There is an increasing reliance on cross-sectoral collaboration between public, nonprofit, and for- profit organizations. These collaborative arrangements form in order to address the complexity and magnitude of public issues and the increasing diversity and scale of service user needs on each type of organization (Head & Alford, 2015; Kettl, 2006). These “wicked problems” surpass the capacity, resources, and jurisdiction of any single organization, sector, or policy to appropriately resolve (Head & Alford, 2015; Lasker & Weiss, 2003; Rittel & Weber, 1973; Weber & Khademian, 2008b). This has necessitated a shift towards cross-sector collaborations which are “increasingly recognized as not only a reality but also a necessary condition” (Cheng, 2019, p. 238) for addressing the complex, diverse, and interrelated problems (Bryson, Crosby, & Stone, 2006; Bunger et al., 2017; Chen, 2010).
As human service organizations (HSOs) provide various services to diverse populations with numerous, interrelated, and complex needs, and because they operate in a decentralized administrative and fragmented service environment with turbulent conditions due to changing economic, political, sociodemographic factors (Bunger et al., 2017; Graaf et al., 2016; Hasenfeld & Schmid, 1989; Mosley & Smith, 2018), they are natural candidates for collaboration. HSOs increasingly rely on contractual arrangements with nonprofit and for-profit organizations to meet service needs. This requires the inclusion of organizational members to manage and implement the collaborative and contractual processes both within their organizations and across other organizations. Despite the increasing interest and need of these cross-sector partnerships (Almog-Bar & Schmid, 2018), there is limited research examining the factors that impact successful collaborative outcomes and the processes that support and sustain these collaborative arrangements (Cheng, 2019; Gazley, 2017). Specifically, there is a need to improve understanding of how formalized contractual arrangements affect cross-sector collaboration in the human services context.
This dissertation examines HSOs that engage in cross-sector collaborations to improve understanding of the facilitators and barriers to achieving successful outcomes in collaborative arrangements. The guiding question for this dissertation is: What are the factors that impact successful collaborative outcomes between public and private HSOs?
I use Ansell and Gash’s (2008) Collaborative Governance Framework as a lens for examining the factors that may facilitate or impede successful collaborative outcomes in the human services, including the formal factors (contractual elements) and the informal factors (relationship elements). I analyze survey data administered to public HSOs that contract with private HSOs. I integrate qualitative data from contracts that are used to formalize these collaborative arrangements.
I identify two distinct constructs to capture the different dimensions of successful collaborative outcomes between public and private HSOs – the quality of the relationship between stakeholders and the accomplishment of goals (organizational and client goals). Relationship quality focuses on the interpersonal, relational outcomes of collaboration while goal achievement focuses on the task-oriented outcomes related to organizational goals and client goals. I develop hypotheses to validate the existing Ansell & Gash (2008) Framework in a human services context, propose the inclusion of additional factors that are relevant in the human services context, and expand the Framework to incorporate the existing and additional factors (Model 3). I test these hypotheses to identify the key factors that impact successful collaborative outcomes between public and private HSOs.
Findings from multinomial and binomial logistic regressions validate several universal collaborative factors as well as point to the need to include specific factors that reflect the human services context. Collectively, an expanded collaborative governance framework that incorporates the validated factors with the new factors demonstrates the most significance, suggesting the need to consider both universal and context-specific factors for collaborative arrangements in HSOs. Several of these factors appear to be meaningful across both dimensions of successful collaborative outcomes while other factors appear to only support one dimension or the other.
This dissertation contributes to the individual research streams on collaboration, contracting, and HSOs and strengthens the connections between these literatures. Findings contribute to research and praxis in several ways. First, this study builds on existing contributions to the literatures on collaborative governance, human services, and public-private contracting and integrates the literatures together at their nexus of convergence. This study examines cross-sector collaborations between public and private HSOs that are formalized through the use of contracts. Second, this study applies a well-established theoretical framework in a novel context. The Ansell and Gash (2008) Collaborative Governance Framework is a widely used framework in public administration but has rarely been used in the human services context. This study tests this framework in HSOs to identify the universal, collaborative factors that are salient, regardless of context, and also identifies additional factors to account for the human services context. Third, this study examines collaboration in a comprehensive manner, examining the connections between antecedents, processes, and outcomes in a collaborative arrangement. This study also provides a conceptual clarification on “collaborative outcomes” to improve theory-building and guidance for praxis. Fourth, this study incorporates multiple sources of data and focuses on the individual-level perspective. Finally, this dissertation contributes to praxis as it provides guidance for practitioners for sustaining collaborative relationships with their contractual partners.