Abstract The topic of public service partnerships has clear substantive importance. Governments all over the world are increasing their dependence upon collaborative partnerships to delivery public services. This article reviews literature written in the crevice between the espoused benefits of collaborative service partnerships and the reality that they are difficult to create, sustain, and use to mobilize resources in ways that create positive results. According to this article, the literature exploring the collaborative public service delivery is diverse. This reflects the variation found in the field, as practitioners use an increasingly wide array of tools to work on complex, public problems. What has resulted is a disparate literature with two distinct streams of inquiry — one focusing on collaboration itself, the other on the consequences these new service arrangements have on organizations and citizens. This article reveals some fundamental issues unresolved in the ongoing scholarly inquiry.
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