The article discusses changes that have taken place in actors’ perception of the outcomes in the homeless assistance network in Warsaw over the years 2013-2017. The study has been conducted on an almost the same sample of NGOs and network employees. In this system collaboration is strongly developed as well as strong position of non-governmental institutions as oppose to local government of Warsaw and its 18 districts. The article studied whether functioning in a collaborative environment changed the results of individual NGOs and whether there is a relation between actors’ perception and the results of their organizations (measures as a percentage of people who left homelessness). Therefore, simultaneously a relation between perceived and real outcomes is researched. Separately, organizations which (1) improved their real outcome, (2) their outcomes deteriorated and (3) remained at the same outcome level were studied. The aim of the article is to show a gap between the actors’ perception of outcomes by employees of NGOs and real changes in efficiency and effectiveness of these organizations. Study hypothesis: there is a relation between the changes in actors’ perception of outcomes and changes measured by outcomes in which collaboration takes place. Scope of the study: two samples from 2013 and 2017 of employees of local government working in the homeless assistance network in Warsaw. Variable used in a study was declared trust to individual actors in the network, whose changes were observed over the research period. A background fact is that a radical organization change planned for 2014, has not taken place. However, there is a need to draw attention of local government on a need to focus on efficiency and effectiveness in homeless assistance governance network. The results show that the percentage of “difficult to say” responses has dropped and the opinion on particular parameters of the system are less vague. This also pertains to such variables as the “possibility to obtain information” from particular actors of the system, “length of information flow” especially from other NGOs, engaged in the system individual actors. In the article correlation between trust and the satisfaction from the cooperation with individual organizations and the perceived outcome of the governance network are researched. In addition, the authors have also discussed the distribution of variables related to the governance network functioning and those measuring system problems such as: division of competences, level of merit support for employees, psychiatric diagnosis issues, issues of coordination and independence of institutions. Studied variables are also mentioned in the context of general perceptions of actors of the functioning of homeless assistance network.
Behagel J.H., Arts B. (June 2014). Democratic Governance and Political Rationalities in the Implementation of the Water Framework Directive in the Netherlands. Public Administration, 92: 2, pp. 291-306.
Keast, R. A Guide to Collaborative Practice: Informing Performance Assessment& Enhacement, Queensland Family and Children’s Commission, 2015
Koliba, Ch., Meek, J. W., Zia, A. (2011). Governance networks in public administration and public policy. USA: CRC Press.
Simon H.A. (1945). Administrative Behaviour, The Free Press, New York.
Connecting the study of collaborations: integrating separate case studies into a collectiv
