Treating Networks Seriously: Practical and Research-Based Agendas in Public Administration

Abstract

Networks are structures of interdependence involving multiple organizations or parts thereof, where one unit is not merely the formal subordinate of the others in some larger hierarchical arrangement. Networks exhibit some structural stability but extend beyond formally established linkages and policylegitimated ties. The notion of network excludes mere formal hierarchies and perfect markets, but it includes a very wide range of structures in between. The institutional glue congealing networked ties may include authority bonds, exchange relations, and coalitions based on common interest, all within a single multiunit structure. In networks, administrators cannot be expected to exercise decisive leverage by virtue of their formal position. Influence in larger networks is more difficult to document, predict, and model than it is in relatively simple two-or threeparty relationships.Scholarly work on public administration has proceeded for decades from the seminal contributions of Herbert Simon (1976) and others, who argued that hierarchy can "push back" the decision-making weaknesses experienced by individuals -converting their human limitations (like selective perception) into organizational strengths. This result is not inevitable, and it is the challenge of the manager to craft the contexts in which others must make decisions so that they will have what they need to make sound choices efficiently.

Leadership, Service Reform, and Public-Service Networks: The Case of Cancer-Genetics Pilots in the English NHS

“…In the UK, the publicservice network has been seen as a means of ‗joining up' service provision even as hierarchy and market have remained, and indeed been strengthened, as modes of governance. Though the notions of the intra-and inter-organizational network are founded in the private sector (see Nohria and Eccles 1992;Reed 1992), there is a growing literature on their role in public-service provision (Provan and Milward 1995;O'Toole 1997;Peters and Pierre 1998;Rashman and Hartley 2002). Private-sector networks are largely explained in terms of reduced transaction costs and interdependence between firms, but for public-service organizations, network-level outcomes for clients are additionally seen as a motivation for integration (Provan and Sebastian 1998).…”

“…Reflecting wider trends for networked organization in the policies of various developed-world countries, UK public services were already moving towards networked governance in the early 1990s under the previous Conservative administration (Newman 2001). To this extent, networks can be seen as a logical development of the New Public Management policies prevalent across developed-world governments, especially those subject to Anglo-American influences O'Toole 1997). In the UK, health policy was an early adopter of the network principle, with ‗managed clinical networks' introduced in a variety of specialties, including cancer, in the NHS from the mid-1990s, mirroring trends towards networked healthservice delivery in Europe (Wijngaarden et al 2006) and the US (Shortell et al 1994).…”

“…Networks and leadership have been advocated as means of reinvigorating state-run services, especially in the US, the UK, and developed-world countries subject to AngloAmerican influences such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand O'Toole 1997;Shortell et al 2000;Agranoff and McGuire 2001;Hennessey 1998;Kakabadse et al 2003). In theory, leadership and networks should complement each other, with the looser organization and less hierarchical ordering logic of the network allowing leadership of change, distributed among network members rather than led from a single organizational apex, to flourish.…”

Structural and Institutional Determinants of Influence Reputation: A Comparison of Collaborative and Adversarial Policy Networks in Decision Making and Implementation

“…Research on collaborative networks identifies factors that inhibit these collective action problems, such as bonding and bridging, social capital, and the integration of local actors (Andrews et al 2005;Berardo and Scholz 2010;O'Toole 1997;Provan and Milward 1995;Schneider et al 2003;Shrestha 2012;Terman and Feiock 2014).…”

A Network for Eating and Nutrition as a platform for cooperation over the organisational borders between healthcare sectors in Sweden

“…Th e eff ectiveness of these networks depends on their focus on community-level goals, not only their focus on client and public goals (8)(9)(10). Further, networks can be important contexts in which to set agendas that imply sustained, creative and systematic ways to work that are based on evidence based knowledge (11). As an important form of multi-organisational governance the networks enhance learning, effi cient use of resources, increased capacity to plan for, and address complex problems, greater competitiveness and better service for clients and consumers (9).…”