Public service performance: Exploring the effects of strategy configurations among ownership types

We focus on strategic management as a critical issue for service delivery and explore the effects of strategy configurations among ownership types. Examining the strategic stance of public, nonprofit, and private service providers, we explore how and where different ownership types generate performance returns across customer, business, and social dimensions. Using a configurational approach, we find ideal strategy profiles among ownership types. The ideal strategy profile delivers both social and business performance returns for public; customer and social performance advantages for nonprofit; but only customer performance gains for private ownership types. Through additional analysis differences in the identity of prioritized stakeholders between ownership types are explored to interpret differences in strategy and performance. The influence of local government for public ownership versus the prioritization of funders for nonprofit and private ownership types is the one clear difference between service providers. Implications for public management theory and practice are identified and discussed.