leadership in public services networks ... - Wiley Online Library

doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9299.2011.01931.x

LEADERSHIP IN PUBLIC SERVICES NETWORKS: ANTECEDENTS, PROCESS AND OUTCOME GRAEME CURRIE, SUZANA GRUBNIC AND RON HODGES

In this article, the authors examine the implementation of policy aimed to promote the role of organizational networks and distributed leadership in the establishment and consolidation of public service reform. In theory, leadership and networks should complement each other, with the less hierarchical logic of the network allowing leadership of change, distributed among network members, rather than led from a single organizational apex, to flourish. In practice, as a consequence of inherent bureaucracy, power differentials between network participants, and a strong centralized performance management policy regime, a relatively parsimonious form of distributed leadership is enacted, with the networks tending towards ‘managed partnerships’.

INTRODUCTION In attempting to reform public services across the economically developed world over the last 20–25 years, governments have pursued increasingly interlaced strategies aimed at reforming public service provision. Transformative efforts to ‘Reinvent Government’ (Osborne and Gaebler 1992) in the United States (US) and ‘modernise public services’ (Newman 2001) in England are exemplary of policies seeking to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of public-service delivery. In pursuit of this aim, governments worldwide seek to effect change through policies aimed at transforming structures of public service provision, from hierarchies and markets towards networks (Kickert and Koppenjan 1997; Jennings and Ewalt 1998; Provan and Sebastien 1998; Huxham and Vangen 2000; Tenbensel 2005). Simultaneously governments seek to transform organizational and management processes through attention to distributing leadership across staff delivering service (Heifetz 1994; April et al. 2000; Khurana 2002; Currie et al. 2005; Van Wart 2005; Currie et al. 2008; Currie et al. 2009a, b, c; Martin et al. 2009). In this article, the authors use a comparative case study approach to compare the trajectories of two attempts to introduce a network and distributed leadership to drive service reform, noting important differences of context, process and outcome between the sites. Our study provides a theoretical and practical analysis of the implementation of policy prescriptions for networks and leadership, and the interaction of these two areas, both of which concern policy-makers and practitioners globally. It focuses upon the following research question: How does organizational context interact with the implementation of networks and distributed leadership to produce desirable outcomes in public services settings? Within the article, first, policy and academic literature on networks and leadership is reviewed. The specific empirical field is outlined in which the study was located. Following this, methods and findings are presented, before discussing the theoretical and policy implications of these.

Graeme Currie is in the Warwick Business School, Suzana Grubnic is in Nottingham University Business School and Ron Hodges is in the Management School, University of Sheffield. Public Administration Vol. 89, No. 2, 2011 (242–264) © 2011 The Authors. Public Administration © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

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NETWORKS AND LEADERSHIP: THEORY AND POLICY IN THE PUBLIC SERVICES Building upon the New Right critique of bureaucracy, with its election in 1997, the Labour Government in England pursued a policy agenda concerned with modernizing public services. Central to this was the idea of a ‘Third Way’, between hierarchies on the one hand and markets on the other (Hudson 2004). This drew upon the rise of the network form of organization within the private sector (Nohria and Eccles 1992; Reed 1992; Castells and Hall 1994) and converged with an emphasis upon network forms of organizing public services delivery across Europe (Scharpf 1993; Klijn et al. 1995; Kickert et al. 1997) and the United States (Hall and O’Toole 2004). In line with this, the last 20–25 years have witnessed a growth in ‘managed’ networks as a vehicle for modernization of public services. Networks take various forms and operate at different levels of public policy. Often termed ‘partnerships’ in the context of public services delivery, there has been a particular emphasis on bringing a wide range of agencies together to pool resources, co-ordinate decision-making and create integrated services (Entwistle and Martin 2005), tackle complex problems (Rhodes 1997), mediate the democratic deficit in society (McQuaid 2000), and promote organizational learning and innovation through developing reciprocal and co-operative relationships (Lorenz 1989; Thompson et al. 1991). While networks are seen to support improvements in the delivery of public services, what networks constitute in the public services context is less clear, with a conceptual spectrum along which network forms of organization can be placed (Ferlie and McGivern 2003). The following illustrate a continuum of ideal types that characterize variations in the network form of organization in public services contexts at local level of delivery: 1. The managed form of network focuses upon knowledge sharing and dissemination of evidence (for example, local government collaboratives: Rashman and Hartley 2002; clinical networks: Addicott et al. 2007). 2. Inter-organizational partnerships may encompass public, private and third sector organizations and focus upon mutual gains through resource synergies and economies of scale (Lowndes and Skelcher 1998). 3. Professional networks are most evident in health to protect the interests and autonomy of members (Sheaff et al. 2004; Waring 2007). 4. Communities of practice tend towards the self-organizing based upon common interests in the delivery of public services, with a strong emphasis upon knowledge sharing (Tagliaventi and Mattarelli 2006). In developing networks along the lines desired by policy-makers, a host of recent studies highlight the importance of appropriate incentives and sanctions within public sector settings to shape organizational and individual behaviours within networks (see, for example, Jackson and Stainsby 2000; Hudson 2004). These studies emphasize that ‘government targets, audit and incentive arrangements need to be harmonised to promote and reward working in networks in order to avoid the potential of existing and differing targets within individual organisations preventing effective partnership working and networking’ (Goodwin et al. 2004, p. 4). However, in England, commentators note that government policy, within which is embedded a strong performance management emphasis, inconsistently supports partnerships and networks in the delivery of public services (Newman 2001; Currie and Suhomlinova 2006). New forms of organizing public Public Administration Vol. 89, No. 2, 2011 (242–264) © 2011 The Authors. Public Administration © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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services may be countered by ‘neo-bureaucratic’ modes of organizing, with vertical ‘control and command’ structures difficult to supplant with partnership, networking and lateral modes of organizing (Lucio et al. 1997; Ferlie et al. 2003; Kirkpatrick 2006). Consequently, while the advocacy of networks in the public sector looks set to continue, doubts have been raised as to whether networks created and performance managed from above, either by central or local government, will engender open relations and gain the active participation of actors ‘on the ground’ (McNulty and Ferlie 2002; Bundred 2006). A similar effect is observed regarding policy aspirations to realize distributed leadership. Within government policy in England, leadership has been an ongoing emphasis. Models of transformational leadership, embodied in a single, ‘lone warrior’ at the apex of the organization have, to a large extent, been supplanted by a model of distributed leadership across all levels of public services delivery, on the basis the latter better fits the pluralistic public services context (Sims and Lorenzi 1992; Heifetz 1994; Denis et al. 1996; Bryman 1999; Denis et al. 2000; Hartley and Allison 2000; Denis et al. 2001; Pearce and Conger 2003; Currie and Lockett 2007; Currie et al. 2009a, b). For policy-makers, firstly, they promote distributed leadership in the expectation that the commitment of partners within a network will be enhanced and that decisions made will be more effectively implemented because solutions are contextualized by those responsible for delivering services on the front line. Secondly, distributed leadership will mediate the democratic deficit characteristic of development and delivery of public services in England (Currie and Lockett 2007; Currie et al. 2009a, b). In this way, distributing leadership is expected to complement the rationale for the policy move towards networks, which were detailed earlier. While the need for distributed leadership within PSOs is emphasized at a policy level, exactly what constitutes distributed leadership is less obvious, and the subject of ongoing clarification in the literature. Gronn (2002) characterizes distributed leadership as concertive (that is, representing more than an aggregation of individual acts, with steps initiated by one individual developed by others through the ‘circulation of initiative’) and conjoint (that is, synchronizing individual acts by having regard to individuals’ own plans, those of their peers, and their sense of group membership) action of a group or network of individuals. Van Wart (2005) offers a typology of distributed leadership, variously emphasizing the deliberate delegation of leadership from the top down through ‘substitutes for leadership’ and ‘superleadership’, and the more ‘organic’ growth of ‘selfleadership’ and ‘self-managed teams’. Others use a range of different terms to describe leadership that extends beyond the individual located within the upper echelons of the organization, thus further blurring the boundaries of the concept of distributed leadership (for example, ‘collective’: Denis et al. 2001; ‘shared’: Pearce and Conger 2003; ‘democratic’: Bennett et al. 2003; ‘devolved’, ‘participative’ and ‘collaborative’: Harris 2007). In all cases, though, distributing leadership ultimately requires both a willingness to cede leadership to others on the part of organizational heads, and the capacity of others to take it on (Van Wart 2005, pp. 372–3). As Crosby and Bryson (2005, p. 29) suggest, ‘potential for effective leadership lies alike with those who do and do not have formal positions of power and authority’. Arguably, the need for distributed leadership is all the more pronounced in publicservice networks, since ‘the notion of a leader with a hierarchical relationship to followers does not apply in collaborations, so the potential for exercising ‘decisive leverage’ by virtue of a formal position is reduced’ (Huxham and Vangen 2000, p. 1167). However, firstly, it is important to recognize that distributing leadership occurs within the boundaries set by other parties, including those in whom leadership is traditionally concentrated Public Administration Vol. 89, No. 2, 2011 (242–264) © 2011 The Authors. Public Administration © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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(Currie and Lockett 2007; Currie et al. 2009a, b, c). Distribution of leadership does not imply an equal spread of leadership among all parties. Power and influence may remain concentrated with certain participants in a network (Vangen and Huxham 2003; Crosby and Bryson 2005). Secondly, organizational objectives are frequently set by stakeholders external to networks, specifically policy-makers. This complicates any such effort to pluralize change agency, since any distribution of leadership within networks will be constrained by the parameters set by policy-makers. Rather than distributed, leadership might be concentrated in individuals, and organizations, in line with their accountability set by policy makers for meeting targets (Currie and Lockett 2007; Currie et al. 2009c; Martin et al. 2009). In short, as with aspirations towards networked forms of service delivery, attempts to implement distributed leadership may be countered by a policy emphasis upon performance that is located at the organizational level. As a result, distributed leadership may vary from ‘strong’, where no single person is in charge and leadership agents are ‘numerous, transient, [and] migratory’ (Buchanan et al. 2007, p. 1085) to ‘middle’, where leadership represents a constellation in which each member plays a distinct role and all members work together harmoniously (Denis et al. 2001), to ‘weak’, where there is a distinction between the formal leader and followers, with ultimate responsibility for organizational performance with the formal leader, but who encourages others to enact leadership (Heifetz 1994; Currie and Lockett 2007; Currie et al. 2009c). The preceding section indicates the difficulties of establishing both networks and corresponding modes of distributed leadership in public services. Ostensibly, networks and distributed leadership seem well suited to each other, but the strong performance management regimes embedded in the public-services context mean that their effectiveness and synergy in effecting service reform are compromised. Equally, however, each policy might have the potential to surmount the difficulties presented by the contingencies of the public services, by reconfiguring power relationships to foster a more dynamic organization than one governed by hierarchy or competition. RESEARCH DESIGN Research design was qualitative, which is well suited to explaining where and why phenomena exist (Langley 1999). In line with this, the aim of our study was to generalize theoretically with data gathered through comparative case studies (Yin 2003). We selected two cases that exhibited similarity (for example, both were concerned to deliver public services that crossed organizational boundaries, both fell within the traditional domain of local government) and difference: 1. Alphashire: local government bounded, existing services were delivered through the network, a dominant partner holds a significant proportion of resource. 2. Alpha City: cuts across public sector, third sector and private sector domains; a new service with a particular focus upon combating social deprivation; resource provided to the network (rather than any individual partner). The cases engender within and cross-case analysis, with the intention of identifying how challenges of transforming public services might be mediated across contexts (Eisenhardt 1989, 1991; Yin 2003). To ensure appropriate case selection, before data gathering commenced, the researchers carried out exploratory interviews with key organizational members in each case. Public Administration Vol. 89, No. 2, 2011 (242–264) © 2011 The Authors. Public Administration © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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Our study takes place in English local government, but analysis should be considered transferable beyond the narrow setting on the following basis: (1) The ‘New Labour’ government (1997–2010) was fast-moving in introducing post-NPM reforms focused on networks and distributed leadership (Currie et al. 2009c); (2) the empirical cases detailed below are e-government and sports development for urban regeneration, both areas in which public policy worldwide seeks to impact through networks (for e-government, see Heeks 1999; Pina et al. 2007; Akesson et al. 2008; Coursey and Norris, 2008; for sports development as regeneration, see Wainwright and Ansell 2008; Groeneveld 2009). The following two comparative empirical cases were selected for study. Case study 1: Alphashire e-government partnership Alphashire e-government partnership was formed in March 2001 between 10 local government organizations (‘local authorities’) in an English region – one county council, eight district or borough councils and one unitary authority in a bounded locality. In 2002, member partners articulated the vision of the partnership as ‘the seamless delivery of joined-up services to afford the customers a consistent, high-quality experience, irrespective of location’. The formal management structure of the partnership was one where the top level of governance lay with a Joint Committee comprised of 10 Member (elected political representatives from each local authority) e-champions and 10 Officer (employees of constituent local authorities) e-champions, which was chaired by one of the Member e-champions, with rotation of the chairing position annually over the lifetime of the partnership. The 10 Officer e-champions comprised the Programme Board, which reported into the Joint Committee. Again, the chair for this board was drawn from one of the participating organizations in the network, and similar to the Joint Committee, the chairing role was rotated amongst the e-champions annually. The e-government partnership did not include members of the community, although e-champions did have access to a public consultation exercise conducted by external consultants shortly after the formation of the partnership. The key partnership project, referred to as the customer relationship management (the CRM) project, required commitment from all 10 partners and centred on the underlying IT infrastructures that enable local government services to be delivered in a joined-up manner. It was anticipated that CRM would provide customer service advisors with information needed to resolve 80 per cent of service requests and allow partners to accept requests for each other. To summarize, the key actors that had the opportunity to enact leadership are: chairs of the Programme Board and Joint Committee; member e-champions of all 10 local authorities; officer e-champions of all 10 local authorities. Case study 2: Alpha City regeneration partnership Alpha City regeneration partnership was established in 2003 to regenerate a deprived northern part of an English city. The core partnership group, constituted in a board, cut across public, third sector and private sector domains and thus extended beyond local government. It consisted of the city council, county council, a private sports club, the community sports trust and Sport England. It also included a Local Strategic Partnership (LSP), a partnership that brings together organizations from public, private, community and voluntary sector in a local government geographical area. Their key objective is to Public Administration Vol. 89, No. 2, 2011 (242–264) © 2011 The Authors. Public Administration © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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improve the quality of life for the community living and working in that geographical area. Other members of the partnership group were private sector consultants and independents (chair and deputy chair of the Partnership Board); and a local entrepreneur and benefactor. Key actors to whom leadership might be distributed were the chair and deputy chair of the partnership board; the chief executive, chair and project manager of the private sector sports club; the private sector consultant; the chair and chief executive from the community sports trust; the chief executive, the lead from children’s services and the head of regeneration, city council; the chair of the LSP; the strategic manager and operations manager, the county council; the regional director, Sports England; the central government representation from the national funder; and, finally, a local entrepreneur and benefactor. It is upon these potential leadership actors that the study focuses. This article examines a key partnership project, a sports stadium development located on a ‘green-field’ site, which was expected to both involve and benefit the wider socially deprived community around it in a sustainable way. Linked to this, leadership was expected to be distributed to the community, although community representatives were not initially constituted as members of the partnership board. Within each case, we undertook interviews with all participants in the partnership, as identified above. Within Alphashire, 13 one-hour interviews were undertaken from November 2005 to December 2006, with documentation (for example, minutes of meetings collected until 2009). In Alpha City, 25 one-hour interviews were undertaken from July 2005 to August 2006, with documentation collected until 2009 (for example, minutes of meetings). Interview questions focused upon network structures, processes and outcomes, with a particular focus upon identifying the leader(s) and leadership processes within the network, and seeking an explanation from interviewees regarding why certain leaders come to the fore and why certain leadership processes prevailed. Interviews were taped and transcribed. An iterative analysis process was undertaken by the authors, reading, re-reading and coding interview transcripts, generating themes, and crosschecking these through discussions between authors. Subsequently, the analysis agreed across the authorial team for each case was considered against the overarching research questions. FINDINGS We present our findings on a case-by-case basis; that is, within case analysis. There are three themes within each case: 1. The emergence of leadership and network forms; that is, the outcome. 2. The effect of pre-existing context on networks and leadership; that is, the antecedents. 3. The effect of formal interventions to engender effective leadership within the network; that is, the process. In our presentation of each case, we first outline the outcome of interaction of networks and leadership. Following this we explain how the antecedents of each network and formal interventions during the lifetime of each network acted together to produce these outcomes. Finally, in each case, we consider how processes were managed and emerged as the network developed to mediate challenges of developing effective networks and leadership. Public Administration Vol. 89, No. 2, 2011 (242–264) © 2011 The Authors. Public Administration © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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Alphashire e-government partnership Outcome 1: the emergence of leadership and network forms Leadership appeared fragmented and concentrated rather than distributed. For example, the most powerful organization (county council), proceeded with procurement of an alternative CRM system aligned with their own need rather than developing CRM across the network cognisant of all partners’ requirements. Meanwhile, other partners customized their CRM systems. One e-champion explained discordant views as follows: The district council, for example, seem to me to have pushed to do things the wrong way, they haven’t pushed in terms of the partnership. Instead, they’ve pushed in terms of customising things to the way they want it. Another district council are very strong on some aspects of making CRM work [for themselves] but actually not overall [for the partnership]. (Officer E-Champion, Local Authority I) The most powerful local authority, the county council, appeared to renege on the idea of distributed leadership and sought to re-assert prior power relations or, at least, to act according to its own priorities and interests. Following a joint decision to purchase one CRM system, the county advanced implementation of an alternative system from the one developed through the network, with the former in line with their existing human resource and financial IT applications. The dilemma of following such a course was explained by an officer e-champion of one of the less powerful organizations in the network: Maybe for good reasons they want to go with their own one they’ve got but it starts to undermine the whole purpose of buying the [approved] CRM system. Because how do we deliver joined-up Government if social services records are [on] the county’s CRM system and benefit records are on our CRM system and somebody rings up? (Officer E-Champion, Local Authority D) Of note here, the Chair of the Joint Committee, an elected member, who might have acted in an independent role, was not reported by any interviewee as exerting leadership influence. Although interviewees felt the Chair was supportive of the partnership, his role appeared one focused mainly upon liaising with, and maintaining support from other elected members on the Joint Committee: Our [elected] members were very good at putting money into e-government, but it’s fair to say that they weren’t actually terribly interested in the nitty-gritty of e-government. Essentially when we asked them for money, they gave it to us. They trusted us to get on with it. (Officer E-Champion, Local Authority I) To mediate fragmentation and concentration of leadership, a programme manager took on a formal leadership role, with all 10 partners contributing equally to an annual core budget that paid his salary: And right from the start, we appointed a programme manager to [ensure] there was not a lead authority . . . we all contributed to the core team, they belonged to all of us, independently of anyone else, which helped significantly in making the partnership work. Not only was it a dedicated resource but a dedicated resource that belonged to all of us. (Officer E-Champion, Local Authority H) Public Administration Vol. 89, No. 2, 2011 (242–264) © 2011 The Authors. Public Administration © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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The programme manager’s role was described as central to ‘getting things going’ initially in the partnership (wary of self-attribution, we note others confirmed this): It was me that pushed things forward and said to the others, ‘you can do these things, make it work, deliver on e-government’. I identified some quick wins so that partners could see the benefit of working together. (Member of Core Team, Programme Manager) However, we note that while the programme manager was positioned in a formal leadership role, and as the partnership progressed provided some leadership drive through a ‘re-visioning day’ to orientate all the partners towards an agreed mission, the overall impression was less of his leadership as adaptive and distributed, but more an administrative type of leadership; that is, where he developed and managed structures and processes through which decision making took place. Where leadership did appear distributed in a more authentic sense through bringing a wider range of participants into leadership of the network, this appeared to be facilitated by a ‘quieter’ leadership style. In turn ‘quieter’ leadership was facilitated where participants in the partnership shared an enthusiasm for information technology and were located at similar levels in their respective organization: The partnership works because we are all directors or heads of service, which means we are all able to make the decisions at the table, rather than refer back to our organisation. Further, the fact that we were the budget holders in our organisation gave us access to delivering funding to support initiatives. (Officer E-Champion, Local Authority H) Interviewees also suggested that fostering a process of organic growth of individuals and the network through attention to relationships and politicking was important to distribution of leadership. The programme and technical assurance manager put it as follows: You have to realise that building an effective network and leadership takes a while and it has to grow within people to get that necessary culture change to make it happen. (Member of Core Team, Programme and Technical Assurance Manager) While the manager admitted that protecting the interests of one’s own turf appeared to be a more natural inclination for some officers, he felt, given time, network participants could move beyond the interests of their employing organization toward the interests of the group. In short, there may be a temporal dimension to the development of networks in public services and, concomitantly, more distributed approaches to leadership, although, as the response of the more powerful authority towards the network shows, which we detail below, over time the network and its leadership may also fragment or concentrate in the face of increasing performance and resource pressures, which are policy driven. In summary, leadership within the network seemed less about synergistic outcomes from working together, and more about representative decision-making across the network participants within a ‘managed partnership’. Outcome 2: antecedents: the effect of pre-existing context on networks and leadership Evident in the summary above of outcomes, and within our description of the Alphashire case in research design, are antecedents that shape the network and leadership. Officer e-champions revealed within their responses a reservation to fully engage in distributed leadership at partnership level and, concomitantly, the existence of individualistic Public Administration Vol. 89, No. 2, 2011 (242–264) © 2011 The Authors. Public Administration © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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leadership in strategy-shaping efforts. Cross-organizational working was a new experience for those involved and, despite the presence of policy space for alternative organizational orderings, officer e-champions continued to prioritize individual responsibilities at organizational level, rather than those of the partnership. Consequently the network tended towards fragmentation at times, which was driven by performance management needs located at the individual organizational level. This had consequences for leadership as organizational priorities diverged. For example, the requirement to demonstrate value-for-money in Comprehensive Performance Assessments, which framed government evaluation of local authority service delivery, was a factor in the powerful partner’s (county council) decision to use their own IT system to deliver e-government and, later,taking time to respond to a technical solution offered by the core partnership team and involving an integration of systems. Officer echampions were accountable for Comprehensive Performance Assessment service scores issued and made transparent by the government inspection body (Audit Commission), and the Best Value indicator for e-government enablement was one of many indicators needing to be met. Again, the impact of individualized accountability held by network participants for organizational level performance indicators was evident: And particularly the competitive fact that everybody’s involved with Comprehensive Performance Assessment, which in the early days was bizarre to me, that you’re encouraged to work closely together and yet every two or three years, you’ve got to kick everybody else out and get a better score. . . . (Chairman of Partnership) Framed by the performance management regime, delay by the county in initiating a compromise, with IT systems integrated across the network for e-government purposes, may be construed as them relegating purposes of the partnership as secondary to own needs or, alternatively, a desire to arrive at a solution that would enable them to retain lead position. Power differentials were further revealed during a Partnership Scrutiny and Performance Panel when questions posed by districts and boroughs on integration plans elicited responses by the county that integration would mainly be on the county’s terms although details had yet to be decided upon. On a more positive note, the emergence of a community of practice was influenced by organizational but, more crucially, occupational membership, of participants in the network. Many of the officers who participated in the network were drawn from organizations in a similar domain of public services and are located at a similar hierarchical level in their employing organization. Consequently we might expect participants to share a common perspective upon the problems and solutions of e-government, which engenders community tendencies. However, this does not mean that the network is free of contestation between organizations, and we capture this above, in our depiction of the Alphashire network as a ‘managed partnership’ and leadership as eventually ‘delegated’, rather than ‘distributed’. Firstly, to re-iterate an earlier point, we suggest that part of the failure to distribute leadership in Alphashire is the competitive climate with a strong performance management regime that characterizes the field of public services in England. The invidious effect of the performance management aspect of government policy is very visible. Performance management is located at the individual organizational level, towards which network participants orientate. Each of the participating organizations in the network, prior to its development, but also following its implementation, were evaluated against each other regarding their delivery of the services encompassed within the network, through Public Administration Vol. 89, No. 2, 2011 (242–264) © 2011 The Authors. Public Administration © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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performance indicators that form the basis of league tables of comparative performance. Unsurprisingly in the face of the competitive climate, network participants tended to pursue self-interest. This is particularly so where the performance management system may have a consequence for resource allocation. Those more powerful organizations that currently hold most resource may be less inclined to engage in network activity because their self-interest is less likely to be served through sharing knowledge about best practice or pursuing joint strategic development. In short, prior to the development of the network, leadership was fragmented. Our second explanation for the emergence of the managed network and delegated leadership is rather more tentative, but is borne out by others’ work, which characterizes local government in England as inherently bureaucratic (Massey 2002; Terry 2003). This mitigates against more distributed notions of leadership, which are likely to emerge rather than be driven by formal prescription, and require that the delivery of services tends towards the more structured, where standardization, rather than innovation, is privileged. Outcome 3: processes: formal intervention to engender effective leadership in the network In the early phase of the network, leadership focused upon the development of a common vision towards which partnership activity was to be orientated. However, we highlight contestation even at this early stage. One officer e-champion, for example, recounted extreme measures taken to negotiate a vision that all were willing to sign up to: different partners, different priorities. And I mean I can remember sort of in the early days that there was one point where we literally got locked in a room in a day and not allowed out until we’d banged a few heads together. (Officer E-Champion, Local Authority A) Rather than to synchronize efforts across their employing organization and the network, officer e-champions decoupled their roles in the network from delivering everyday services with an emphasis upon the latter: Because. . .when you’re back at the ranch, you just can’t work across the county, it’s not your job and you haven’t got the time. (Officer E-Champion, Local Authority B) The separation of the two roles was maintained by officer e-champions in limiting partnership efforts to e-government and upholding service roles as more significant in impact. A different officer e-champion (Local Authority C), for example, clarified that his ‘main concern’ was ‘the safety of the council and planning services here in my local authority’. In the mid-phase of the partnership, delegated leadership in the form of entrustment in an individual to act in the interests of partners was sanctioned through the role of programme manager, who was responsible for co-coordinating a joint response to a national government requirement for e-government (DTLR 2001), and helped to secure additional funds on the basis of satisfying central government criteria. Delegation of leadership to the programme manager was approved on the basis of his prior experiences of leading large projects and difficulties in arriving at a suitable structure for the partnership. In the words of the programme manager: So the group had started to meet several times during 2001 and I have to say that really they were going nowhere with the structure or formation of it. My role at the time. . .I was Head of Internal Management Consultancy, which specialised in Public Administration Vol. 89, No. 2, 2011 (242–264) © 2011 The Authors. Public Administration © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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programme/project management and I’d had a lot of experience of implementing ICT systems and project management at that scale. So obviously I was sort of dragged into one or two of these meetings and could see the disastrous way they were trying to actually form themselves. (Member of Core Team, Programme Manager) In the face of such practical difficulties, and the need to focus upon performance targets back in their employing organizations, assigning management responsibility to a designated programme manager to operationalize the network was perceived by officer e-champions as preferable to their own leadership efforts to drive the network forward. To reinforce the point, leadership was ‘delegated’, rather than ‘distributed’. However, the powerful local authority appeared able to sidestep delegated leadership and develop services aligned with its own interests. In short, the fragmentation of leadership, which was an antecedent to the network, was not mediated by the formal intervention to delegate leadership of the programme manager; that is, delegation of leadership may have an opposite effect from that intention to distribute leadership. Leadership was delegated at partnership level in the following manner. Firstly, the officer e-champions wrote and approved a job description for the programme manager and, in so doing, created the need to demonstrate professional accountability on his part. The job description, for example, provided that the programme manager deliver the overall e-government programme and manage its complex portfolio of projects. Given duties and responsibilities, the implication was that if the programme manager did not effectively co-ordinate the efforts of the partnership, annual contributions to the core budget would not be allocated in subsequent years. Secondly, the programme manager liaised with all 10 partners on a regular basis outside of meetings and developed an appreciation of ways of working and positions held. When the partnership was challenged, arguably, he was better placed to act as a stimulus for change and to take the partnership forward. It appeared that distributed leadership was capable of being aided by legally mandating the partnership in a written constitution; that is, ‘mandated’ distributed leadership. Clarifying management structures and financial contributions in a formal document had the effect of securing participation of the smaller district and borough councils. A number of officer e-champions from lower tier councils emphasized the importance of the one council, one vote rule: because the county puts no more into the partnership than a district, they have no more sway than a district then in terms of how those decisions are arrived at. And in the early days, that was a very fundamental issue: that we were all in there with an equal sized voice. (Officer E-Champion, Local Authority A) We go into it with eight districts and the county council and we don’t have to be dominated by what the county say. In other areas, on other things, we get into contact with the county and there is that tendency to say ‘Well, this is how we do it chaps, you’ve just got to comply with it’, and this doesn’t happen here. This is a strength as far as we’re concerned. (Officer E-Champion, Local Authority H) The constitution was written by the county’s in-house solicitor and, according to reports of founding members, was a purposeful move to share responsibility amongst each authority involved. In the comments above, the emphasis upon ‘equal voice’ is very telling as indicating an emphasis upon democratic decision-making. However, as discussed further, this does not necessarily engender distributed leadership. This is despite weaknesses at county level that served to further strengthen possibilities for distributed Public Administration Vol. 89, No. 2, 2011 (242–264) © 2011 The Authors. Public Administration © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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leadership. Even though the county was recognized as lead and accountable body in the constitution, the county officer e-champion reflected upon shortcomings in terms of personnel, IT structure and approach to IT-related matters within his authority; that is, any power due to expertise in technical matters was absent in the county council, but present in other smaller authorities, thus mediating any tendency for the larger authority to dominate the network: but I think that the relationship in [the partnership] is much more equal because the size of the county and the resources the county have is actually outweighed by the fact there are some very good districts and borough councils on the technical side. . .which very much hold their own. (Chairman of Partnership) As a consequence, failings at county level and suspension of traditional two-tier working practices were perceived as working to the partnership’s benefit: As it happens, the county turned out to be weak-kneed rather than altruistic in its approach and therefore it let the districts do the leading because it didn’t want to do it or hadn’t the wherewithal to do it but that worked to its advantage for the partnership. (Member of Core Team, Programme and Technical Assurance Manager) However, to emphasize outcomes over time, as the network developed, despite formalizing structures and processes, and inherent expertise weakness in the most powerful partner, we emphasize our guarded-ness about description of leadership as distributed, on the basis that the most powerful partner, the county council, remained dominant. Aligned with this, finally, we note leadership was not distributed externally to those citizens on the receiving end of e-government services. Further, we note elected members constituted the highest level of governance within the network, yet their influence upon decisions was notably absent in accounts given by interviewees. So, on these two counts, leadership may not be democratic. Case 2: Alpha City regeneration partnership Outcome 1: the emergence of leadership and network forms Interviewees identified both fragmentation of leadership and concentrated leadership, the latter a consequence of organizational hierarchy driven by the performance-orientated dimension of government policy. Specifically, one of the key concerns throughout the project has been that while the community sports stadium was regarded by all partners as a key component of the overarching aim of the regeneration of north of the city, no secondary objectives relating to individual partners were ever agreed. Consequently, the primary aim of the partnership and those more specific aims of partners were decoupled. Each partner sought to leverage the regeneration of the city with their organizational objectives foremost in their mind, rather than attempt to align their organizational objectives to support the regeneration agenda. Its consequences were that the partnership lacked the type of concertive or conjoint action that was meant to characterize distributed leadership: Organizational leaders in the partnership are more concerned with delivering on short-term targets of their organisations. They are not willing to commit to the wider community development. (Private Sector Consultant) We also note that the community was not included in decision-making within the network. The core partners group was thus careful not to define a ‘target group’ of wider Public Administration Vol. 89, No. 2, 2011 (242–264) © 2011 The Authors. Public Administration © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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stakeholders and beneficiaries, until the much later establishment of the community stakeholders group in 2007; that is, four years on from the inception of the partnership. At that point, the design of the sports stadium was largely fixed. Their decision to do this was rationalized thus: We had to think about bringing the project to the community over a much longer period of time. Initially, the community was to gain one seat at the board, and over the years would develop majority representation. There is no legacy without agencies that are prepared to deliver sports-based interventions within the neighbourhoods. It is about delivering programmes as a conglomerate of small agencies, with skilled staff that can recognise that it is an opportunity for the project to attach itself to the community not vice versa. (Central Government Civil Servant, Funder) Having portrayed a relatively negative picture of outcome thus far, we highlight that, over time, leadership was distributed across participants in the network. The Chair’s role was highlighted as crucial to this, a point we return to later: The chair quietly cultivated relationships backstage, and encouraged others to develop leadership influence within the network. He provides the glue for us to work together . . . although admittedly we may not collaborate in an entirely open way all the time. (Head of Regeneration, City Council) In sum, the outcome over time of the interaction of leadership and network in Alpha City can be characterized as one of ‘managed partnership’, with distributed leadership of a ‘quiet’ variant emerging over time, although the distribution of leadership was narrower than policy might intend because the community was marginalized in decision making. Outcome 2: antecedents: the effect of pre-existing context on networks and leadership While we note the invidious effect of the performance management regime upon the network and leadership that the service delivered through the network – regeneration through sports development – was a new service, rather than a pre-existing one, which was historically prone to competition between providers, influenced a more positive orientation of the partners towards leadership. For all partners, working together was likely to result in resource and power gain for all, rather a zero sum game in which some organizations might gain, whilst others might lose: This was an opportunity for us to bring resource, which we would otherwise not have obtained, to regenerate a deprived part of the city. We had to work together to obtain the funds. We were all going to gain from it. (Chair, Local Strategic Partnership) Others confirmed that the aim of the network, which was to address social deprivation through sports development, engendered a more collaborative ethos: The issue at stake here was an un-arguable one from the viewpoint of any of the partners. We all desired to combat social exclusion. It was in all of our interests, indeed embedded in all our KPIs [key performance indicators] (City Council Chief Executive) In summary, the context at Alpha City appears one more receptive than the Alphashire context to the development of an effective network and effective leadership. Public Administration Vol. 89, No. 2, 2011 (242–264) © 2011 The Authors. Public Administration © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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Outcome 3: processes: formal intervention to engender effective leadership in the network Reflecting the commitment highlighted above to combating social exclusion, the initial phase of the network was characterized by the development of an over-arching vision towards which the network would orientate: We all agreed that the main measure of the impact of the regeneration is whether it counters social deprivation and that the community surrounding the sports development should be shown to benefit across a wide range of health, social care and educational indicators against which we are judged. On this basis, it was a fairly straightforward matter to develop a vision that we all bought into that framed our collaborative efforts. (Regional Director, Sport England) Despite this collective agreement about the aims of the network, at times balancing the competing interests of each organization meant the dynamic between the key partners at times approached breaking point. To mediate potential conflict, interviewees suggested a requirement for some concentration of leadership: A dynamic sense of leadership is vital in these projects. Someone has to be the figurehead that can pull the project forward; someone or a group of people with a vision and can keep the project going. Once the vision is established, the appointment of a powerful or previously successful head is key, someone that inspires and goes right through, offering continuity and staying power. (Chair, Local Strategic Partnership) Such concentration of leadership needs to be linked to which organization holds resources, and the significantly differing priorities partners attached to the range of possible outcomes: There is no such thing as an equitable partnership. There were levels of organizational conflict, with the dominant organisation [us] prepared to use the big stick - and people were beaten severely with it. Partners understood this dynamic and played into it, especially when they felt another partner was not fulfilling their obligations. People have to be quite hard-nosed about it – it is not just about being nice to each other; people need to confront issues where they exist. (Central Government Civil Servant, Funder) Consequently, during its start up in particular, the partnership was characterized more by ‘dispersal’ or fragmentation of leadership across organizational partners. Beyond internal concerns of partnership leadership, distributing leadership to the wider community was also deemed essential in some, but certainly not all, partners’ minds: It is crucial. The current facility proposals, community investment and local buy in are based on the community feeling that they have ownership over the future of the facility. Also the community leadership is required to add a broader view of what the facilities can achieve over time and become a crucial facility for a large number of partners and people in the area. (Regional Director, Sport England) Community partners give the project credibility – it needs involvement from the local community. It is vital that you don’t give up. You might have to go back to basics, make it happen, you persevere. You may also use the public domain, use the press, to re-motivate the public and partners at large. (City Council Political Leader) Public Administration Vol. 89, No. 2, 2011 (242–264) © 2011 The Authors. Public Administration © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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On the one hand, this is admirable in its objective – to mediate the democratic deficit that characterizes the delivery of public services. On the other hand, it brought with it additional, significant challenges, as further detailed below. Despite aspirations from some partners that the community be included in decisionmaking, there was conflict between partners regarding the timing of community involvement and influence. For some partners, the distribution of leadership to the community appeared to be expedient on the basis that, within the early stages of the partnership, core partners wanted to ensure challenges to their plans were minimized. The chair of the partnership was acutely aware of the risks of conflict by expanding the core group, to include a wider stakeholder partnership: ‘It would raise expectations of those [community] stakeholders too early, each with potentially conflicting views’. He made it clear that the conflicting interests of the primary stakeholders needed to be resolved before consulting more widely with those who could potentially benefit from the regeneration development. This particularly applied to the wider community. Some partners (for example, the private sports club and central government funder) also felt local stakeholders could be alienated if consulted too early in the process, as they might perceive no benefit for themselves, particularly those semi-rural village dwellers, close to the ‘green field’ site. However, others felt differently, that the community should be involved from the start: Community leadership is the end outcome. Community leadership is an endpoint. If it doesn’t happen what is the point. Projects must be owned and led by the community. The community needs to take ownership early on, to take pride in projects to ensure patronage of regeneration programmes. This ensures other positive outcomes such as a reduction in anti-social behaviour, reduction in litter. (City Council Chief Executive) Partially as a result of their later inclusion, the community proved difficult to engage. As the construction phase approached, the core partnership group decided to convene a community stakeholders group to discuss issues. In ‘selecting’ potential community representatives, the partnership needed to locate those who, they claimed, needed to be ‘truly representative’ of their local community, including members of the local parish councils and local community associations. However, rather than being representative, core partners expressed concern that some community members of the partnership may be partial and champion their narrow cause at the expense of others. Therefore core partners were keen to encourage participation of community representatives, who, in their opinion, were ‘less partial’, specifically those that would be positive about the impact of the project generally. We highlight that the late inclusion of community representatives in this way, however, was not universally popular: Involvement of the community is key. It could be more straightforward. We need to create a structure to enable community involvement, once the building has been completed. We are building something for the long-term future. We must involve people in the project or they might not feel involved, from early on. (Head of Regeneration, City Council) Having noted difficulties of distributing leadership within and beyond the partnership, in a more positive vein, we highlight how more concertive and conjoint interaction of Public Administration Vol. 89, No. 2, 2011 (242–264) © 2011 The Authors. Public Administration © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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network structures and distributing leadership might be facilitated. Mutual dependence of networks and distributed leadership appears supported where leaders focus upon the development of trustful relationships and understanding across organizational boundaries. One of the facilitating behaviours for distributing leadership within the partnership was a more balanced style of leadership from the formal head of the partnership, the independent chair, freed from affiliation with the interests of any particular partner organization. The partnership leader should seek to be facts led and less emotionally connected. They should retain an overview of the needs and perceived power of different partners. The leader should bear in mind that all members of the partnership want to continue to be heard and feel they are engaging with the project. (Regional Director Sport England) Convergent with the need to be inclusive, the chair of the partnership described his approach as: Welcoming conflict to engage all partners. This engenders an informed decision and alongside this, commits partners to influence others outside the immediate confines of the partnership to ensure the implementation of decisions. Others, meanwhile, noted how the chair invested considerable time in ‘background work’ to encourage ‘others, initially reluctant to do so, to step up to the plate of leadership’: You don’t see it but I know he is beavering away out of sight to drive others to drive change. (Private Sector Consultant) Effective leadership was not an either/or question of distributed or concentrated approaches, but required concentration of leadership, as leadership was simultaneously distributed, to ensure concertive and conjoint action: Leaders need to be clear that success is about establishing an infrastructure with clear roles and responsibilities. It is then for partnership leaders to break down and adapt that infrastructure. Leaders develop a structure by which to develop the role of partners, challenging them by stating their [leader’s] expectations and asking what can be expected in return; of requesting contribution’s to project outcomes and re-iterating them. (County Council Strategic Manager) Interviewees also recognized limits to which responsibility for decision-making and its implementation can be pushed down. They stressed that empowering others beyond an elite within the partnership needed to be balanced with an understanding of limits to which distributed leadership can be pushed, and where the timing of distributed leadership appeared paramount. Taking account of this, the chair of the partnership sought to motivate the partnership members towards action, but without an undue degree of pressure that might paralyse them. As he detailed: ‘you must try to see other people’s point of view and try to come up with a ‘‘win-win’’ solution to incentivise action’. Meanwhile, the county council strategic manager highlighted the importance of any leader’s experience of past projects that settles partners, specifically settling partners down in the initial phase of activity, to manage conflict situations and show empathy to a range of often disparate views in developing projects: Public Administration Vol. 89, No. 2, 2011 (242–264) © 2011 The Authors. Public Administration © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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A leader’s experience is vital when people find it difficult operating outside their comfort zone. The expertise of leaders of partnerships is an understanding of what it takes to be able to work with anybody! The leader must speak to people in their language and work at different speeds, with different expectations, to support partners’ skills and experience. Partners described how the collaborative nature of the leadership of regeneration projects goes beyond embodying a collaborative style. It is the very essence of the project, which puts the pursuit of long-term regeneration before the achievement of short-term goals. This, some interviewees claimed, requires traditionally less dominant partners to provide leadership: Collaborative leadership is vital. Leaders must develop a vision and engage stakeholders. Local partnership leaders have a role to play. Each of the leaders must be clear as to their role – a process that must be transparent, agreed and deliverable. Leaders need to be prepared to work in new areas, to be confident, develop goodwill and be realistic in what you can deliver. The goodwill of all partners is required to bring skills to the table, take on different roles, and essentially find a way forward. However, the timing may be different for different people. It really requires a third sector organization to lead and engage with communities. (Private sector consultant) Some interviewees noted the importance of style, others the importance of effective structures and processes, including shifting leadership patterns across partners, and yet others the possession of an appropriate leadership skill-set for the project concerned. They all highlighted the importance of building sustainable relationships beyond the construction phase of the project, and developing that project with the community the partnership purports to serve. Perhaps the last word should go to the chair of the partnership: Even if you are a credible leader, your behaviour needs to facilitate and promote that credibility. It is vital to set a behavioural pattern for the group, pulling at people’s hearts and minds, the transformational bit, if you like, but never losing sight of the process regarding what we are doing here, which is collaboration. In summary, within Alpha City, formal intervention to drive the distribution of leadership, as in the case of Alphashire, was also evident, although it took a different form. An independent chair was appointed, whose role was crucial in driving the emergence of distributed leadership described above. The approach of the independent chair can be characterized as a ‘quiet’ one, which, through its focus on change, went beyond the administrative leadership or ‘management’, which was exercised by the programme manager in Alphashire. Particularly important in this case is the leadership skills of the chair, who, we highlight, is independent from any of the participating organizations in the network, for community involvement. His approach seemed to allow for the type of more synergistic activity, if not immediately, at least over time as the network developed, which is described in the distributed leadership literature as concertive or conjoint (Denis et al. 1996, 2000, 2001). However, we note the possibility, as detailed earlier, that such informal arrangements might be used to prevent the participation of particular stakeholders and distribution of leadership to those parties, such as the community. Public Administration Vol. 89, No. 2, 2011 (242–264) © 2011 The Authors. Public Administration © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.


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DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION In drawing out comparative case analysis, we characterize the interaction of networks and leadership as having a temporal dimension, which encompasses antecedents (a prenetwork phase), process (delineated into early and mid phases of the network), and an outcome (mature phase of the network) – see table 1. Comparative case analysis allows us to make a number of conclusions about the dynamics of the interaction of network forms of organization and leadership patterns. The comparative empirical cases exemplify the implementation of post-NPM reforms, and offer us early lessons of international relevance. Our study provides a theoretical and practical analysis of the implementation of policy prescriptions for networks and leadership, and the interaction of these two areas, both of which concern policy-makers and practitioners globally. Having made this assertion, our study is based upon relatively limited empirical data, and is located solely in England, so should be interpreted cautiously. In drawing together comparative case analysis, we make the following points. Firstly, performance management requirements concentrate leadership on the basis that accountability for performance lies with a limited number of participants in the network. We suggest that moving from more bureaucratic forms of management to leadership, which is distributed, is challenging to traditional ways of working, even where services are re-structured towards networked forms of delivery. Policy increasingly attends to both organizational structures and processes, and this is to be commended, but nevertheless it remains inconsistent in its support for networked forms of service delivery and distributed leadership. Performance management drives a wedge between organizations participating in networks. Others confirm inconsistencies in government policy, notably how its economic aspects often stymie aspirations for service innovation to address complex problems (Newman 2001; Currie and Suhomlinova 2006). At the individual level, network participants privilege the meeting of targets for their employing organization, rather than collaborative advantage that might emanate from networks. Differentials in power between organizations, linked to resource allocation, allow some organizational partners more than others to behave in a way that diverges from network forms of service delivery. The overall effect of this upon leadership is that it is concentrated in few, or fragmented across the network, rather than distributed amongst many in a conjoint and concertive way. However, we note that, where performance indicators converge across those organizations delivering public services, such as focused on combating social deprivation, their effect may be more positive. Overall, policy-makers need to be more reflexive about the unintended consequences that flow from interaction of different policy strands. Secondly, we highlight that public services organizations are bureaucratic (Mintzberg 1979, 1995), which also impacts upon leadership. The tendency for public services professionals and managers is to formalize structures and processes. On the one hand, this may act against distribution of leadership, where formal leadership responsibility is aligned with traditional patterns of power. On the other, it may be that leadership can be allocated in a way that supports distributed leadership; for example, through the appointment of a leader decoupled from existing power arrangements, who attends to developing structures, processes and relationships that allows distributed leadership to flourish. We highlight that a formal leader may engage in ‘adaptive work’ (Heifetz 1994) or ‘quiet’ leadership (Badaracco 2001; Rock 2006) to encourage and support others in the Public Administration Vol. 89, No. 2, 2011 (242–264) © 2011 The Authors. Public Administration © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

(i) Attempt to impose a (i) Leadership formalized common vision through delegation to (ii) Leadership fragmented, programme manager, with some concentration who aligns with most in hands of most powerful organization powerful organiztion and enacts (iii) Development of a administrative written constitution leadership

(i) Service delivery provided by each organization in competition (ii) One dominant player that held most of resource

(i) New service to be (i) Attempt to impose a developed, which was common vision not previously (ii) Leadership dispersed competitively delivered, with community with funding for marginalized by most network not any powerful actors individual partner (ii) Services to be provided in area of social deprivation

Alphashire (E-government network)

Alpha City (Regeneration through sports development)

(i) Hierarchy, markets and Resources are pooled, networks co-exist to decision making produce concentration co-ordinated and of leadership services integrated to (ii) Managed partnership some extent, with best characterizes the potential organisational network, although an learning as the CoP emergent CoP around develops. Combating IT interest social deprivation never (ii) Some fragmentation of featured as a focus of the network as powerful network organization pursues self-interest (i) Leadership formalized (i) Managed partnership Resources are pooled, through appointment of with ‘quiet’ distribution decision-making independent chair, who of leadership amongst co-ordinated and brokers distribution of internal partners services are well leadership (ii) Community remains integrated with potential on the margins of to tackle complex decision-making problems. Democratic deficit not mediated despite focus on social deprivation

Process Process Outcome Are policy aims met? Early phase of partnership Mid-phase of partnership Late phase of partnership

Antecedents Pre-partnership context

STAGE OF NETWORK

TABLE 1 The interaction of networks and leadership: antecedents, process and outcome

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network to enact leadership, and this may be an antecedent to the development of an effective network. Thirdly, distributing leadership is particularly challenging where the intention is to engage the community at large. For policy-makers that aspire to mediate a perceived democratic deficit in society, we provide a warning that distributing leadership beyond the professional and managerial elites in public services organizations may prove particularly challenging. As a result of the above, a more parsimonious or ‘weaker’ form of distributed leadership (Heifetz 1994; Currie and Lockett 2007; Currie et al. 2009c) is likely to be realized, which seems closer to conceptions of distributed leadership as ‘devolved’, (Harris 2007, p. 315) or ‘shared’ (Pearce and Conger 2003), rather than collective. Similarly, network forms of organization are likely to blend ‘ideal types’ as they mature (Goodwin et al. 2004); for example, managed partnership and community of practice. In short, taking account of the public services context in England, our analysis of networks and distributed leadership appears to add to the varied definitions of each of the concepts. Finally, our analysis of the dynamic interaction between networks and leadership is a contingent one. We suggest there is a temporal dimension to the development of distributed leadership as a network matures. Antecedents may drive the development of networks and leadership towards fragmentation in the early phase and concentration of leadership in a middle phase, but antecedents may be mediated (for example, by appropriate chairing or through the development of social capital) so that as the network matures, leadership is more distributed. Reflecting upon the implementation of policy focused upon network forms of organization and concomitant forms of distributed leadership, our analysis suggests variation in types of network. This variation is influenced by the policy aim of the network; that is, whether intended to ensure more efficient integration of service, tackling complex problems, organizational learning and innovation or, mediating the democratic deficit. In our comparative study, whether the networks met policy aims was variable across all the dimensions of policy success. We highlight that networks constitute emergent phenomena (Agranoff and McGuire 2001), which, dependent upon their form, may meet some of the policy aspirations above. Finally, in considering the transferability of our analysis, we note the context in which we have examined networks and leadership might be viewed as relatively receptive. Our first case (Alphashire) consists of a relatively homogenous group of actors. Meanwhile neither case (Alphashire and Alpha City) is characterized by the professional contestation reported in other network contexts, such as healthcare (Currie et al. 2009a, b, c; Martin et al. 2009) or hierarchical division of labour reported in other contexts for distributing leadership, such as education, where Currie and Lockett (2007) report the formal leaders of the organization tends to assume sole responsibility for improving performance. If networks and distribution of leadership cannot be implemented in our more receptive contexts, we suggest our limited analysis of policy implementation failure extends to other public services domains. Having discussed transferability of our analysis, we recognize limits to our study, notably the empirical context was set in England. Consequently, firstly, we encourage further research in different public services contexts, particularly outside England, where the effect of centralized performance management regimes may be less pronounced. Secondly, noting a temporal dimension to the development of networks and distributed leadership, we suggest longitudinal studies of the dynamics of leadership in networks are Public Administration Vol. 89, No. 2, 2011 (242–264) © 2011 The Authors. Public Administration © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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Date received 11 June 2009. Date accepted 15 December 2009.
