Service quality and the optimum number of members in intermunicipal cooperation: The case of emergency primary care services in Norway
Intermunicipal cooperation (IMC) is often used as a mean to reap scale benefits. Most studies on the effects of IMC focus on cost savings, while service quality is overlooked. In this study, the focus is set on input quality in a service characterized by high asset specificity and need for redundancy: emergency primary care. We analyze how mode of governance affect performance by (1) measuring whether IMC versus single-municipal production affects input quality and (2) identifying optimum scale of operation; effect of the number of participants in the cooperation on input quality. The findings indicate that cooperation weakens the input quality of medical workforce, but that this negative e…
Cooperation is no Panacea : Inter-municipal Cooperation, Service Delivery, and the Optimum Scale of Operation. A Study of how Cooperation Affects Performance in Local Service Delivery
Inter-municipal cooperation (IMC) is one of the most widely-used organizational alternatives in local governments’ attempts to adapt to ever-increasing demands for high quality and cost-efficient services. Although IMC is widespread, studies of its effects are largely lacking. The existing studies show contradicting results, causing more and more scholars to ask what determines whether or not cooperation is successful. This study contributes to filling this gap by asking, when and how shared service delivery is beneficial. The study’s empirical work is constituted of four separate articles. Each article uses one specific service as an empirical case for analyzing the effects cooperation on …
Kommunesektoren- mot et strukturelt mangfold? : "utviklingen av formell struktur i norske kommuner"
Masteroppgave i offentlig politikk og ledelse- Universitetet i Agder 2011 Norske kommuner har siden revisjonen av kommuneloven som trådte i kraft i 1993 fått en betydelig større mulighet til selv å utforme egen organisasjonsstruktur (Hovik & Stigen, 2008). Fokuset for studien er i første omgang hvordan kommunene har tilpasset seg denne friheten. Den første delen består derav i en kartlegging av utviklingen i kommunenes formelle struktur. Den teoretiske tilnærmingen ligger innenfor den teknisk instrumentelle og institusjonelle tradisjonen og munner ut i et forskningsspørsmål om kommunenes strukturvalg kjennetegnes av isomorfi eller anisomorfi (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983; Donaldson, 2001; Meyer …
Does cooperation affect service delivery costs? Evidence from fire services in Norway
The objective of this study is to develop our understanding of how cooperation between local governments affects service delivery costs. The current study provides three contributions to the existing literature: (1) we assess the relation between inter-municipal cooperation and service delivery costs for fire services; (2) we evaluate whether different forms of cooperation affect costs differently; and (3) we analyse how the number of cooperation partners affects the cooperation–cost relation. Theoretically, it is argued that cooperation promotes scale economies, but that increasing transaction costs from additional cooperation partners may outweigh these potential benefits. The data show t…