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Indiana UniversityBloomington
Michael McGuire is an associate Collaborative public management research is ourishing. multiorganizational arrangements in order to remedy
professor of public and environmental A great deal of attention is being paid to the process and problems that cannot be solvedor solved easilyby
affairs at Indiana UniversityBloomington.
He is the coauthor (with Robert Agranoff)
impact of collaboration in the public sector, and the single organizations. The focus in this article is the
of Collaborative Public Management: New results are promising. This article reviews the literature public manager. Although collaboration takes place
Strategies for Local Governments, which on collaborative public management by synthesizing in contexts in which government is not a major
received the 2003 Louis Brownlow Book
Award from the National Academy of
what we know from recent research and what weve actor or is not an actor at all (Austin 2000; Lipnack
Public Administration. known for quite some time. It addresses the prevalence and Stamps 1994), this paper views government as
E-mail: mcguirem@indiana.edu. of collaboration (both recently and historically), the steering policy making and execution, and thus it
components of emerging collaborative structures, the types is the entity through which collaborative public
of skills that are unique to collaborative management, management occurs and management activity is
and the eects of collaboration. Collaborative public channeled. Collaboration certainly relies on various
management research oers a set of ndings that leaders at various times performing dierent roles,
contribute to an emerging knowledge base that but in the typical context of collaborative public
supplements established public management theory. management, government is ultimately held account-
able for the satisfactory delivery of public goods and
P
ublic managers operate in collaborative settings services. Public managers cant always command
every day. In Texas school districts, for example, action, but they are still responsible for their
superintendents manage their external environ- collaborative outcomes (McGuire 2002). This review,
ment by interacting with school board members, therefore, assumes the governmental perspective in
business leaders, legislators, state education agencies, collaborative management.
other superintendents, parent groups, teacher associa-
tions, and federal government ocials (Meier and The rst section of this article examines the assump-
OToole 2005). In Beloit, Wisconsin, the city govern- tion in the literature that collaborative public manage-
ment worked actively with a nonprot redevelopment ment is a fresh approach to governing. If we believe
association to transform a blighted area by engaging the expanding body of research on the topic, collab-
ocials from the U.S. Department of Transportation, orative public management is increasing in incidence
the Rock County government, the Wisconsin Depart- and in importance. However, research also suggests
ment of Development, and numerous industries that collaborative management in the public sector
(Agrano and McGuire 2003). In California, an has been occurring for many decades. The second
emergency collaborative task force involving federal, section of the article looks at the structures through
state, and local ocials, private agencies, and other which collaborations are managed. It demonstrates
local representatives was established to address the that, contrary to what is often put forth in the
outbreak of a deadly poultry-based disease (Moynihan contemporary network literature, some collaborative
2005a). These and countless other examples represent structures actually adopt elements of single, hierarchi-
typical activities for many public managers in the 21st cal organizations. The third section discusses the vast
century. array of skills that are necessary for eective collabora-
tive management but also argues that many such skills
This article provides a synthesis of the research on are valuable components of organizational behavior in
collaborative public management by reviewing both collaborative settings and single organizations.
what weve learned recently about such management, The fourth section examines the positive impacts of
as well as what weve known for some time. collaboration on program performance while demon-
Collaborative public management is a concept that strating the inherent diculties of collaborative
describes the process of facilitating and operating in management.
Collaborative Public Management 33
The New and the Old simultaneously prefers more government action and
less government involvement. As the velocity of
The Newness of Collaborative Public government has increased over the past few decades,
Management the propensity of citizens to expect greater choice of
Judging from the surge of research, it would appear services administered through less traditional govern-
that collaboration is a relatively recent phenomenon, a ment activities has increased as well (Goldsmith and
new world in which management principles must be Eggers 2004). Thus, according to these arguments,
rewritten and theories of organizing must be updated. collaborative public management is emergent.
One recent volume argues that governing in this
collaborative, networked era requires a form of public How New?
management dierent from what the country has Although the recent spate of attention to collaborative
become accustomed to over the past 100 years public management suggests its newness, there is
(Goldsmith and Eggers 2004). Similarly, Kettl (1996) ample evidence to suggest that managers have prac-
argues that the most important change in administra- ticed collaborative public management for quite some
tive functioning over this past century has been in- time. Research in intergovernmental relations and
creasing interdependence among public organizations, management and policy implementation has de-
which has changed the jobs of public administrators, scribed public management as being collaborative in
who must now build critical linkages with other practice. American federalism, for example, is perhaps
agencies. Stoker states that theres a new kid on the the most enduring model of collaborative problem
block, a management that denes its task more resolution (Agrano and McGuire 2003). Writing in
broadly than do previous paradigms and achieves 1960, Grodzins argued that federal-state-local col-
many of its purposes through a dynamic of network laboration is the characteristic mode of action and
governance (2006, 43). that any governmental activity is almost certain to
involve the inuence, if not the formal administra-
If collaborative public management is indeed new and tion, of all three planes of the federal system (1960,
becoming the prominent form of governing, why is 26667). His metaphor of the marble cake described
this occurring? One perspective argues that societal a federalism that is cooperative across levels of govern-
change is a primary determinant of collaborative ment. Indeed, some have argued that federalism in the
public management. Just as the hierarchical organiza- United States has always been cooperative, in that
tion emerged during the agricultural age and bureau- nearly all the activities of government, even in the
cracy was the dominant form of organization during 19th century, were shared activities involving all levels
the industrial age, the nascent information age has of government in their planning, nancing, and ex-
given rise to permeable structures in which people can ecution (Elazar 1962; Grodzins 1966). The grant-in-
link across organizational functions and boundaries. aid system in America certainly is the most prominent
This social change thesis argues that the world is char- context within which collaboration has occurred since
acterized by extreme diversity where power is dis- the 19th century. The aid process has long been char-
persed, not centralized; where tasks are becoming acterized by the presence of bargaining, cooperation,
de-dierentiated, rather than subdivided and special- and mutual dependence (Ingram 1977; Pressman
ized; and where society worldwide demands greater 1975). Even in the absence of cooperative nancing,
freedom and individuation, rather than integration however, the three levels of government and nonprot
(Agrano and McGuire 2003, 23). For many, its the organizations cooperateand have cooperatedboth
age of the network and collaboration. informally and ocially, vertically and horizontally, in
many dierent ways and through many dierent
Another perspective asserts that the types of problems mechanisms for decades.
that government faces today cannot be addressed
eectively through traditional bureaucracies. Solving There is also empirical evidence demonstrating the
seemingly intractable problems such as poverty, health direct connection in the 1960s between federal policy
care, and natural disasters, the argument goes, requires making in the United States and the development of
dierent mechanisms that are more exible, more implementation structures that involved multiple
inclusive, and more adaptable and operate with actors. Hall and OToole (2000, 2004) examined the
greater speed (Alter and Hage 1993) than those of institutional arrangements incorporated into the
conventional government organizations. These legislation enacted by the 89th and 103rd Congresses.
problemsoften referred to as wicked problems They found that the majority of signicant new legis-
have no clear solutions, only temporary and imperfect lation prescribed the involvement of collaborative
resolutions (Harmon and Mayer 1986). OToole structures for policy implementation. The research
(1997) suggests that policies dealing with such demonstrates empirically that in most cases [for both
complex issues will increasingly require collaborative Congresses], the implementation of new programs at
structures for execution. Collaborative structures may the national levels requires U.S. public administrators
be needed in problem areas in which the public to be prepared to work a variety of dierent kinds of
34 Public Administration Review December 2006 Special Issue
actors both within and without governmentactors tions; it is often dicult to distinguish where the
drawn from dierent organizational cultures, inu- boundary lies between these dierent environments.
enced by dierent sets of incentives, and directed In some cases, management takes place in highly
toward dierent goals (Hall and OToole 2004, 190). formalized and lasting arrangements, such as a net-
Subsequent research has shown that postlegislation work that is either encouraged (Schneider et al. 2003)
rulemaking by implementing federal agencies also or prescribed (OToole 1996; Radin et al. 1996) by
led to collaborative administrative arrangements law. In others, formal collaborative ties form within
(Hall and OToole 2004). specic policy areas. Informal, emergent, and short-
term coordination is also a common component of
Pressman and Wildavsky (1973) were among the rst collaborative public management (Drabek and McEn-
to discuss policy implementation in terms of shared tire 2002).
administration, suggesting the collaborative nature of
public management. Based on an empirical investiga- One type of collaborative context or interorganiza-
tion of the Economic Development Administrations tional innovation identied by Mandell and Steel-
attempts to address the unemployment of minorities man (2003) is intermittent coordination, which occurs
in Oakland, California, during the 1960s, their refer- when the policies and procedures of two or more
ence to the complexity of joint action describes the organizations are mutually adjusted to accomplish an
multiplicity of participants and perspectives from all objective. Interaction occurs at a low level, and the
levels of government pursuing policy goals that, in commitment to each other is kept at arms length.
practice, may be conicting. More than two decades Disaster response is one area in which coordination is
ago, Hjern and Porter (1981) described implementa- intermittent. A second type of collaborative context is
tion structures operating with representatives of dier- a temporary task force, which is established to work on
ent agencies and exercising considerable discretion in a specic and limited purpose and disbands when that
practice. Collaborative structures used to implement purpose is accomplished. As in intermittent coordina-
manpower training in Germany and Sweden during tion, resource sharing is usually limited in scope. A
the 1970s were characterized at that time by multiple third type of collaborative context, according to
power centers with reciprocal relationships, many Mandell and Steelman, is permanent or regular coordi-
suppliers of resources, overlapping and dynamic divi- nation. Such coordination occurs when multiple
sions of labor, diused responsibility for actions, organizations agree to engage in a limited activity in
massive information exchanges among actors, and the order to achieve a specic purpose or purposes
need for information input from all actors (Hanf, through a formal arrangement. Membership in this
Hjern, and Porter 1978). Many policy studies in the arrangement is delineated strictly and restricted so
1980s revealed the extent of collaboration in public that there is stable coordination (203). Resource
policy implementation (Hull and Hjern 1987; exchange is more extensive than in the rst two
Mandell 1984; OToole 1985). So, although recent arrangements, but the risk is minimal. Examples of
research often describes collaborative public this type of collaborative arrangement are regional
management in novel terms, there is a rich planning groups or wraparound case management
history that precedes it. in the social services. Another example of regular
coordination can be found in emergency management
Locus of Collaborative Public Management planning and preparedness.