Chris Skelcher

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

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

Working Across Boundaries: Collaboration in Public Services

The Collaborative Agenda Collaboration and the State Understanding Collaboration Collaboration on Cross-Cutting Issues Collaboration Across Sectors Building Capacity for Collaboration The Dynamics of Collaboration The Governance of Collaboration Citizens and Collaboration Evaluating Collaboration Collaboration and Modernisation Notes on Sources and Research Methods Number and Value of Multi-Agency Partnerships, 2001/2002

Changing images of the State: overloaded, hollowed-out, congested

Three conceptualisations of the UKs state are identified: the overloaded state of the 1960s/1970s; the hollowed-out state of the 1980s/early 1990s; the congested state of the late 1990s. In this latter period the creation of collaborative institutions has become a core strategy in all areas of UK public policy. This rich web of linkages arose in response to the problems inherent in the fragmentation arising from hollowing-out. The resulting partnerships bring together public, private, voluntary and community sector actors. They operate between and around the core institutions of democratic government. These tertiary (partnership) structures have complex accountability relationships with primary (elected) and secondary (appointed) public bodies, as well as with other actors. The example of Northshire shows how inter-linked strategic and specific partnership boards create an alternative, collaborative governance structure for a locality which is largely outside democratic processes. This development has fundamental implications for our appreciation of the institutional framework of UK government, as well as for the debate about and practice of democratic renewal.

THEORIZING HYBRIDITY: INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS, COMPLEX ORGANIZATIONS, AND ACTOR IDENTITIES: THE CASE OF NONPROFITS

We propose a novel approach to theorizing hybridity in public and nonprofit organizations. The concept of hybridity is widely used to describe organizational responses to changes in governance, but the literature seldom explains how hybrids arise or what forms they take. Transaction cost and organizational design literatures offer some solutions, but lack a theory of agency. We use the institutional logics approach to theorize hybrids as entities that face a plurality of normative frames. Logics provide symbolic and material elements that structure organizational legitimacy and actor identities. Contradictions between institutional logics offer space for them to be elaborated and creatively reconstructed by situated agents. We propose five types of organizational hybridity – segmented, segregated, assimilated, blended, and blocked. Each type is theoretically derived from empirically observed variations in organizational responses to institutional plurality. We develop propositions to show how our approach to hybridity adds value to academic and policy-maker audiences.

Transforming local government: innovation and modernisation

This article is based on research investigating why local authorities innovate and what happens when they do. The authors show how local authorities have responded to the current normative climate for innovation, and explore the interaction between central policy and local action. The article demonstrates the importance of the policy climate set by central government in fostering—or constraining—innovation at a local level.

Theory-driven approaches to analysing collaborative performance

Abstract The theory-driven approach to analysing and assessing collaborative performance provides an important tool for researchers and policy-makers seeking to understand collaborative performance. It explains performance deductively, in terms of the a priori causality of relationships between variables. Different theoretical domains provide different insights into collaborative performance. The theory-driven approach to collaborative performance contrasts with the metric-driven approach. Here, performance is defined in terms of what can be measured, and causality is then inferred inductively. Five performance domains are identified, covering the democratic, integrative, transformative, policy, and sustainability dimensions of collaboration. These draw on democratic theory, exchange and power-dependency theory, institutional theory, policy network theory, and discourse theory. The analytical consequences of each theory-driven approach are examined through three case studies. The article concludes that each theoretical perspective provides a distinctive insight into collaborative performance, thus more accurately reflecting its multifaceted mature than is possible with a metric-driven approach.

Corporate Governance in a Collaborative Environment: What Happens When Government, Business and Civil Society Work Together?

This paper discusses the findings of a study undertaken by a team from the University of Birminghams Institute for Local Government Studies (INLOGOV), funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. The research explores the implications for democratic practice of collaborative working through partnership arrangements in the public sector. Through a study of multi-organisational partnerships in two local authority areas, the research identifies a problem for policy makers to address: partnerships are flexible management tools, but exhibit a democratic deficit in terms of the rules and procedures of public governance when measured against a benchmark of elected local government. Partnerships are in, but not of, the community.

Explaining the Democratic Anchorage of Governance Networks

Advances in understanding the democratic anchorage of governance networks require carefully designed and contextually grounded empirical analysis that take into account contextual factors. The article uses a conjectural framework to study the impact of the national democratic milieu on the relationship between network governance and representative institutions in four European countries: the United Kingdom, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Denmark. The article shows that the distinction between majoritarian and consensus democracy as well as the varying strength of voluntary associations are important contextual factors that help explain cross-national differences in the relationship between governance networks and representative institutions. We conclude that a context of weak associationalism in majoritarian democracies facilitates the instrumentalization of networks by government actors (United Kingdom), whereas a more complementary role of governance networks prevails in consensus democracies (Switzerland). However, in consensus democracies characterized by a context of strong associationalism (the Netherlands and Denmark), the spread of governance networks in public policy making is likely to lead to more substantial transformations of the democratic processes.

Shrinking the quango state: five challenges in reforming quangos

Some problems of governance regularly resurface, and the use and role of ‘quangos’— public bodies operating at arms-length to ministers—is a case in point. The administrative history of the British state is littered with official reviews and political debates about quangos. Historically, governments, whatever their reforming zeal, have found it difficult to make substantial changes. Now the UK government has initiated a rapid and large-scale set of reforms. This article analyses these changes and highlights five challenges for governments wishing to reform arms-length bodies: mapping, assessing, reconfiguring, saving, and accounting.

Intervention or Persuasion? Strategies for Turnaround of Poorly-Performing Councils

This article provides early results from a long-term evaluation of the turnaround strategies by poorly-performing local authorities in England. The history and theory behind central government interventions into local government is reviewed, focusing on the Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA). The journeys taken by 10 local authorities, after being labelled as ‘poor’ or ‘weak’, are described and these responses are located within the literature on theories of turnaround and public sector service improvement. The authors conclude by setting out a research agenda for the future.