Inter-Organizational Accountability and Budget Cut-Backs

ccountability arrangements in networks present special concerns because of the potential for accountability to get "lost in the cracks of horizontal and hybrid governance" (Romzek et al 2012:443). Networks involve numerous cooperating agencies and/or subcontractors with different goals, organizational agendas (Romzek et al 2012). The aim of the present paper is to investigate, through an exploratory case study, how accountability is shaped in a network of public and private actors and the set of means and processes adopted, in a period of budget cut-backs due to the financial constraints in the public sector. The paper, drawing from the accountability literature (Romzek and Dubnick, 1987; Romzek et al., 2012), presents the result of a field study in a social services network in Italy. Data are based on document analysis, interviews with key institutional actors and participation in budgetary negotiation meeting in the network.