PUBLICATIONS

The Initiative on Collaborative Government has commissioned three cutting-edge research projects slated to be released over the second half of 2008. Those reports are:

Applying Collaborative Government Strategies to Maximize Mission Impact by Dr. Julie Mahler, Associate Professor, Department of Public and International Affairs.

Collaboration and the networks, partnerships, and variety of associational and contractual arrangements that underlie them have become prominent elements of governance at the federal, state and local levels in the U.S. and abroad. The past two decades have seen a recognition of the many ways to serve public purposes through cooperation and collaboration among agents of government, the private and non-profit sectors as well as citizens and stakeholder groups. From local citizens planning efforts to regional economic development and high stakes contracting for national security, governments are finding ways to develop and implement public policies through a range of new collaborative strategies.

The specific arrangements for collaboration are myriad. This report will review different forms of "collaborative government" and offer a widely applicable typology of collaboration. This typology will identify useful analytic distinctions among forms of collaboration with implications for (or based on) choices about management systems to support the collaborations, such as the design of the organizational relations, the degree of shared decision making, and the character of accountability or monitoring that characterizes the collaborative arrangements.

As a result, this report will outline a spectrum of successful "collaborative government" strategies that government leaders can apply to focus their resources for mission success. It is anticipated that the resulting spectrum of collaborative government strategies will serve as a reference tool for leaders—including new Federal agency heads as they enter office after the 2008 Presidential election and who are challenged to implement new Administration policies—to help optimize how their agency works in collaboration with the private sector to maximize speed, agility, effectiveness, and accountability in accomplishing mission results.

Creating Jobs in America: Case Studies in Local Economic Development by Dr. Darrene Hackler, Associate Professor, Department of Public and International Affairs.

This report examines case studies of how United States private sector companies are using "onshoring" as an effective economic development tool in local communities. Onshoring is a growing trend where private companies expand production to localities providing lower costs, also referred to as low cost domestic sourcing. The report addresses how localities can experience economic growth in terms of jobs and tax revenues with private sector investment from companies located in traditional urban centers that are considering low cost locations domestic instead of globlal offshoring. In addition, the report examines the economic development potential and impact of onshoring such that localities experience sustainable development that leads to competitiveness and further upgrading of the local economy. That is, how can onshoring be used as an economic tool to create both exogenous and endogenous growth and development. The report concludes with recommendations to public officials at the local, state, and federal levels detailing factors and policies that support the development of onshoring opportunities.

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Building Effective Partnerships in Professional Services by Dr. Paige Wolf, Assistant Professor of Management, School of Management.

To meet ever growing government requirements, agencies will continue to need to delegate many important projects and functions to the private sector. When doing so, it is critical for the government to manage these relationships to achieve successful mission results. Although models for performance-based contracting have existed for years, major projects critical to U.S. government operations fall short of target outcomes. In addition, with the implementation of Federal Lines of Business such as financial management and human resources, government agencies are being driven to take advantage of shared service providers to increase performance, reduce risk and reduce cost. As they attempt to realize the promise of shared services, agencies are challenged to build effective relationships with service providers to achieve their objectives while retaining control, flexibility and agility over the long term.

To help the government address this challenge, this report examines organizations that have established successful public-private outsourcing relationships that achieve the organization's target outcomes. This report documents the constructs required for a building successful relationships in key areas, including problem definition and solution, successful partnership (e.g., leadership, communication, user engagement, mutual accountability), and achievement of objectives. The report documents best practices and lessons learned from the case studies to spotlight model approaches to building successful outsourcing relationships. The report also discusses the new skill sets required by government managers to implement these approaches successfully.

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