Cross-Sector Partnerships and Public Health: Challenges and Opportunities with the Private Sector

Over the past few decades, cross-sector partnerships that include the private sector have become an increasingly accepted practice in public health, particularly in efforts to address infectious disease in low and middle income countries. Now they are becoming a popular tool in efforts to reduce and prevent obesity and the epidemic of non-communicable disease. Partnering with business presents a means of acquiring resources, as well as opportunities to influence the private sector toward more healthful practices. Collaboration is a core principle of public health practice; however public-private or non-profit-private partnerships present risks and challenges that warrant specific consideration. In this article we review the role of public health partnerships with the private sector, with a focus on efforts to address obesity and non-communicable disease in high-income settings. Challenges, risks and critical success factors relevant to partnering are identified, as are areas for improving public health practice to inform decision-making around partnership development

“NOBODY WINS, BUT NOBODY LOSES EITHER” – UNDERSTANDING DIFFERENT INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS IN IT PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS

Information and communication technologies (ICT) are becoming increasingly important for the provision of public services. Therefore, public-private partnerships (PPP) have become a valuable alternative for implementing, maintaining, and modernizing public ICT infrastructures. However, information technology (IT) partnerships between public and private parties are difficult endeavours due to different organizational values and practices. We present the results of an exploratory, interpretive case study that analyzes one of the few working IT PPPs in Germany, and explain how the different parties interacted to succeed in establishing a working partnership. In particular, using institutional logics as meta-theoretical lens, we present a model that emerged from the data and explains the difficulties of public-private cooperation influencing the successful establishment of IT partnerships. Furthermore, we analyzed which management procedures are necessary for enhancing the understanding between public and private parties to build a joint partnership and enable IT PPP success

Leading with political astuteness: A study of public managers in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom

Combining quantitative survey data from over 1000 middle and senior public managers, as well as qualitative data from 42 in-depth interviews, the study sheds light on how managers understand politics in their work; how they rate their own and their colleagues’ political skills; how they use their political skills; and how these skills were developed. The report also sets forth recommendations to improve the development of managers’ political astuteness at the level of the individual, the organisation, and the professional body/training provider

Public-private joint ventures: mixing oil and water?

The use of public–private partnerships (PPPs) is one of the most distinctive features of strategic management in the public sector. One of the most significant, yet understudied, forms of PPP to emerge in recent years is the public–private joint venture (PPJV). Unlike contractual PPPs, in which public organizations specify the service to be provided under contract by private sector organizations, PPJVs involve the creation of a new institutional entity that is governed by all of the parties in the alliance. This paper examines the distinctive character of PPJVs and draws on documentary and case study evidence to evaluate the ways in which the mixing of public and private within this important collaborative form can be managed best

Opportunity-Rich Schools and Sustainable Communities: Seven Steps to Align High-Quality Education With Innovations in City and Metropolitan Planning and Development

Details challenges and steps for linking quality education and community and economic vitality, including establishing a shared vision and metrics, aligning investments for prosperity, and expanding access via transportation. Lists promising practices

Aligning Community-Engaged Research to Context.

Community-engaged research is understood as existing on a continuum from less to more community engagement, defined by participation and decision-making authority. It has been widely assumed that more is better than less engagement. However, we argue that what makes for good community engagement is not simply the extent but the fit or alignment between the intended approach and the various contexts shaping the research projects. This article draws on case studies from three Community Engagement Cores (CECs) of NIEHS-funded Environmental Health Science Core Centers (Harvard University, UC Davis and University of Arizona,) to illustrate the ways in which community engagement approaches have been fit to different contexts and the successes and challenges experienced in each case. We analyze the processes through which the CECs work with researchers and community leaders to develop place-based community engagement approaches and find that different strategies are called for to fit distinct contexts. We find that alignment of the scale and scope of the environmental health issue and related research project, the capacities and resources of the researchers and community leaders, and the influences of the sociopolitical environment are critical for understanding and designing effective and equitable engagement approaches. These cases demonstrate that the types and degrees of alignment in community-engaged research projects are dynamic and evolve over time. Based on this analysis, we recommend that CBPR scholars and practitioners select a range of project planning and management techniques for designing and implementing their collaborative research approaches and both expect and allow for the dynamic and changing nature of alignment

Mapping the public sector diaspora: towards a model of inter-sectoral cultural hybridity using evidence from the English healthcare reforms

Public service reforms increasingly blur the boundaries between public and private sectors, involving hybrid modes of service organization. With growing numbers of public services being transferred to private or mutual ownership, the article interprets reform as a public sector diaspora. Drawing upon the diaspora studies literature, the article proposes a model of hybridization that centres on the possibilities for cultural dislocation, adaptation, and hybridity. Focusing on reforms within the English National Health Service, the article presents an ethnographic study of the transfer or diaspora of doctors, nurses, clinical practitioners, and healthcare assistants from a public hospital to a private healthcare provider, exploring their experiences of migration, resettlement, and cultural hybridity. The model addresses a conceptual gap within the public policy and management literature by elaborating the antecedents, processes, and forms of cultural hybridization

Learning difficulties: collaborative inter-organisational information system use within UK retail supply networks

Inter-organisational information systems (IOIS) have been introduced to support collaborative retail supply relationships, yet how these systems are used is not well understood. This paper presents analysis of an ideographic case study of a dynamic United Kingdom grocery sector supply network. Using Archer's (1995) social change theory we explore how changes to buyer-supplier relationship structures re-conditioned individual actors' situational logics in a way that created network learning difficulties. Our analysis shows how actors' inter-organisational information system use reinforced pre-existing bargaining positions and improved already powerful actors' relative negotiating strength. This paper demonstrates the value of multi-level analysis in furthering understanding of the complex relationships between processes of network and individual learning