A Closer Look at Contract Accountability: Exploring the Determinants of Sanctions for Unsatisfactory Contract Performance

Governments continue to increase their reliance on private and nonprofit agents to deliver goods and services to citizens. Yet there is a dearth of scholarly research on the critical decisions made by public managers throughout the contract implementation process—decisions that can have a profound impact on the quality of services delivered to citizens and on the accountability of contractors to the public interest. This research addresses the accountability dynamics in local government contracting by analyzing the decisions public managers make to determine whether they sanction contractors for unsatisfactory performance. This study reports the results of a national survey of local government managers and is supplemented with pre- and postsurvey interview data. Although public managers have powerful tools available, especially in the form of sanctions, the results presented here indicate that several factors prohibit their execution—specifically the burdensome nature of the sanctioning process, willingness to use discretion, and the extent to which the organization is dependent on the poor-performing contractor. Understanding how and why managers use contract sanctions can elucidate both administrative decision making in the implementation process, and as importantly, the influence of this action on public accountability.