Strategic Management in the Welfare State: Practice and Consequences — The Case of Flanders

Corte, Joris De; Verschuere, Bram

doi:10.1057/9781137336972_15

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

References 25 publications

(22 reference statements)

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“…After all, private welfare facilities receive up to 70 per cent of their total budget from regional government, which also aims to steer and control these actors. This hampers the autonomy of these private welfare facilities to make independent strategic decisions such as the target groups to be served or the organizational results to be obtained (De Corte and Verschuere ). When considering the ability of local networks to re‐organize welfare provision to citizens, we must be aware of the fact that these strong financial and accountability relationships with the regional government will inevitably have an impact on their ability and flexibility to question or challenge the admission criteria on which they rely to regulate access to their facility as well.…”

Section: Conclusion and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Networks for Welfare Provision: Getting a Grip on Processes of Social Exclusion by Evaluating Network Effectiveness

2016

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It has been repeatedly stated that the topic of network effectiveness has often been neglected. This has led to a situation of ‘network euphoria’ amongst practitioners and policymakers with regard to the creation of networks as a means to (re‐)organize welfare provision. Starting from a case study of networks for welfare provision in two Belgian cities, this article focuses on the effectiveness of service delivering networks at the client level, which is understood as the contribution of the network in improving the conditions of life of those being served or targeted by the network. Therefore, we focused on the collective efforts via these networks (e.g. by creating a night shelter or by conducting case consultations) to look after a population of homeless people who face multiple problems and are not able yet to benefit from welfare provision. Our findings revealed that these networks were able to realize a ‘collaborative advantage’ by filling in service gaps and by overcoming fragmentation of care. Nevertheless, these networks equally maintained criteria that restricted the accessibility or usefulness of welfare services provided to homeless people. In the concluding section, we highlight some of the factors that could help us to explain our findings and highlight the tension between the effectiveness of networks at the client level and the effectiveness at the organizational level.

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Section: Conclusion and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%