managingthe toolsof government（managingthe toolsof government）.doc

Managing the Tools of Government: Contracting and Contract Management in the New Millennium Trevor Brown School of Public Policy and Management The Ohio State University Matt Potoski Department of Political Science Iowa State University David Van Slyke Maxwell School Syracuse University Paper for Presentation at the 2005 National Public Management Research Conference, University of Southern California, Los Angeles Once a government decides to deliver a service to its citizens, it must then decide whether to produce the service directly through its own employees or via a contract with a private vendor, nonprofit organization or another government. Contracting proponents, often with roots in public sector economics, champion contracting as a way to reduce service costs through competitive efficiencies and scale economies. Contracting critics, often with roots in traditional public administration fields, counter that contracting tends to sacrifice key public sector values (e.g. equality of treatment) and reduce service delivery capacity. Strident ideological debates have crowded out rigorous, theory-driven analyses of how public managers can effectively manage contracted service delivery. In academic circles, enough research has identified cases of successful contracting that few would doubt whether public services can be delivered effectively through contracts. And yet, research has also uncovered enough cases of failed contracts to make clear that contracting does not always bear its promised fruits. The current challenge for academics is to provide theoretically yet practical grounded guidance to help managers capture the benefits of contracting while avoiding its pitfalls. In this paper, we develop a strategic framework to guide managers through the contract process from assessing the feasibility of contracting, to structuring the contract process, to managing service provision under contract. Our framework brings togeth