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Continued critiques, evidence and newer reform trends have increasingly contested the use of market-centered models–the competition prescription–for urban public space maintenance as well as other local services. This article adopts a contextualized contingency perspective on the competition prescription and questions the contested status of market-centered models in a survey-based study of the current use of and satisfaction with private providers for maintenance of parks/greenspaces and road/streets in Scandinavian local governments. The study finds widespread use of and satisfaction with private providers. However, satisfaction depends on national context and multiple contingencies. The study challenges the contested status of market-centered models, highlights that different models serve different strategic objectives, and directs attention to discussions of context and key contingencies that define how well market-centered models perform.

Continued critiques, evidence and newer reform trends have increasingly contested the use of market-centered models–the competition prescription–for urban public space maintenance as well as other local services. This article adopts a contextualized contingency perspective on the competition prescription and questions the contested status of market-centered models in a survey-based study of the current use of and satisfaction with private providers for maintenance of parks/greenspaces and road/streets in Scandinavian local governments. The study finds widespread use of and satisfaction with private providers. However, satisfaction depends on national context and multiple contingencies. The study challenges the contested status of market-centered models, highlights that different models serve different strategic objectives, and directs attention to discussions of context and key contingencies that define how well market-centered models perform.

What role does collaboration play in the management of public services, which over the years have been regarded as well suited for contracting out? Effective use of contracting out for easily contractible services is in the administrative practice and the academic literature conventionally believed to be related to the satisfaction of transactional requirements, especially specification, competitive pricing, monitoring and presence of credible safeguards, with a minimum use of resources (transaction costs). The article argues that satisfaction of additional relational requirements, such as collaboration, personal relations and trust, must be expected to play important roles as well. In a single-case study of contracting out of landscape maintenance it is shown that transactional and relational dimensions of the contract exist in a dynamic interplay and that their satisfaction is key to contractual performance. It is concluded that it is necessary to include relational dimensions in explanations of how contractual relations work and the performance of contracting out.

Hvilken betydning har samarbejde i kontraktstyringen mellem offentlige myndigheder og private entreprenører inden for de klassiske udbudsområder? I både den administrative praksis og den politologiske litteratur betragtes en effektiv anvendelse af udlicitering på de klassiske udbudsområder oftest som et spørgsmål om, hvorvidt en række transaktionelle kontraktdimensioner i form af specifikation, prissætning, monitorering og kompensation kan tilfredsstilles gennem anvendelsen af færrest mulige ressourcer i kontraktstyringen (transaktionsomkostninger). I artiklen argumenteres der for, at en række relationelle dimensioner, særligt tematiseret som samarbejde, interpersonelle relationer og tillid, også må forventes at have afgørende betydning for en effektiv anvendelse af udlicitering på de klassiske udbudsområder. Gennem et singlecasestudie af kontraktstyringen på det kommunaltekniske driftsområde vises det, hvordan transaktionelle og relationelle dimensioner indgår i et dynamisk samspil og optræder som hinandens forudsætninger. En hovedkonklusion er, at det er nødvendigt at inddrage relationelle dimensioner i forklaringer af udliciteringens virkemåde og effektivitet.

In this article, we address a series of interrelated issues in the managerial challenge of public service contracting. This is done by prompting ten issues within four objectives and highlighting their relevance and potential interrelatedness in effective contract management. In contrast to prevalent piecemeal and theoretically one-dimensional approaches, the objectives and issues constitute a holistic framework that advances a comprehensive and pragmatic understanding of contracting processes. We hope that the framework merits further in-depth exploration that may generate new insights, themes and questions for research in public service contracting. We identify and exemplify the framework by combining insights from different theoretical perspectives with empirical evidence through an iterative process. The evidence is educed as a set of observed and self-reported stories in a cross-national sample of 15 cases of contracting-out in urban green-space management. Adapted from the source document.

1. Introduction: Marketization Comparing Contemporary Marketization in the Light of the Past. Andrej Christian Lindholst, Morten Balle Hansen -- 2. Organizing marketization. Morten Balle Hansen, Andrej Christian Lindholst, Carsten Greve -- 3. Research design, materials and methods. Andrej Christian Lindholst, Morten Balle Hansen, Ylva Noren Bretzer, Merethe Dotterud Leiren, Nicola Dempsey -- 4. Researching marketization in context: Four countries and two local services. Andrej Christian Lindholst, Morten Balle Hansen, Ylva Noren Bretzer, Merethe Dotterud Leiren, Nicola Dempsey -- 5. England: In-house, contracted out… or something else? Nicola Dempsey, Mel Burton, Johanna Selin -- 6. Sweden: Local marketization 1980-2018, incremental tendencies and deviances. Ylva Noren Bretzer, Bengt Persson, Thomas B. Randrup -- 7. Denmark: The incremental way toward a deep-seated marketized service delivery. Andrej Christian Lindholst -- 8. Norway: The reluctant adopter of marketization. Merethe Dotterud Leiren, Julie Runde Krogstad, Ingjerd Solfjeld -- 9. Economic effects from competitive tendering in Scandinavia and the importance of country context. Andrej Christian Lindholst, Ole Helby Petersen, Kurt Houlberg -- 10. Patterns and variations of marketization compared. Andrej Christian Lindholst, Morten Balle Hansen, Ylva Noren Bretzer, Nicola Dempsey, Merethe Dotterud Leiren -- 11. England: Long-term partnership contracting in practice: Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London. Nicola Dempsey, Claudia Martinez Velarde, Mel Burton -- 12. Sweden: Experiences with public-private partnerships: Balancing collaboration and competition. Anders Kristoffersson, Andrej Christian Lindholst, Bengt Persson, Thomas B. Randrup -- 13. Denmark: When rust never sleeps: Marketization as continuous organizational change. Andrej Christian Lindholst, Thomas Haase Jensen, Troels Høgfeldt Kjems -- 14. Norway: Municipal enterprise as pretext for marketization of park services: Insights from Oslo services. Ingjerd Solfjeld, Merethe Dotterud Leiren -- 15. Lessons from case studies: Working with marketization. Andrej Christian Lindholst, Nicola Dempsey, Thomas Barfoed Randrup, Ingjerd Solfjeld -- 16. The histories and futures of marketization. Morten Balle Hansen, Andrej Christian Lindholst, Carsten Greve.

This article investigates the differences and similarities between performance management systems across public services. We offer three propositions as to why the characteristics of performance management systems may still converge across policy areas in the public sector with different levels of task complexity amidst a lack of formal and overarching, government-wide policies. We advance our propositions from a case study comparing the characteristics of performance management systems across social services (eldercare) and technical services (park services) in Denmark. Contrary to expectations for divergence due to differences in task complexity, the characteristics of performance management systems in the two policy areas are observed to converge. On the basis of a case study, we propose that convergence has occurred due to 1) similarities in policy-specific reforms, 2) institutional pressures, and 3) complementarity between political needs and managerial needs. Finally, we discuss how our findings contribute to extant models of how performance management systems develop in the public sector.