Niels Ejersbo

SERIAL ORGANIZATIONAL MONOGAMY: BUILDING TRUST INTO CONTRACTUAL RELATIONSHIPS

Contracting as a mode of governance has spread across United States and Europe. Contracting out has been formed around “low-trust” principal-agent relations as seen in “hard” versions of contracting. Empirical experiences with contracting have shown the need to build more trust into models of contractual governance. This trend is evident in the recent attempts to form “high trust” public-private partnerships (PPP’S). The main question addressed is: How do different models of contracting deal with problems of trust? The relationship between contracting and trust is examined in the first part of this article. In the second part of this article, we compare recent experiences with contractual governance in the United States and Scandinavia. The article ends by suggesting “serial organizational monogamy” as a third way between low trust and high trust contractual relations.

Reform Context and Status

This chapter examines the context for administrative reform in the Nordic countries. Context is important in public policy and management. The chapter provides this context in the shape of the organization of the public sector in the Nordic countries, as well as the reform narratives that have occurred in those countries in recent years. The chapter discusses whether there has been a common Nordic reform agenda and who the main reform actors have been. The main reform trends and contemporary reform programs in the different countries are described. The main research questions are: How are the Nordic public sectors structured? How has the socio-economic context influenced the way the reforms have been carried out in the public sector? What are the key features of the Nordic administrative reforms?

Relevance of Management Instruments

Public organizations use different management instruments to fulfill their mission, to perform better, or as a means to achieve administrative reform. The “Tools of Government” approach argues that instruments are an important and independent part of public sector reform, and should be analyzed as such. We ask two research questions: Do the Nordic countries constitute a specific model regarding use of management instruments? Is there variation between them in this respect, and how can these differences be explained? The analysis shows that the Nordic countries as a group are different from other groups when it comes to use of management instruments. The analysis of the variation between the Nordic countries revealed similarities but also differences making it difficult to talk about a common Nordic model.