Collaborating in a Hierarchical World

Submitted by on Wed, 01/03/2018 - 11:42

Drs. Rosemary O’Leary and Nidhi Vij presented a paper at the recent annual conference of the American Society for Public Administration, “Collaborative Public Management:  Where Have We Been and Where Are We Going?”  They surveyed the literature (so you wouldn’t have to) to find the most important issues facing the field, at least from the perspective of academia.  They identified ten that kept surfacing in the literature:

Weekly Round-up: April 13, 2012

Submitted by on Wed, 01/03/2018 - 11:40
  • Collaborative Consumption.  The Sharing Economy has come to government, at least in the form of car sharing.  Alex Howard has a great article that not only details two cities' experiences in car sharing (Boston and DC), but has some great links to other resources on the general topic of collaborative consumption.
  • A Different Kind of Participatory Budgeting.  GovFresh profiles 

Should Government Reorganize Itself?: Legislative Authority to Collaborate (Part VI)

Submitted by on Wed, 01/03/2018 - 11:33

Typically, the cultural, administrative, and legal barriers to working together collaboratively inside the federal government are too high and they discourage efforts to collaborate (more on this in a future post).  The Obama Administration has taken some steps, such as the president’s directive last year that encourages administrative flexibility by federal agencies when working with state and local governments.

Should Government Reorganize Itself? The Legos Approach (Part V)

Submitted by on Wed, 01/03/2018 - 11:28

Should government use Legos to inspire its reorganization approach?

Structural reorganization initiatives – like the creation of the Department of Homeland Security -- are slow, take an enormous amount of effort, and require years to become effective.  Ultimately, the new structure becomes rigid and needs to be revisited.  Many observers advocate creating more adaptable approaches that allow a mix and match of capabilities.  What are some potential options for doing this?

Executive Branch Options

Should Government Reorganize Itself? (Part IV)

Submitted by on Wed, 01/03/2018 - 11:21

When Vice President Gore’s reinventing government team was being formed in the early 1990s, he encouraged it to not focus on reorganizing agencies and programs, but rather to fix what’s inside the agencies.  He also advocated the creation of “virtual agencies.”  At the time, no one really understood what he was talking about, but today – with the technologies now available – it is really possible.

Weekly Round-up: April 06, 2012

Submitted by on Wed, 01/03/2018 - 11:14

Should Government Reorganize Itself? (Part II)

Submitted by on Wed, 01/03/2018 - 11:05

Beginning in 1932, presidents were periodically granted authority by Congress to submit plans to reorganize agencies.  Over time, it became increasingly limited in scope and when this authority expired in 1984, presidents since then have not asked for it to be renewed, until now.

Weekly Round-up: March 30, 2012

Submitted by on Tue, 01/02/2018 - 17:18

Mobility means many things. GOV.Aol has three pieces on mobility: first, a reprint of a FedInsider article argues that in addition to thinking about hardware (all those shiny new iPads), agencies need to be thinking about the applications they'll deploy on them. The next two articles are about (guess what?) mobile apps. And both articles are about mobility--automobility, that is. Here's one about parking apps and here's one about gas milage. The State of Things.

Weekly Round-up: March 23, 2012

Submitted by on Tue, 01/02/2018 - 16:58
  • Can you hear me now?  Kaifeng Yang, whose 2008 study on citizen particiaption I link to whenever possible, is the principal author of a new book of collected essays and studies on, what else?

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