Transboundary Interactions

Much of the work of government officials at the local and regional levels can best be described as operating at the
margin or edge of the organization. Whether it is relating to those above and below in the organization, or with peers in
similar organizations, inter-organizational management may well be the most common experience of most in
bureaucracy. Few government endeavors fall neatly within the purview of a single government agency and, therefore,
there is the inevitable duty of reconciling the capacities and resources of multiple different agencies to address a task.
The same is true of collaboration across jurisdictions (think how complicated things would be if something as
straightforward as a mutual aid pact among several fire departments did not exist). The practices and behaviors of the
managers involved are quite different.

Transboundary interactions are central to the work of most managers. Whether it is coordinating with field offices,
working with peers from similar agencies but working for a different jurisdiction, working across agencies which share
responsibility for implementing a program, or working across the executive-legislative divisions, managing these
activities is the ultimate test of government managers. Complicating matters is that the management skills in these
transboundary experiences are different and may require different management styles.

As governments have grown in the twentieth century, and especially as the emphasis in governments shifted to social
services for individuals and families, the need for public access to those responsible for such programs meant that small,
functionally specific government offices were scattered across a country’s geography. As will be examined in more detail
below, in a case study of field office-central office relations in an agency in the State of Ohio, close communications
convey what is being done, not via stale reports, but as the measure of success and organizational effectiveness. The key
question to be addressed is whether rigid uniformity is critical or a get-the-job-done-given-the-circumstances approach
may work. Both choices are permitted, and both have consequences.

Peer relationships are carried out in the context of narrow, expert-driven, and capacity-enhancing endeavors. The
choices available are often well understood and reflect a professional ethos. Again, multiple fire department negotiating
a mutual aid pact is a good example. In many ways this is the most straightforward of the transboundary relationships.
All the parties to the negotiation share a common technical language and therefore there is limited misunderstanding.
The expectation is that an outcome is a technical problem that can be resolved by the application of agreed-to tools. The
mishaps in such relationships come from the changes in technology that fluctuate the understanding of compatibility or
changes of mission which complicate implementation.

The more complicated and parenthetically the most common interaction involves agencies at different levels of
government which share responsibility for the implementation of a program or who come together to collaborate on a
shared problem(s). Examples of such activities range from coordination between a national government and a local
government, to the operations of multi-government regional organizations, and to large international efforts (for
example the European Union or the United Nations).

The last set of relations involves the interaction of the executive and legislative branches. Another way to frame this is to
see this as the political aspect of management, whether that is a city manager or department head interacting with a
city council, or a large national agency interacting with the national assembly. These interactions are different, because
the rules of the game and the outcomes sought may differ among those involved. This topic will be discussed in much
more detail in Chapter 10.

This chapter will review in some detail the types of management practices pertinent to each of these four versions of
transboundary interactions. The mind-set and managerial style appropriate to each will be discussed.

Field Office-Central Office Relations

In an often-overlooked comment in his study of bureaucracy, Wilson (1981) stressed the importance of physical distance
as a determinant in the reliance upon rules (especially written rules) to regulate behavior. He noted that police
supervisors use the expectation of rule compliance as a substitute for direct supervision. Interestingly, in a book written
a number of years before, Matthew Crenson (1975) suggested that the impetus for the bureaucratization in the Jackson
presidency was the need to control individual behavior in far-flung government offices (particularly the Land Office, but
also the Post Office and Customs). The goal of the introduction of written reports and other “red tape” in the 1830s was
driven by a desire to make government interactions with citizens more uniform and equitable (Crenson, 1975).

The simple reality is that as organizations expand beyond the physical boundaries of a specific location, the
organizational response is to de-emphasize management as interpersonal (leadership) and emphasize management as
old-fashioned, Tayloresque, control. Seemingly the desire to centralize the management of the organization is a direct
response to the physical decentralization of operations. The concern for equality of treatment of the citizens leads to the
paradox of less latitude and discretion for those in the field (who presumably know better what is equitable).
Presumably, equal treatment trumps equitable treatment, or at least becomes an issue beyond the discretion of the
“street-level” (Lipsky, 1980) public servant.

While it is overly simplistic to suggest that the conflict between the push for de-centralization and the pull for
centralization is one of who should exercise discretion (Cox, 2000, 2005; Cox, Hill, and Pyakuryal, 2008), the felt need to
control decisions whether at the center, or on the street, is at the heart of this tug-of-war. The nearly century old