APPAM 2013

Collaboration and competition among government, nonprofit, and for-profit organizations have been growing trends over the years and have fundamentally shaped the values, operations, responsibilities, and results of public management. Synergy is sought to deal with complex issues that are best handled by multiple agencies or actors. By shifting to market means, competition is used to break (bureaucratic) monopoly and improve public performance. With varying results, different forms of collaboration, from competitive outsourcing to long-term public/private partnerships, have been used in countries with different political, social, economic, and cultural backgrounds. While new opportunities are created, collaboration induces boundary blurring that poses challenges to public management regarding its missions, core technologies and competencies, the nature of its performance, and accountability. Partnerships may also impose constraints on competition, and vice versa. In order to explore these and related issues, the Fudan University School of International Relations and Public Affairs (SIRPA), the University of Maryland School of Public Policy (UMD), and the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) will hold a conference in Shanghai, China on May 26-27, 2013. The conference is designed to attract a worldwide audience, including academics and professionals from universities, think tanks, government agencies, nonprofits, and the private sector. The proposed conference will examine the various aspects of collaboration from theoretical and empirical perspectives in a cross-national setting. It requests proposals for high-quality, theory-driven papers.