Collaborative Public Management

New Strategies for Local Governments

Robert Agranoff

• Publisher: Georgetown University Press
• Year: 2004
• ISBN:
  9781589012981
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Public Affairs & Administration
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Local governments do not stand alone—they find themselves in new relationships not only with state and federal government, but often with a widening spectrum of other public and private organizations as well. The result of this re-forming of local governments calls for new collaborations and managerial responses that occur in addition to governmental and bureaucratic processes-as-usual, bringing locally generated strategies or what the authors call "jurisdiction-based management" into play.

Based on an extensive study of 237 cities within five states, Collaborative Public Management provides an in-depth look at how city officials work with other governments and organizations to develop their city economies and what makes these collaborations work. Exploring the more complex nature of collaboration across jurisdictions, governments, and sectors, Agranoff and McGuire illustrate how public managers address complex problems through strategic partnerships, networks, contractual relationships, alliances, committees, coalitions, consortia, and councils as they function together to meet public demands through other government agencies, nonprofit associations, for-profit entities, and many other types of nongovernmental organizations.

Beyond the "how" and "why, " Collaborative Public Management identifies the importance of different managerial approaches by breaking them down into parts and sequences, and describing the many kinds of collaborative activities and processes that allow local governments to function in new ways to address the most nettlesome public challenges.

1
Collaboration at the Core

The government of Beloit, Wisconsin, works actively with Beloit 2000, a nonprofit redevelopment association, to transform a blighted area on the Rock River that runs through the heart of town into a combined venue of civic center, industrial site, and moderate- and low-income housing. Among other activities, Beloit 2000 mobilized neighborhood groups, the business community, local elected officials, and the city administration behind its goals. The city was called upon to tackle infrastructure improvements, handle building and other permits, and devote federal Community Development Block Grant money and U.S. Department of Transportation Urban Rivers Program funds to this effort. The Rock County government was asked to contribute tax funds and to either relocate some office space or build a new facility in the redevelopment area. Both the city and county governments used their state-authorized powers to establish tax increment finance districts, grant tax abatements, and reduce or eliminate regulations that thwarted development. Both of these public entities worked with Beloit 2000 in seeking additional project grants and loans from the state and federal governments to finance portions of the project. Finally, numerous interactions took place between nonprofit associations, industries and housing interests, and all levels of government over financing arrangements, regulatory permits, and taxation questions. The Wisconsin Department of Development assisted local interests in working through these interorganizational and intergovernmental questions, not only with regard to programs in their own department but also with other state departments, particularly those dealing with highways and environmental protection programs.

The principle that managers often must operate across organizations as well as within hierarchies is becoming an accepted component of contemporary management theory. This includes the work of governments connecting with other governments and with the nongovernmental sector. Through partnerships, networks, contractual relationships, alliances, committees, coalitions, consortia, and councils, managers in public and private agencies jointly develop strategies and produce goods and services on behalf of their organizations.

For the greater part of the twentieth century, the processes of hierarchical management occupied practical and academic attention. But such a focus captures too few of the challenges faced by today’s managers. In the twenty-first century, interdependence and the salience of information have resulted in an environment where organizational and sectoral boundaries are more conceptual than actual, and collaborative managerial responses are required to complement, and in some cases even displace, bureaucratic processes. This type of cross-boundary collaborative management is the subject of this book, which is based on an empirical study of 237 cities and their officials as they work with other governments and organizations to develop their city economies.

Cities and their public managers operate in a complex intergovernmental and interorganizational environment. The past few decades have brought home the ubiquity of interdependence among jurisdictions, government agencies, nonprofit associations, and for-profit entities at the local level. In many functional areas, cities contract with private-sector agencies to deliver basic services to citizens. Metropolitan areas continue to grow in number, size, and density, making the daily work of each city a direct determinant of work in other nearby cities; managing externalities is synonymous with governing in central cities and their surrounding suburbs. Rural communities as well must seek out governing resources externally due to decades of out-migration and rapid shifts in their economic bases. Functional responsibilities viewed for a half-century as national in scope have become increasingly subnational partnerships (i.e., the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, known as the welfare reform act), whereas responsibilities that have historically been subnational have become more national in scope (i.e., the Individual with Disabilities Education Act of 1997 and the Elementary and Secondary Education Reauthorization of 2002).

In the wake of the terrorist attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, national defense is being redefined as cities—large and small—prepare to be on the front lines in the war against terrorism. This war has clearly been defined as one of collaboration between law enforcement agencies at all levels of government and private-sector security firms, business and industry, civic associations, and many others. Even within the global economy where nations and regions ostensibly are the focal points, cities occupy a more and more critical strategic position as the venues for bringing together potential partners. As intergovernmental programs evolve, nongovernmental organizations expand their scope of operations, and policymaking resources are held by entities other than the government, collaboration is becoming a tool that cities can use to strategically pursue their political and economic objectives.

The decision by a city (or other entity) to exploit this increasingly complex and interdependent environment through collaborative management, however, is variable. Cities examine the environment and decide whether collaboration is a productive strategic tool, a necessary evil, or simply not important. Some cities view collaboration as an opportunity, but others view it as unnecessary at best and a burden at worst. Some cities choose to collaborate in any way possible, but others avoid it. Some cities collaborate as a means to achieve local aims, others as a mechanism for not opposing the achievement of external aims. Many cities collaborate with other levels of government, thus operating in the administrative web of federalism; some cities work with local bodies, capitalizing on the resources of profit-making and nonprofit organizations; some cities exploit the advantages of both.

Collaboration does not just happen. Like operating within the city hierarchy, collaboration must be managed, albeit in a different way. Such processes of collaboration are examined in this study of cities and their officials. In economic development in general, as in the many specific policy arenas that constitute economic development, critical policymaking resources—finances, information, labor, knowledge, legal authority, and expertise—do not reside exclusively in the public agency but with other levels of government, counties, water districts, utilities, chambers of commerce, and development corporations. The complex interorganizational, intersectoral, and intergovernmental policy context of cities provides an opportunity for a city to strategically and collaboratively pursue its political and economic objectives—an opportunity exploited by some but not all cities.

Our argument is consistent with recent urban studies that demonstrate economic development is a deliberate, predetermined, city-level activity. Cities make conscious decisions about the form and content of economic development policy; such choices are strategic, thus political (Pagano and Bowman 1992). Empirical studies show the strategic nature of development by linking “correct” and “incorrect” strategies with economic performance (McGuire 1999), and argue that some cities are innovative and entrepreneurial (Borins 1998). Clarke and Gaile (1998) argue that cities have gone through several transformative stages that require increasing amounts of intersectoral and intergovernmental cooperation. Our locus, the city, is the same as these development studies, but our focus is different, because we examine the intricacies of policymaking and the administrative activities of those city officials collaborating in complex multiorganizational environments.

Collaborative management is a concept that describes the process of facilitating and operating in multiorganizational arrangements to solve problems that cannot be solved, or solved easily, by single organizations. Collaboration is a purposive relationship designed to solve a problem by creating or discovering a solution within a given set of constraints (e.g., knowledge, time, money, competition, and conventional wisdom; Schrage 1995). The term “collaboration” should not be confused with “cooperation.” The latter refers to working jointly with others to some end, as does the former, but the more accepted definition of cooperation means that those working jointly seek to be helpful as opposed to hostile.

Although a great deal of collaboration is cooperative—meaning working jointly with others—collaborative management sometimes entails engaging one or more organizations in a purposive and official partnership or contractual arrangement, and it sometimes amounts merely to assisting others in a particular effort. Collaborative management can be formal or informal, ranging from simple acquisition of information to a negotiated agreement that paves the way for more extensive projects. For example, in Cincinnati, the city government makes dozens of contacts monthly with agencies in state and federal government through its department administrators, its lobbyists on retainer, and the city manager’s office. Some of these contacts involve reaching compliance with state or national regulations, but many emphasize meeting city goals. Recently, one such transaction involved city-initiated negotiated agreements with Hamilton County and the U.S. Department of Energy to extend water service into the city’s Water West project area. The service was initiated to provide an infrastructure boost that would in turn generate several million dollars in federal funds for an area revitalization strategy.

Collaborative management can involve developing policy, planning and carrying out projects, or managing finances. Salem, Indiana, a city of 6,600 people in the south-central part of the state, follows the practice of many cities today by joining voluntary partnerships and networks to promote its economic development. Anchoring Salem’s activity is the Washington County Economic Growth Partnership (WCEGP), a local development corporation whose members include the city and county governments, the Chamber of Commerce, the Salem Redevelopment Commission, and private-sector firms. Salem is also part of a consortium of thirteen small cities that uses the grant procurement and administrative services of Administrative Resource Associates and regularly engages the River Hills Regional Planning Commission in Jeffersonville for planning services. As a small city, it contacts state and federal agencies less frequently than does Cincinnati, but its mayor and the WCEGP executive director have monthly interactions with state and federal agencies, particularly with those dealing with the environment, highways and transportation, commerce, and housing.

Some collaboration is voluntary, and some is mandated by the state or federal government. Cities need to deal with their regulatory burden, particularly with environmental agencies, to make land available or to otherwise move development projects along. For example, Woodstock, Illinois, successfully negotiated a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Cleanup Order regarding a city-owned dump, trading off initial site preparation and clearing plus subsequent pump and treatment of waste for twenty years in exchange for the EPA-proposed method, at about half the estimated cost of the original cleanup order. All city work is being conducted by city public works crews. At some point, the city hopes to use this site for other purposes.

The government of Cincinnati is collaborating when it joins forces with two different multiorganizational institutions—Down-town Cincinnati, Incorporated, which is a public–private organization and policy initiator, and the area Chamber of Commerce—to jointly design policies for the city’s economic development and undertake creative financing activities intended to combine and/ or leverage funds from multiple sources. Ithaca, Michigan, a town of about 3,000, collaborates often through Greater Gratiot Development Incorporated (GGDI), a venture that involves three cities, one village, a county government, and the city and county chambers of commerce. Ithaca spends city revenues to improve land for development, provides support to contractors renovating older buildings, and participates in job training with the support of grant money from the State of Michigan, along with the policymaking and administrative assistance of GGDI and the Ithaca Industrial Development and Economic Association.

The Framework

The intent of this book is to (1) demonstrate the various ways in which multiorganizational, multiactor collaboration is utilized as a public policymaking and management tool by cities, and (2) consider the underrecognized practical and theoretical issues at the forefront of public management that suggest a more complex and more interesting world of public management in practice. Drawing on the literatures of intergovernmental relations and management, urban affairs, network management, and public management, we argue that collaborative management exists at the intersection of activity and strategy. The dependent variable of concern in this study is collaborative management, which is measured in terms of activity level and the purpose of the collaborative effort. We hypothesize that the city-level “values” of collaborative management vary across cities and that explanations can be found for how it differs, why it differs, and what determines the differences. Our framework is based on four straightforward propositions, which guide our analysis.

The first proposition: The collaborative mechanisms available to a city for achieving its strategic objectives are multifarious and abundant. Our argument: Cities operate in a complex web of jurisdictions, agencies, businesses, and nonprofit organizations, each of which has some claim on the governing activities of the city. Empirical support for this proposition will be found in cities that engender useful transactions with these entities.

The second proposition: The extent and purpose of city government collaborative management varies across cities. Our argument: Some cities choose to avail themselves of the opportunities present in the intergovernmental and multiorganizational environment, and some do not. It follows that as the level of collaboration varies across cities, so will the purpose of such connections. Empirical support for this proposition will be found in the actual variation in activity and purposes among cities.

The third proposition: The choices of whether, why, or how to collaborate are based on structural and administrative considerations, along with economic and political imperatives. Our argument: Many factors are associated with the variation in collaborative activity levels and purpose, only some of which are the traditional explanations of politics and economics. Collaboration is associated with the condition of the local economy and the type of local government, but factors related to organizing and managing the collaborative enterprise may also prove relevant. Empirical support for this proposition will be found in the linkages between such factors and collaborative activity.

The fourth proposition: Given a distinct number of mechanisms, levels, and purposes of linking activities, numerous types or patterns of collaborative activity exist in practice. Our argument: Within the variation of collaborative management are combinations of activity and purpose that distinguish a city’s approach to the intergovernmental and multiorganizational environment. Empirical support for this proposition will be found in identifiable models of collaborative management in cities.

Given our expectation that we would find empirical support for these propositions, we set out to derive models of collaborative management from these various patterns of activity. More specifically, we sought evidence of management whereby collaboration is viewed as an opportunity to exploit rather than an activity to be avoided. In the midst of the multiple players, activities, and purposes that can be involved in collaboration, we sought out cities that practice a form of strategic management that capitalizes on the complex interorganizational and intergovernmental system for the purpose of advancing the interests of the city.

The critical empirical case to be made is not just the extent of collaboration per se—and we will demonstrate just how extensive it can be—but how such activity is inconsistent with the approach of researchers and practitioners weaned on bureaucracy and direct provision of public goods and services. Focusing empirical research nearly exclusively on the single-organization and bureaucratic dimension of public management will ultimately provide little guidance to practitioners operating in a collaborative managerial environment. We show that the capacities and skills required for contemporary policymaking and administration are different from the capacities and skills associated traditionally with public management. Providing an understanding of these differences both for the practitioner and for the scholar is the mission of this book. If managers adept at navigating through government agencies, private-sector organizations, and nonprofit associations are potentially more consequential to agency success than their bureaucratic counterparts of the past (O’Toole 1997c), the need for catalyzing a renewed research agenda cannot be overstated.

We argue for a new conceptual and empirical approach to the study of public management. Some important theoretical questions are approached, and an empirical foundation upon which theory may be built is provided through the findings. The motivation for our emphasis on managing across rather than within organizations comes not from the position of the advocate who wishes to persuade his or her peers that management approach X or management technique Y is the “most efficient,” “most effective,” or just plain “best” and therefore should be incorporated into the repertoire of the public manager. Rather, our position is empirical, not prescriptive: Collaborative management is a governing mechanism available to cities on a daily basis, and in many cities it has become a dominant activity of public management. However, our lack of knowledge about such management is constraining the field’s ability to accurately portray and effectively convey to managers just what public management and governing entail. We thus do not proclaim that collaborative management is a new approach that managers should adopt, but, instead, that such managing occurs, and we know too little about its use as a policymaking and administrative tool.

Methods

The unit of analysis in this empirical study of collaborative management is city government, and the policy sector we study is economic development. Cities are useful units of analysis for examining the various characteristics of collaborative management, especially the potentially strategic nature of the activity. Cities offer large numbers and types of potential collaborators with governments. It is not certain that a typical city government agency official will pursue collaboration; but when one does, the variation of actors across cities is desirable, from the standpoint of explanation.

Similarly, economic development is also an excellent context because, in practice, economic development involves several policy areas—housing, finance, public works, environment, and transportation, to name just a few. Indeed, “economic development” is really a summary term that comprises multiple policy areas. Given the wide range of experience that is possible in cities’ pursuit of economic development, if management patterns can be discovered across a few hundred cities in this context, we believe the findings can be viewed as credible and valid, both internally (causal) and externally.

The findings are drawn from both survey research and qualitative case research. Data were collected from 237 cities in the Midwest by survey, and from within the large sample, six purposively selected cities through site visits and extensive interviews (see appendix A for a complete description of the survey design). The case study cities are all active collaborators in the policy context of economic development, but each operates from the posture of its location, economic condition, and status as a city, and not all approach collaboration strategically. For example: Large central cities would be expected to be different in some notable respects from suburban cities or small towns; large inner-ring suburbs would be expected to be in different situations than small outerring suburbs; and cities imbedded in rich collaborative settings would be expected to act differently from those that must work to seek out potential collaborators. The cases were selected to illustrate such differences. The field research was designed to enable cities to clarify or elaborate on certain key responses and findings, which allowed for an in-depth discussion about how cities collaborate.

Case studies used in this research provide an opportunity for elaboration, for adding richness and understanding to the data, and for supplementing the quantitative survey. We used a discussion guide with a common format, and the same questions were asked in all settings and the discussions were guided, but open-ended, ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• 1 Collaboration at the Core
• 2 Managing in an Age of Collaboration
• 3 Models of Collaborative Management
• 4 Collaborative Activity and Strategy
• 5 Linkages in Collaborative Management
• 6 Policy Design and Collaborative Management
• 7 Jurisdiction-Based Management
• 8 The Future of Public Management and the Challenge of Collaboration
• Appendixes
• References
• Index