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Belief in the resource-saving and service-enhancing potential of inter-organizational collaboration has become virtually an article of faith among resource providers, client advocates and service planners. Yet collaboration in practice encounters myriad difficulties, and successful collaborations seem to be relatively rare. In this article, we focus on providers' incentives to collaborate: why might a provider decide to reallocate effort away from independent service provision toward collaboration in service provision? We argue that careful consideration of these incentives, framed by theory, can help sponsors of collaboration to avoid choosing governance mechanisms that are likely to fail, and select instead those mechanisms with the best chances of success under the circumstances they confront. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although recent public management reforms In Canada, Mexico and the USA are characterized by similar themes and vocabularies - privatization, customer service, devolution - the nature and extent of actual change reflects the national politics and administrative histories of the three countries, in brief, Canadian public management has been heavily influenced by the need for fiscal retrenchment at both national and provincial levels, Mexican public management has been influenced by the transition from oligarchic to democratic governance at federal, state and local levels, and USA public management has been preocuppied at the federal level with implementation of the Government Performance and Results Act and with the miscellaneous initiatives organized under the 'Reinventing Government' theme as it has been popularized Clinton administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reflects on whether work programs should be voluntary or mandatory for welfare recipients in the United States. Theorists' preference for voluntary work programs; Importance of innovation in implementing work programs; Perception of mandatory work programs as a form of punishment; Status of welfare administration as a line operation.

Compares and contrasts mandatory and voluntary work programs for welfare recipients in the United States. Economic and social costs of mandatory work programs; Conditions to gaining access to welfare; Role of voluntary work programs in transforming the relationship of client to agency by confronting a client with a decision between alternative programs.

Discusses the reasons why some voluntary and mandatory work programs may or may not be successfully implemented in the United States. Policy innovations in welfare programs; Government's role in preparing the welfare recipient for self-sufficiency; Needed change in culture within the welfare agency; Importance of power in implementing innovation.

Discusses the controversy over the question of whether participation in employment and training programs should be mandatory or voluntary for various categories of welfare recipients in the United States. Background on welfare reform legislation passed by Congress; Emphasis of welfare programs on the provision of education, employment and job training services; Description of the U.S. welfare system.

Though sharing a concern for the well-being of the poor, recent books on welfare reform have failed to produce a convergent view of appropriate public policies for preventing poverty and alleviating its consequences. None of the authors is exceptionally acute in being able to work backward from the human problem of poverty in places like Chicago, Detroit, and Los Angeles to the design of policies that might work there. Improvement in the life chances of poor people cannot occur unless labor markets offer much more abundant and attractive job prospects—direct routes into the mainstream—to ordinary, unremarkable citizens who are otherwise likely to fall into chronic dependency on welfare and the underground economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]