Managing Goal Conflict in Public Service Delivery Networks: Does Accountability Move Up and Down, or Side to Side?

ABSTRACT

Goal conflict is one of the greatest challenges to effective public service delivery networks. Scholars offer management prescriptions, but to what extent can a diverse set of network actors be managed? Data from a comparative case study approach suggest that informal accountability forces play a greater role than formal authority in preventing and mitigating goal conflict. Goal conflict appears to be weakest when network administrative organizations are responsible for both vertical network management and direct service delivery. In terms of reducing goal conflict, networks that manage both vertically and horizontally may be best equipped to achieve goal congruence.

KEYWORDS:

• accountability
• goal conflict
• network administrative organization
• service delivery networks

Notes

For example, a community mental health agency has a distinct mission, identity, and target client group that might at times constrain its interaction in a child welfare–focused network focused on wraparound services for children in foster care systems.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jaclyn Piatak

Jaclyn Piatak is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Her research examines how organizations interact to deliver public services, how job sector relates to individual outcomes and behaviors, and how society influences employment and volunteering. Her work appears in a variety of public and nonprofit management journals and her co-authored book, Occupational Labor Shortages: Concepts, Causes, Consequences, and Cures.

Barbara Romzek

Barbara Romzek is Professor of Public Administration and Policy in the School of Public Affairs at American University. She is a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and has awards from the American Society for Public Administration and the American Political Science Association, including the 2014 Gaus Award for a Lifetime of Exemplary Scholarship from the American Political Science Association. Her research focuses on public management and accountability with emphases on government reform, contracting, and network service delivery.

Kelly LeRoux

Jocelyn Johnston is Professor of Public Administration and Policy at American University. Her research focuses on government contracting, inter-organizational and inter-sectoral service collaboration, and intergovernmental programs. She is currently involved in a study of contracting for corrections and immigrant detention.

Jocelyn Johnston

Kelly LeRoux is an Associate Professor in the Department of Public Administration at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She holds a PhD in Political Science from Wayne State University. She is the author of Nonprofits Organizations and Civil Society in the U.S., with Mary Feeney, and Service Contracting: A Local Government Guide. Her current research projects focus on issues of nonprofit performance and accountability, diversity in nonprofit sector, and impacts of nonprofits’ voter mobilization and political advocacy efforts.