This article provides an overview of the key research findings and core concepts on the topic of organizational networks. The primary focus is on goal‐directed “whole” service delivery networks, which are prevalent in the public and nonprofit sectors. The findings and ideas presented are especially salient for helping public managers build, maintain, operate, and govern multiorganizational networks in ways that will enhance their effectiveness. Because research and theory on networks extend well beyond the boundaries of public management and administration, the authors draw on thinking from a number of fields, providing a broad understanding of public networks and network functioning. The article is intended to provide usable information on networks for both practitioners and students, as well as to suggest directions for future research for the many public management scholars who now study organizational networks.

There is insufficient evidence that restaurant menu labeling policies are cost-effective strategies to reduce obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Evidence suggests that menu labeling has a modest effect on calories purchased and consumed. No review has been published on the effect of menu labeling policies on transnational restaurant chains globally. This study conducted a two-step scoping review to map and describe the effect of restaurant menu labeling policies on menu reformulation. First, we identified national, state, and municipal menu labeling policies in countries from global databases. Second, we searched four databases (i.e., PubMed, CINHAL/EBSCO, Web of Science, and Google Scholar) for peer-reviewed studies and gray-literature sources in English and Spanish (2000–2020). Step 1 identified three voluntary and eight mandatory menu labeling policies primarily for energy disclosures for 11 upper-middle and high-income countries, but none for low- or middle-income countries. Step 2 identified 15 of 577 studies that met the inclusion criteria. The analysis showed reductions in energy for newly introduced menu items only in the United States. We suggest actions for governments, civil society organizations, and the restaurant businesses to develop, implement, and evaluate comprehensive menu labeling policies to determine whether these may reduce obesity and NCD risks worldwide.

A core assumption in practice and in much of the public management literature over the past two decades has been that addressing "wicked" problems requires a multiorganizational strategy (Kettl, 2008; O'Toole, 1997, 2015). As a consequence, interorganizational networks have played an increasingly important role in the delivery of public and publicly funded services. Publicly funded, goal-oriented networks are the building blocks of many government programs in the 21st century. Provan, Fish, and Sydow (2007) characterized these types of goal-oriented interorganizational net-700722A RPXXX10.

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With the growing amount and increasing heterogeneity of research on purpose-oriented networks (PONs) in the public sector, it is imperative to find a way to synthesize this research. Drawing on the varied research perspectives on PONs, we advance the idea of paradigm interplay and meta-synthesis as aspirations for the field and argue this is especially key if we want the study of PONs to inform practice. However, we recognize several challenges in the current state of the PON research that prevent the field from making strides in paradigm interplay and meta-synthesis. We discuss six challenges which we consider the most critical: different labels, differences across research foci, variation in measurement, the nestedness of networks, the dynamism of networks, and variation in the network context. We suggest six good research practices that could contribute to overcoming the challenges now so as to make integration of the research field more of a possibility in the future.