The Influence of Informal Mechanisms in Mitigating Goal Conflict

Managing Goal Conflict in Public Service Delivery Networks: Does Accountability Move Up and Down, or Side to Side?

Piatak and his colleagues in their article, “Managing Goal Conflict in Public Service Delivery Networks: Does Accountability Move Up and Down, or Side to Side?” note that goal conflict poses a critical challenge to the delivery networks of public service. From the analysis, they seek to provide a solution to the management of a diverse set of network actors. Various scholars acknowledge the influence of both informal and formal mechanisms in enhancing collaboration effectiveness (Bryson, Crosby, & Stone, 2015). Following the examination of data from a comparative case study, the authors of the article reviewed realized that informal accountability forces significantly contribute toward mitigation and prevention of goal conflict. Piatak, Romzek, LeRoux, &Johnston. (2018) prefer informal over formal authority in the prevention of a goal dispute. Koliba, Mills, and Zia (2011) described informal mechanisms as a range of implicit norms and explicit standards that “shape the hybridized accountability regimes of governance networks.”

Piatak et al. (2018) referred to the assertions of Bardach (2015) who argued that hierarchies and networks are unique and that organizations with both a horizontal network and a vertical network can be regarded as hybrids. Bardach (2015) supports the call for Piatak et al. (2018) to investigate the implementation informal accountability system. Piatak et al. (2018) examined the execution of the system in social service delivery networks based on the counties of three states including Michigan, Maryland, and Kansas. They discovered that goal conflict is frailest when the role of direct service delivery and vertical network management is left to administrative organizations. To reduce goal conflict, the authors suggested that the networks that manage direct service delivery both horizontally and vertically should be strengthened to achieve a congruence of the set goals.

References

Bardach, E. (2015). Networks, hierarchies, and hybrids. International Public Management Journal, 20, 560–585.

Bryson, J. M., Crosby, B. C., & Stone, M. M. (2015). Designing and implementing cross‐sector collaborations: Needed and challenging. Public Administration Review, 75(5), 647–663.

Koliba, C. J., Mills, R. M., & Zia, A. (2011). Accountability in governance networks: An assessment of public, private, and nonprofit emergency management practices following Hurricane Katrina. Public Administration Review, 71(2), 210–220

Piatak, J., Romzek, B., LeRoux, K., & Johnston, J. (2018). Managing Goal Conflict in Public Service Delivery Networks: Does Accountability Move Up and Down, or Side to Side? Public Performance & Management Review, 41(1), 152-176.