Governing Cross-Sector Collaboration

Governing Cross-Sector Collaboration tackles the issuesinherent in partnerships with nongovernmental actors for publicservice delivery, highlighting the choices available and theaccompanying challenges and opportunities that arise. Based onresearch, interviews with public, private and nonprofit sectorleaders, and considerable analysis of organizations involved inpublic-private-nonprofit collaborations, the book provides insightinto cross-sector collaboration at the global, federal, state, andlocal levels. Through an examination of the primary modes ofcross-sector collaboration, including collaborative contracting, partnerships, networks, and independent public services providers, the book presents a clear case for how public managers can assessthe trade-offs and use these options to improve public servicedelivery. Nonprofit organizations, businesses, and third-partycontractors are increasingly partnering with government to deliverpublic services. Recognizing the types of collaborative approaches, and their potential to solve public policy problems is quicklybecoming a major task for public managers, with new methods andtechniques constantly emerging. Governing Cross-SectorCollaboration provides specific examples and a framework forpublic managers to make strategic choices about how to engageprivate and nonprofit actors in delivering public goods andservices while ensuring the public interest. The book provideseffective methods for choosing, designing, governing, andevaluating networks, partnerships, and independent public-servicesproviders, with in-depth discussion encompassing:

• Analysis and engagement of cross-sector organizations
• Fostering democratic accountability in the public interest
• Collaborative approaches (including contracts, networks andpartnerships) and the issues associated with each type ofarrangement
• Leadership and organizational learning in cross-sectorcollaboration

Included case studies illustrate effective application of theconcepts and methods described, providing both practicing publicand nonprofit managers and public policy/administration studentswith insight into these emerging strategic alliances. The firstcomprehensive guide to public governance collaborations, Governing Cross-Sector Collaboration is an important andtimely contribution to the field of public management.