, and extent of external control placed on the

agency (Bryer and Cooper 2007).



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Cooper at al. (2006) emphasize the role of the public in

collaborative management processes and advance the

argument that “deliberative and collective action strate-

gies of civic engagement hold the promise in achieving

a public-involving, citizen-centered collaborative public

management” (76). They offer a conceptual model of

civic engagement to demonstrate five basic dimensions

to civic engagement: who is involved, who initiates the

engagement, why citizens are involved, where the en-

gagement takes place, and how citizens are involved.

The authors thus make a case that collaborative public

management processes and structures must necessarily

include citizens in their deliberations. An empirical

study of neighborhood councils in Los Angeles (the

Collaborative Learning Project) focuses on the respon-

siveness of government bureaucracy to citizens in the

collaborative process (Bryer 2009). Seven propositions

for future study derived from three research questions

are raised: whether agency officials rely on their exper-

tise for decision making, whether agency official are

open to partnerships, and what is the benefits to ad-

ministrators. The study’s primary finding is that “ad-

ministrator and citizen perceptions of their own and

the other party’s roles may influence the quality of res-

ponsive behavior in collaborative activity.”

In a similar vein, Fong (2006) looks at collaborative

engagement along three interacting dimensions: who

participates, how participants communicate with one

another and make decisions together, and how partici-

pants are linked with public action. However, one must

be aware of the federal regulations that can place bar-

riers before nonprofits working on social action to

change program and policy (Berry 2005). A number of

citizen-based quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial

processes of engagement have been identified, such as

deliberative democracy, e-democracy, public conversa-

tions, participatory budgeting, citizen juries, study cir-

cles, collaborative policy making and alternative dispute

resolution (Bingham et al. 2005). These best practices

contribute to the processes of collaborative public

management.

The importance of learning together in collaborative

public management is captured by the work of Kop-

penjan and Klijn (2004) in their Managing Uncertainties in

Networks. Joint action by interaction is seen in part as

“searches wherein public and private parties from dif-

ferent organization (levels of) government and net-

works jointly learn about the nature of the problem,

look at the possibility of doing something about it, and

look at the characteristics of the strategic and institu-

tional context within which the problem-solving devel-

ops” (10). Cooperation, then, presupposes structured

learning between actors: “It requires numerous skills,

tacit knowledge of the network and negotiation skills

since the adopted strategies are implemented in a situa-

tion where singular hierarchical relations are lacking.

The role of the network manager is one of mediator

and stimulator of interaction and not one of central

director. This role is not given a priori to one actor. In

principle, this role can be fulfilled by several actors,

sometimes by even more than one actor at the same

time, both public and private” (11). Thus, learning in

multi-actor situations is crucial, as diverging and often

conflicting perceptions and objections and institutions.



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As governments increasingly engage externally with

other government entities and with the private sector

through vehicles like grants, contracts, loans, and

through networks, one must maintain a proper pers-

pective on the role of government vis-a-vis nongovern-

mental entities. Dwight Waldo (1948, 211) reminded

public management scholars decades ago that an ade-

quate “theory of organization” must maintain a purpo-

sive perspective on how “to solve the problems of hu-

man cooperation.” Government agencies maintain their

primary authoritative roles, normally including that of

participant in collaborating processes and normally the

ultimate decision-maker.

Wondolleck and Yaffee (2000) conclude in their study

of ecosystem collaboration that the government official

must take new and active roles:

At the same time, government agencies and institutions have a unique role and responsibility in these processes. While they should be capitalizing on opportunities to collaborate, they must recognize that they—and only they—are the final deci-sion makers. Some argue that the role of agency participants in collaborative processes is solely as a facilitator of other par-ticipants’ interactions. However, based on our review of suc-cessful collaborative processes, it is clear that where a group succeeded and was held in high regard by the broader commu-nity, the agency did not step back into a purely facilitative role. Rather, it provided essential leadership that guided the group while simultaneously representing its own interests within the process. It ensured that the side-boards provided by existing law and regulation were in place and understood, and that those individuals present recognized that implemen-tation of decisions could occur only through established ad-ministrative processes, including procedures for public review and comment. It took on the responsibility of ensuring the ac-countability of the process while still promoting collaborative interaction among multiple participants (244).

Despite all of the attention paid to the new collabora-

tive structures like networks, “…each public agency is a

bounded jurisdiction: it maintains day-to-day opera-

tional control over any potential network moves that

involves its programs” (Agranoff 2007, 219). Moreover,

Paul Hirst (2000) reminds us that government remains

the agent that pulls the various forces together, distri-

butes power and responsibilities, is the focus of politi-

cal identity, and is the main instrument of political legi-

timacy.

Practice of Collaborative Public Management

It has been argued that in order to be relevant, “man-

agement research must inform action” (Agranoff and

McGuire 2001b, 322). However, while the literature in

the area of collaborative public management is quite

robust, not all facets of this governance approach are

equally well represented in the literature. Importantly,

one of the areas for which there is an overall dearth of

research and an area that deserves more scholarly atten-

tion is that of the provision of practical guidance for

public managers who are either currently working in or

who are considering working in a collaborative envi-

ronment. In essence, while the field has spent consider-

able effort and made great strides in understanding

networks on an organizational level, the field has largely

ignored the scholarly inquiry of the internal operations

of networks (Agranoff 2006). The result is that there is

little scholarly insight into how collaborative networks

are managed, and thus little normative guidance on

how they should be managed. Of the more than one

hundred articles dealing with collaborative management

that have appeared in PAR, only a handful have either



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focused specifically upon providing insights for the

practitioner or even included implications for practice

in the discussion of the articles impact on the field.

This is particularly surprising given that PAR’s in-

tended audience includes both practitioners and aca-

demics.

That being said, there are a few PAR articles that have

included insights for practice. These articles can be ca-

tegorized as either focusing on managing the internal

environment, such as managing the collaborative

process, managing the members of the network, etc., or

focusing on managing the external environment, such

as managing external stakeholders, balancing network

demands with those of the home agency, etc. Carey

(1968) was one of the first to lay out the process by

which collaborative arrangements are, or perhaps

should be, undertaken. The findings in his study indi-

cate that the parties engaged in a collaborative enter-

prise must begin by defining the concept of the venture

and establish norms and ground rules for collaborative

behavior. In order to help ensure that they are jointly

held, the members of the network should negotiate the

vision, norms and rules that will guide the collabora-

tive, abide by what was mutually agreed upon

(DelGuidice 1970) and agree on mechanisms to self-

monitor their adherence to these jointly agreed upon

standards of behavior. However, it has been noted that

the rules must be sufficiently flexible in order to allow

networks to adapt to the complex problems that they

were established to address (Weber and Khademian

2008)

Networks must also be able to effectively manage their

membership in order for the collaborative effort itself

to be effective. Collaborative managers must under-

stand how best to use the resources, skills and efforts

of the members of the collaborative, how to link the

activities of the various members of the network, and

how to create an output that is seen as being of value

by stakeholders. Thomson and Perry (2006) point out

that collaboration does not imply the absence of an

administrative structure. As such, they suggest that it is

critical that collaborative partners clearly define mem-

ber roles and responsibilities. Further, members of the

collaborative effort must see the benefits to working

with others, that the time spent collaborating is not

wasted time, and that the network adds public value

that would not be possible had the members acted in-

dividually (Agranoff 2006). When this occurs, individu-

al members will be more willing to share a portion of

their individual resources (funds, information, etc.) be-

cause they see that the result of the use of those re-

sources by the network provides tangible benefits for

themselves. In other words, in order for the network to

be successful, members must see it as a win-win situa-

tion. As the Thomson and Perry (2006) point out, this

is unlikely without a feeling of trust and reciprocity

within the network.

Leadership is yet another important facet of effective

collaboration. Leadership within networks cannot be

coercive, since member participation in the network is

generally voluntary (Weber and Khademian 2008).

Therefore, the decisions and agreements that are

reached in a collaborative setting are forged by the con-



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sensus of partners and not via a leader-follower ex-

change (Agranoff 2006). This certainly does not mean

that collaborative arrangements are without a leader or

leadership. “Authority, or leadership, in networks is

often organic and informal in character, meaning that

leadership is not granted automatically because of for-

mal titles” or the position a network member has in

their own home agency (Weber and Khademian 2008,

342). Instead, leadership in a network is very much tied

to the individual network member’s social capital and

ability to facilitate the collaborative efforts of the net-

work. In other words, “collaborative efforts are facili-

tated by personal familiarity and not just institutional

contact” (Waugh and Streib 2006, 136-137). Such in-

terpersonal relationships can be fostered by providing

great numbers of coordination activities for the net-

work (Jennings 1994).

There is also a great need for the free exchange of in-

formation amongst network members as it has also

been found to be critically important for highly effec-

tive collaborative endeavors (Agranoff 2006). Accord-

ing to Weber and Khademian (2008), sending, receiv-

ing, and integration of knowledge is critical to the func-

tioning of a network and to building its collaborative

capacity. Such communication amongst members is

often best fostered by the leadership (Jennings 1994).

The authority of the governmental agency plays a criti-

cal role in soliciting, sharing and integrating knowledge

among participants in a network.

In addition to the management of the internal envi-

ronment of the collaborative enterprise, a network

must also consider the environment within which it

operates (Petak 1985). Particularly, it must pay atten-

tion to and exert time, effort, and thought in, managing

stakeholders. These external stakeholders not only in-

clude the recipients of the services provided by the col-

laborative, but also include the home agency that the

members of the collaborative enterprise represent and

that home agency’s external stakeholders. Often, this

results in the fact that the collaborative entity operates

in a very complex and complicated external environ-

ment. Since network members not only are part of the

collaborative effort, but are also part of their home

agency, they may be placed in a conundrum as they

may have to choose between serving their individual

agencies’ mission over the mission of the collaborative

(Thomson and Perry 2006). While this can be ad-

dressed by ensuring open channels of communication

and by emphasizing the need for collaboration to ad-

dress the intractable problems that likely spawned their

collaborative effort, reconciling the members’ dual

roles continues to be difficult for many collaborative

efforts (Thomson and Perry 2006). As such, the partic-

ipants of the collaborative endeavor must identify the

needs and desires of those that the collaborative serves

and strive to understand the political environments

within which the collaborative operates (Carey 1968).

It has also been noted that, while reliance collaborative

arrangements for serving the public good has certainly

been increasing, it does not mean that such structures

have replaced the traditional, hierarchical organization.



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Rather, the majority of a public manager’s time is still

spent and work is still most often performed within the

hierarchical structure of the manager’s home agency or

department (Agranoff 2006). And, the collaborative

manager must realize that the collaborative endeavors

occur within the context of the authority relationships,

accountability mechanisms, and the legal and perceived

responsibility that are in place as a result of this exter-

nal environment (Petak 1985). Given that there is finite

time and resources, the individual members of the col-

laborative must balance the demand of their home

agency with the demands of the network as there are

costs associated with the collaborative process. Agra-

noff (2006) identified a number of costs of collabora-

tion, including the opportunity costs to the home agen-

cy since the collaborative manager must take time away

for the home agency in order to collaborate, the time

cost associate with “protracted decision-making

process” (62), cost of inaction due to the inability to

reach an agreement, and the “gravitation toward con-

sensus-based, risk-aversive decision agendas” (62).

Given these costs, the decision for collaborative man-

agers and those who supervise them is to determine the

agency’s interest in the outcomes produced by the net-

work (Campbell and Sacks 1964). Therefore, those

within the collaborative must foster the buy-in of key

stakeholders, particularly those whose power who will

be relied upon to signal support of the collaborative

throughout their home agency (Carey 1968). Similarly,

Jennings (1994) argues that it is critical that those in

leadership roles, particular at the executive level, com-

municate that coordination is important. While this

support may come in the form of the symbolic backing

of the collaborative, there are a number of tangible ac-

tions that home agency supervisors can take to facilitate

the collaborative process. These include the removal of

policies, procedures and practices that establish ob-

stacles to collaboration. Hageback (1979) identified a

number of barriers to collaborative service delivery,

including organization, personal attitude, and vision

barriers. Organizational barriers include regulations and

laws, funding limitations, differing agency structures,

and delivering geographic service areas (576). Barriers

of person include evaluations based upon agency effec-

tiveness in delivering its own services and not on the

manager’s ability to engage in collaboration. Finally,

barriers of vision relate to failure to see the big picture

due to “the blinders of current organizational systems

and personal attitudes” (577). The removal of these

barriers goes both ways. The network must recognize

the autonomy of the home agency and its representa-

tive to the network and recognize that the collaborative

endeavor is often voluntary. As Jennings (1994) noted,

the acceptance of the diversity of the member agencies

and their goals are very most important factors affect-

ing effective coordination.

Activities that move agencies toward integration in-

clude: knowledge base sharing, joint training, integrated

board memberships, jointly staffed action groups, en-

gaging in jointly sponsored public awareness activities,

joint needs assessment, provide incentives/rewards for

joint efforts, establishment of joint outreach sites, joint

case management, joint system negotiation (Hagebak

1979) and the utilization of joint funding and program



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administration mechanisms (Jennings 1994). Further,

individual agencies must ensure that their internal rules

and regulations do not confound the collaborative net-

works ability to function optimally (DelGuidice 1970).

However, when home agencies do present barriers to

the collaborative manager, he or she needs to have the

“energy and commitment to overcome resistance from

within their home organizations” (Weber and

Khademian 2008, 344).

Effective collaborative managers also recognize that the

network’s capacity is contingent upon finding ways to

“create and sustain mechanisms for participation for all

stakeholders and finding solutions or processes that

meet the needs of stakeholders across the board”

(Weber and Khademian 2008, 344). In addition to the

focus on the stakeholders in the collaborative mem-

ber’s home organization, the citizenry are also impor-

tant stakeholders of the network. Networks may in

fact work best when citizens are viewed as collaborative

partners (Weber and Khademian 2008). Bryer’s (2009)

research focused on explaining the responsiveness of

the network manager to the citizenry. Findings from

this study suggest that a governance approach in which

stakeholders are seen as partners and the resulting rela-

tionship is expected to be long-term, mutually benefi-

cial, and span problems are more effective than gover-

nance structures in which the relationship is based

upon a customer or client based approach.

Silvia and McGuire (2010) examined collaborative lea-

dership in networks. Their approach was to compare

the leadership behaviors exhibited by public sector

leaders in their collaborative networks to the leadership

behaviors of those same leaders while leading their

home agency. They found that leaders spend more time

on people-oriented behaviors, such as motivating per-

sonnel, creating trust, treating others as equals, main-

taining a close knit group, sharing information freely

amongst group members, etc., while leading their net-

work than while leading their agency. Conversely, lead-

ers spent more time focusing on task accomplishment

while in the agency context. Finally, they found that

behaviors focused on managing the organization envi-

ronment, such as identifying stakeholders and engen-

dering their support, were important in both contexts.

These findings suggest that leadership in networks is

different than leadership in the traditional, hierarchical

agency. Therefore, public managers who find them-

selves in collaborative networks must use different lea-

dership approaches and skills to lead their collaborative

partners.

There has also been some research connecting leader-

ship behaviors to network effectiveness. Using the acti-

vation, framing, mobilization, and synthesizing frame-

work from McGuire (2002), McGuire and Silvia (2009)

found that activation behaviors, while very common

and presumably important, did not have a significant

impact on network effectiveness. It was posited that

this may be the case because such behaviors, which are

aimed at identifying the resources the network needs,

set the groundwork for success, but do not directly lead

to effective networks. Time spent engaging in framing

behaviors, such as creating member buy-in and estab-

lishing roles, rules and norms, were found to take away



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from the network’s ability to be effective. Finally, both

mobilizing and synthesizing behaviors were found to

positively impact network effectiveness. This indicates

that leaders of effective networks should focus their

energy on developing external stakeholder support and

creating an environment in which the network mem-

bers can effectively operate.

Conclusion

It is not always the case, or perhaps rarely is the case,

that collaboration can be practiced so easily. Being

faced with incentives to collaborate is not enough to

spur successful collaboration (Weber 2009). Research

into the operations of the Blackfoot Watershed shows

that the transformative character of ideas plays a critical

role in facilitating the transition to, as well as the design

and acceptance of, the formal collaborative institution.

These seven ideas include: a commitment to place, a

common vision of place, an equity-based holistic mis-

sion, a new framework for property rights, the trans-

formation of interpersonal perspectives, a changing

perspective on public problems, and the changed shape

of useful knowledge. Indeed, the environment in which

public managers operate impacts their entry into colla-

borative relationships (McGuire and Silvia 2010).

As public managers find themselves in situations in

which the problems facing their organization are in-

creasingly severe, they commonly reach out to other

entities and agencies. These relationships appear to be

an effort put forth by public managers to collaborate

with other “actors who possess the resources (including

legal authority, funding, organization, expertise, infor-

mation) that local managers need to achieve their

goals” (Agranoff and McGuire 2003, 48). Public man-

agement today is characterized by interdependence

with, interorganizational coordination through, and

leadership by collaboration with these very actors.

However, the relatively recent interest in collaborative

public management belies the fact that, as shown in this

essay, collaboration has existed in the public sector for

many decades. The prevalence of such collaboration

may have increased recently and the relevance of colla-

borative management for achieving public outcomes

may be growing as well, but we do not claim to have

witnessed a new management paradigm for the 21st

century. Research on intergovernmental relations and

management offers, and will continue to offer, specific

propositions concerning operations across levels of

government. Governing by network is presented in

many cases as just an extension of decades-old ideas

about outsourcing and contracting. And public man-

agement has not suddenly and abruptly begun to re-

write the principles that have instead slowly emerged

over time. New theoretical developments on collabora-

tive public management will no doubt emerge, but we

cannot successfully make the case that the field of pub-

lic administration still knows so little about collabora-

tion; there is much to gain from an in-depth examina-

tion of past collaboration research and practice.

Future research on collaborative public management

will no doubt continue to address many of the concep-

tual issues identified in this essay. There are more ques-



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tions than answers, and, as shown, the literature pub-

lished in Public Administration Review and other venues

provides many propositions left to be examined empir-

ically. Far from being episodic or occurring in just a

few programs, collaboration in public management is as

common as managing bureaucracies, and perhaps even

more so in such areas as economic and community de-

velopment, the environment, emergency management,

and the entire gamut of social and human services

(McGuire 2006). Government bureaucracy is not going

away; collaboration still complements rather than sup-

plants single organization management. However, the

research reveals that it is common enough to begin ex-

tending the knowledge base that can assist practitioners

in their efforts to plan and deliver public goods and

services.



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