David M. Van Slyke

The Mythology of Privatization in Contracting for Social Services

States and municipalities have privatized services in an effort to improve their cost-effectiveness and quality. Competition provides the logical foundation for an expectation of cost savings and quality improvements, but competition does not exist in many local marketplaces—especially in the social services, where governments contract primarily with nonprofit organizations. As government increases its use of contracting, it simultaneously reduces its own public-management capacity, imperiling its ability to be a smart buyer of contracted goods and services. This article examines two questions about the privatization of social services based on interviews conducted with public and nonprofit managers in New York state: Does social services contracting exist in a competitive environment? And do county governments have enough public-management capacity to contract effectively for social services? The findings suggest an absence of competition and public-management capacity, raising the question of why governments contract when these conditions are not met.

Why do People Give? New Evidence and Strategies for Nonprofit Managers

As the nonprofit sector grows and its relationship with the public sector deepens, nonprofit managers are working harder at developing donated financial and human resources. Although much research on nonprofit fund-raising has looked at who donates and which fund-raising strategies are most effective, no work to date has connected the two concepts; to illuminate which fund-raising strategies work with which donors. Using interview data conducted with nonprofit fund-raising executives and survey data on Atlanta residents, the authors estimate the impacts of sociodemographic and economic characteristics on the success of different donor development approaches. After constructing conceptual and empirical models, the authors’ data analysis allows them to develop a set of management implications that will assist nonprofit managers in crafting development strategies for the organizations they operate.

Do Charitable Donors Know Enough—and Care Enough—About Government Subsidies to Affect Private Giving to Nonprofit Organizations?

A large body of research has examined the effect of government subsidies to nonprofit organizations on philanthropy, with the preponderance of evidence suggesting that government funding partially displaces or “crowdsout”private giving. Such studies assume that charitable donors are aware of the amount of government funding received by their beneficiary charitable organizations and that they act on this information when determining how much money to donate. This study assesses the validity of these heretofore untested assumptions. After comparing the “best guesses” of survey respondents (N = 675) to the actual amount of government funding received by the charitable organizations to which they have donated money, the assumption of donors’ knowledge about government funding is found to be met only very weakly. Furthermore, few respondents anticipate changing giving behavior due to government subsidies. These findings suggest the need to explore explanations of crowding out beyond those assumed under current theory.

Public Service Leadership: Opportunities for Clarity and Coherence

and the Department of Homeland Security. David Van Slyke and I conclude with a brief summary of issues raised in the 2 days of symposium discussion and the presentations included here. We identify and discuss emergent issues for a future research agenda and new questions and challenges for leadership in all sectors. We sincerely hope that this symposium places development, support, and analysis of effective and creative leadership at the forefront of research and teaching agendas.

Trust and contract completeness in the public sector

Abstract In this paper, we identify the implications of different levels of contract completeness for the delivery of public services. While numerous factors influence the effectiveness of more or less complete contracts, achieving a win–win outcome – in which both parties to a contract achieve their goals – is in part contingent on the degree of trust between the contracting parties. We explore how varying levels of trust interact with the degree of contract completeness to influence contract effectiveness across different circumstances. In particular, we draw on examples of two types of commonly contracted, but distinctly different public services – refuse collection and social service provision – to illustrate how contracting governments often adapt contract completeness in response to changes in the level of trust with the vendor. We show how contracts become less complete over time as trust evolves between parties, as well how less complete contracts become more complete when trust deteriorates between parties. As such, we explore when contracting is risky for both governments and vendors and how contract relations can be structured to help create win–win outcomes for both.

The Privatization Decision Do Public Managers Make a Difference

In this article, the political environment of privatization and its impact on public management are examined in the context of the privatization of a state park in Georgia. The study specifically focuses on the actions of public managers in the privatization formulation and implementation stage. Public management capacity actually increased as a result of privatization. This is an outcome quite different from those reported by public management studies of other privatized services. Applying a principal-agent framework, this study yielded several lessons that may strengthen public managers’capacity to act as “smart buyers” of goods and services and to enforce accountability when managing contractual relationships. This study links theory to practice using a case study that allows a careful examination of the strategic responses of public managers confronted by largely political, as opposed to economic, pressures to privatize an already successful state park.

Strategic Management Innovations in State Transportation Departments

Building a strong capacity for strategic management is critical for governmental agencies in this era of results-oriented management, but considerable confusion remains about what strategic management involves and how to go about doing it. This article provides a framework for a holistic approach to strategic management in the public sector and explores innovative approaches along these lines in selected leading edge state transportation departments that are proactive in this area. Several guiding principles are distilled from their collective experience that are generalizable to other kinds of public agencies.

A framework on the emergence and effectiveness of global health networks

Since 1990 mortality and morbidity decline has been more extensive for some conditions prevalent in low- and middle-income countries than for others. One reason may be differences in the effectiveness of global health networks, which have proliferated in recent years. Some may be more capable than others in attracting attention to a condition, in generating funding, in developing interventions and in convincing national governments to adopt policies. This article introduces a supplement on the emergence and effectiveness of global health networks. The supplement examines networks concerned with six global health problems: tuberculosis (TB), pneumonia, tobacco use, alcohol harm, maternal mortality and newborn deaths. This article presents a conceptual framework delineating factors that may shape why networks crystallize more easily surrounding some issues than others, and once formed, why some are better able than others to shape policy and public health outcomes. All supplement papers draw on this framework. The framework consists of 10 factors in three categories: (1) features of the networks and actors that comprise them, including leadership, governance arrangements, network composition and framing strategies; (2) conditions in the global policy environment, including potential allies and opponents, funding availability and global expectations concerning which issues should be prioritized; (3) and characteristics of the issue, including severity, tractability and affected groups. The article also explains the design of the project, which is grounded in comparison of networks surrounding three matched issues: TB and pneumonia, tobacco use and alcohol harm, and maternal and newborn survival. Despite similar burden and issue characteristics, there has been considerably greater policy traction for the first in each pair. The supplement articles aim to explain the role of networks in shaping these differences, and collectively represent the first comparative effort to understand the emergence and effectiveness of global health networks.

Nonprofit Performance, Fund-Raising Effectiveness, and Strategies for Engaging African Americans in Philanthropy

During the past two decades, the field of philanthropy has grown in its knowledge base, knowledge sharing, and sophistication in reaching out to and cultivating donors and volunteers. The growing literature focusing on African American philanthropy has contributed to that knowledge base. Throughout much of the research conducted, African Americans are found to be an untapped philanthropic resource who have yet to be leveraged. Yet previous studies provide mixed results on giving and volunteering profiles and the impact of certain solicitation strategies. In this study, the authors use survey data from the Atlanta metro region to do what no other study on African American philanthropy has done. Using multivariate analysis, the authors match fundraising strategies to sociodemographic characteristics to create a development taxonomy to assist nonprofits in effectively engaging this group of potential donors. Nonprofit organizations can use these development taxonomies and empirical findings to enhance their fund-raising operations and improve nonprofit performance.

The Role of Fear of Crime in Donating and Volunteering A Gendered Analysis

Extensive empirical studies have established that women fear crime more than men and theoretical arguments have suggested this difference produces consequences ranging from increased medical and psychological problems to restricted movement and limited exposure to social networks and opportunities resulting in restrictive informal social control and reduced social capital. More recently, a number of studies have begun to test the theoretical link between fear and behavior, with some suggesting fear will restrict prosocial behavior and others suggesting fear will motivate behavior that improves personal and communal well-being. This study adds to this emerging literature by exploring how fear of crime affects two measures of philanthropic behavior—donating and volunteerism. Using a stratified random telephone survey of 2,361 individuals living in the 20 counties that compose the greater Metro Atlanta area, the authors explore the role of fear of crime as an independent variable in models of donating and volunteering time to a charitable organization. Additionally, interaction terms are included in models of volunteering to control for the possibility that the strength of the relationship may vary based on sex. The results indicate that fear of crime is an important predictor of volunteering, but not donating, and that the effects are stronger for women than men.