Julia L. Carboni

Representation in Collaborative Governance: A Case Study of a Food Policy Council:

Representation is a hallmark of democratic governance. Widely studied within traditional modes of governance, representation is less studied in alternative governance settings, such as collaborative governance arrangements. Collaborative governance arrangements are specifically designed to encourage inclusion and participation among a diverse array of stakeholders in some part of the policy process. Our research contrasts different forms of representation observed in a collaborative governance arrangement and identifies factors contributing to observed patterns in representation therein. We analyze descriptive representation (i.e., “representation in form”) or substantive representation (i.e., “representation in practice”) and look for inconsistencies between them. Our case study is a regional food policy council located in the Western United States. Among our findings is that discrepancies between descriptive and substantive representation can be explained by shared goals, local norms, organizational structure, and heterogeneity in member capacity. We conclude our article with a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of this research.

Ex Post Contract Market Structure: Implications for Performance Over Time

Government increasingly relies on complex arrangements of providers to deliver public services. There is burgeoning public administration literature on contract management and performance. This literature emphasizes contract management strategies such as contract design and ex post monitoring and relationship building to promote contractor performance. The literature does not examine effects of structural variables on contract performance in ex post contract markets, though work on interorganizational networks has long established that structural factors influence individual performance. This study examines the influence of structural variables on publicly funded contract performance in networked structures of exchange using 5 years of state-level contract data. Network concepts are used to develop contracts as networked exchange structures and develop measures of structural embeddedness for individual programs. Findings include that the structural embeddedness of individual programs influences individual contract performance on quality and cost dimensions over time.

Civic Engagement through Social Media: Strategic Stakeholder Management by High-Asset Foundations

Civic engagement through social media is a strategy employed by nonprofits typically using one-way targeted information dissemination to stakeholder groups. Improving the quality of communities and ameliorating social problems sustain nonprofit foundation missions, suggesting that two-way dialogic communication inspiring action is preferable for effective civic engagement over one-way communication. Using Facebook content analyses for three types of foundations-community, corporate, and independent grant making foundations-the authors employ a Relationship Management Theory RMT approach to assess effective civic engagement. RMT emphasizes the organizations dynamic interactions with stakeholder publics Ledingham, 2003. The authors code posts according to whether they ask stakeholders to act e.g.-asking users to respond to a question or share information. Using a quantitative modeling approach, they determine whether posts requesting stakeholder action are more likely to result in stakeholder engagement with posts. They examine type of post-status updates, external links, and multimedia-to determine whether type of post is also related to civic engagement. Facebook data for 300 randomly sampled high asset-foundations were accessed using a social media analytics program. Overall, the authors find that private and corporate foundations are more likely to use social media on average. However, community foundations are more likely to use social media as a call to action. This study informs foundations and the larger nonprofit community on how to apply such techniques to their own organizations for continuous improvement in supporting their missions and civic engagement goals. This study is also germane to other types of nonprofit and public organizations seeking to increase stakeholder engagement with social media platforms.

Measuring Risks of Organizational Failure in Contract Exchange Structures

Governmental agencies increasingly contract out service delivery, but have little understand- ing of the systemic risk associated with dependence on contractors in service delivery networks. In this study, affiliation network concepts are used to develop a structural index of government dependence on actors in service delivery networks without joint service delivery. Networks in- clude direct links to government funders and indirect links among contracted programs based on shared parent organizations. Understanding the structure of governance arrangements has practical implications for governance, in terms of understanding government dependence on a particular contractor and the risk associated with organizational failure of those contractors. Governance structures may also influence individual incentives to perform. This study makes two contributions to the governance literature. First, the study offers conceptualization of con- tracted programs as networked structures of exchange even where joint production does not oc- cur. Second, an index is proposed to capture the position of individual organizations in complex networks of exchange with government. This index can be used to determine the dependence of government on a specific actor in the service delivery network along with the risk to the network should a particular organization fail. This index can also be incorporated into statistical models of contract performance.

Using Network Analysis to Identify Key Actors in Collaborative Governance Processes

Abstract Collaborative governance is an increasingly popular form of governance. In theory, collaborative governance processes should be inclusive and value the perspectives of multiple stakeholders, including nonprofit organizations. In practice, this may not be the case. Recent work on representation in collaborative governance has found asymmetry in the way actor groups are descriptively and substantively represented in the collaborative governance process. We extend this line of work by employing network methods to create a diagnostic tool to identify which individual actors are substantively represented in collaborative governance processes over time. This tool is designed to systematically evaluate whether individual actors are under or overrepresented in collaborative governance. It provides a starting point for groups to discuss whether they are functionally inclusive and to understand whether non-inclusion is random or systematic. We apply the tool to collaborative governance in a regional food system and find variance in substantive representation by actor, indicating the collaborative governance process diverges from its inclusive design in practice. In particular, nonprofit organizations who are formally part of the collaborative governance process are not substantively represented in formal meetings to the same degree as city and county agencies.