The Performance of Local Health Provision Networks : The Case of the Hungarian Managed Care Organizations

Abstract

Public management literature, using network theories, is basically directed at examining and explaining how policy networks work. Much less attention is paid to analyze local service provision networks. In our paper we explore how a network management model can be used to describe local health provision networks, how the performance of local networks is influenced by network characteristics, and how these local networks can be connected to policy networks. We use the framework created by Benson (1975; 1982) and “rediscovered” by Hudson (2004) to examine the case of Hungarian managed care organizations. We find that this model can be applied to examine the perform­ance of local service provision networks as well as the policy level factors behind them.