Collaborative Service Provision in the Public Sector

Abstract

The topic of public service partnerships has clear substantive importance. Governments all over the world are increasing their dependence upon collaborative partnerships to delivery public services. This article reviews literature written in the crevice between the espoused benefits of collaborative service partnerships and the reality that they are difficult to create, sustain, and use to mobilize resources in ways that create positive results. According to this article, the literature exploring the collaborative public service delivery is diverse. This reflects the variation found in the field, as practitioners use an increasingly wide array of tools to work on complex, public problems. What has resulted is a disparate literature with two distinct streams of inquiry — one focusing on collaboration itself, the other on the consequences these new service arrangements have on organizations and citizens. This article reveals some fundamental issues unresolved in the ongoing scholarly inquiry.

Toward Open Public Administration Scholarship

“…Private and nonprofit organizations also are deeply involved in policy formation and service provision (Sandfort and Milward 2008).…”

Designing Public–Private Partnerships for Development

“…Although there are structural typologies for operational PPPs regarding the partners' interdependence (Austin, 2000;Sandfort & Milward, 2008), partner composition (Selsky & Parker, 2005), and scope (Kolk, et al, 2008;Waddock, 1991), insights into the differences in the use of governance and coordination arrangements are still scarce. However, the way in which partners govern and coordinate their PPP seems to have a great impact on the extent to which they are exposed to design challenges and the way they tackle them.…”

Water, sanitation and hygiene partners collaborating to combat severe cholera outbreaks during the State of Emergency in Zimbabwe

“…Terms such as collaboration, partnerships, networks, joint working, alliances and cooperation are interchangeably used to describe working together to achieve a common goal. According to Sandfort & Milward (2007), the terminology used in this concept of the working together of organizations implies different motivations that have brought members together. For instance, they point out that 'collaboration implies a consensual relationship created to improve operations whereas partnership reinforces the notion of reciprocal motivation.…”

“…However, academia describes it as a continuum moving from informal to formal relationships, showing the variation in collaboration intensity (Reilly, 2001;Sandfort & Milward, 2007;Keast & Mandell, 2011). Figure 1 shows a common representation of the continuum.…”

“…According to Sandfort & Milward (2007), collaboration involves multiple mechanisms such as staff integration, joint planning or joint budgeting. Therefore, it is inevitable to have cooperation and coordination in such relations; thus, collaboration can incorporate the first two arrangements in the continuum of collaborative arrangements and even results in provision of integrated services.…”