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This paper offers practical insights for public managers as they work within interorganizational networks. It is based on the author’s empirical study of 14 networks involving federal, state, and local government managers working with nongovernmental organizations. The findings suggest that networks are hardly crowding out the role of public agencies; though they are limited in their decision scope, they can add collaborative public value when approaching nettlesome policy and program problems.

With regard to public management network theory development, among the most important issues that remain is a recognition of the limitations of networks. Networks often find reasonable solution approaches, but then run into operational, performance, or legal barriers that prevent the next action step. Networks face challenges in converting solutions into policy energy, assessing internal effectiveness, surmounting the inevitable process blockages, mission drift, and so on. While research on network management continues unabated, it is necessary to consider how networks are limited and challenged, and how/when these limitations can be overcome.

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The focus of this article is on managing networks. A network knowledge base is developed from the authors' studies of city government involvement in economic development, management within rural enterprises and the evaluation of a rural strategic planning project. Other public management network analyses are also incorporated. Management in network settings is not based on central authority and cannot be guided by a single organizational goal as is the case in the classical management approach. Management involves managing flexible structures toward collective efficiency. The ability to manage is related to the internal condition of the manager's primary organization. It involves technical, legal, political and cost dimensions. It requires different capacities, skills and knowledge from that of single organization management. The next steps in the research would include the development of the skills needed, an analysis of the role of organizational power and the operational variables of networks, the issue of network cohesion, and the question of loss of control or difficulty in assessing network accountability. Copyright 1999 by The Policy Studies Organization.