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Putting The Pieces Together: A Comprehensive Framework For Understanding The Decision To Contract Out And Contractor Performance, Anna A. Amirkhanyan, Hyun Joon Kim, Kristina T. Lambright
Putting The Pieces Together: A Comprehensive Framework For Understanding The Decision To Contract Out And Contractor Performance, Anna A. Amirkhanyan, Hyun Joon Kim, Kristina T. Lambright
Kristina Lambright
Contracting out is currently one of the most prevalent mechanisms of the privatization movement. Understanding its trends and rigorously analyzing its implications is an increasingly salient issue for public management research. This article builds a multi-stage theoretical framework addressing two broad research questions. The first is to identify the array of economic, political, organizational, and institutional factors that may impact a government agency's decision to contract out. The second is to detail the various organizational and environmental factors influencing contractor performance. Particular attention is paid to effective contract monitoring and its relationship to contractor performance.
Do Relationships Matter? Assessing The Association Between Relationship Design And Contractor Performance, Anna A. Amirkhanyan, Hyun Joon Kim, Kristina T. Lambright
Do Relationships Matter? Assessing The Association Between Relationship Design And Contractor Performance, Anna A. Amirkhanyan, Hyun Joon Kim, Kristina T. Lambright
Kristina Lambright
Contracting relationships vary in the extent to which they are complete and involve formal contract specification as well as the extent to which they are based on strong relationships and rely on cooperation and trust. Where a contracting arrangement falls on these two continuums constitutes what this paper refers to as "relationship design" and is likely to impact contractor performance. We use data from a survey of child-care centers and Head Start agencies in Ohio to examine the association between the design of contracting relationships and contractor performance. Contractor performance is assessed in two ways: an objective measure of violations …