Creating a playing field for assessing the effectiveness of network collaboration by performance measures

This contribution addresses the question of how the effectiveness of network collaboration can be assessed and how performance measures may be helpful in doing so. The first part of the article discusses the difficulties of determining effectiveness in network collaboration and the limitations of ex ante formulated objectives and performance measures. The analysis of three cases in the second part of the contribution shows the differences between assessing effectiveness in a coordination network, where there are not initial agreed upon goals, as compared to collaborative networks in which parties share a common policy program. In the latter situation, objectives are shared and possibilities exist for prior agreements regarding performance. Conditions for establishing effectiveness seem to be more favorable then in coordination networks. In practice, however, assessing effectiveness of networks often happens in an erratic and unstructured way, using ad hoc performance criteria which may differ from the original objectives, and which parties may not share. This may lead to a power struggle and a blame game. Improvement may be expected from a more conscious way of arranging processes by which effectiveness is assessed. Such arrangements should include agreements on the content and role of performance measures.