The managerial and relational dimensions of public-nonprofit human service contracting

Abstract

Public-nonprofit contracting for human services is complicated by the difficulty of fully specifying contracts in the face of complex human service delivery issues. To understand how public and nonprofit agencies resolve these complications while serving client populations effectively and meeting public accountability requirements, this article examines the following research question: given the complexity of human service delivery, how do public and nonprofit managers address the challenges of contract management? The study analyzes qualitative data from interviews and focus groups with managers from three San Francisco Bay Area county human service agencies and three nonprofit agencies contracting with these public agencies to deliver human services. Findings uncover the deeply relational and collaborative nature of human service contracting amidst technical challenges that reflect the underlying complexity of human service delivery. The results also show how public and nonprofit managers address these dynamics to inform the task of organizing and delivering human services.

NPM's “Ideals” About the Accountability and Control of Outsourced Activities: Tough, But Realizable, Or A Utopian Dream?

“…Authors also claim, however, that relational contracting and a more informal approach to accountability require a more direct involvement of the principal in the outsourced task and more frequent interactions and communication between the partners (see, for example, Bertelli & Smith, , pp. i26, i29; McBeath et al., , p. 55).…”

“…In a local government outsourcing setting, a lasting relationship can increase the external party's willingness to make investments, which in turn will reduce costs for the municipality. McBeath, Carnochan, Stuart, and Austin (, pp. 70–71) suggest that the incomplete agreements on outputs and other performance aspects as we found in our cases, are not necessarily a problem in the sense that they complicate control.…”

Government-nonprofit funding relationships in human services: Differences in cost-reimbursement and fixed-cost agreements

“…For complex services, like human services, relational contracting tends to be more effective where government principals and nonprofit agents enter into a partnership with more flexible contracts (DeHoog, 1990;Girth, 2014;McBeath et al, 2017;Macneil, 1980;Malatesta and Smith, 2011;Van Slyke, 2007). Not only may more of a partnership be needed for delivering complex services effectively, but agents are also more satisfied when they participate in contract implementation (Amirkhanyan et al, 2010).…”

“…With the complexity of human service delivery, the contracting relationship between government and nonprofits is relational and collaborative (McBeath et al, 2017). The relational or informal aspect rather than what is written in the formal agreement play a major role in accountability (Girth, 2017;Romzek et al, 2014).…”

Mack Center on Nonprofit and Public Sector Management in Human Service Organizations

“…Given that the funding of nonprofits by county human service organizations relies heavily on contracting, the current stage of research related to public-nonprofit relationships focuses on contractual relations and the perceptions of managers in both nonprofit and public sector organizations (McBeath, Carnochan, Stuart, & Austin, 2017). This line of research inquiry involves comparative case studies of three county-nonprofit human service dyads and a five county survey of county and nonprofit managers involved in managing contract relationships.…”