000			01820nam a22001577a 4500
999			_c517080 _d517080
008			210630b ||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
100			_aDixon, Ruth and Eiston, Thomas _926068
245			_aEfficiency and legitimacy in collaborative public management: Mapping inter-local agreements in England using social network analysis
260			_a Public Administration: An International Quarterly
300			_a98(3), Sep, 2020: p.746-767
520			_aEnglish councils have long aspired to be ‘self-sufficient’, providing services within single jurisdictions with limited inter-local collaboration. However, by 2017 almost all local councils (97 per cent) participated in one or more frontline or back-office ‘shared service’ involving 338 distinct partnerships. We analyse this new-found enthusiasm for inter-council collaboration by performing exploratory social network analysis on organizational and financial data for all 353 English councils. We examine factors predicting collaboration and the characteristics of the service networks that result, focusing on resource, organizational and political considerations. Propensity to collaborate was found to be unpredictable, but partner choice was rational, driven by geographical proximity and similarity in organizational and resource characteristics. We argue that, according to the institutional theory of organizations, both efficiency and legitimacy influenced these reform choices, and the risks of fashionable collaboration were mitigated by careful partner selection. We highlight implications for future quantitative research into symbolic (non-instrumental) forms of collaboration.
650			_aCollaborative public management _926069
773			_aPublic Administration: An International Quarterly
906			_aPUBLIC MANAGEMENT
942			_cAR