One prominent set of scholars focuses primarily on political network management or what call ‘‘interest intermediation’’ . Here, network management is taken as the process by which consensus is achieved behind a set of goals or policy choices that are implemented later by ‘‘others’’ who may or may not be members of the network.
In this school of thought the task of networkmanagement is reaching goal consensus,which restricts network management to the realmof policy networks.Another group of scholars focus on the other side of the politics-administration dichotomy, viewing network management as primarily a tool of implementation and collaboration while leaving aside the question of goal formation. A third perspective focuses on the information processing and knowledgemanagement capabilities of networks . Networks provide the basis for exchange of explicit and tacit knowledge needed to coordinate joint actions . This perspective is probably most applicable to what Agranoff (2006) has termed informational, outreach, and developmental networks, where the financial resources at stake are less substantial. A fourth set is concerned with ‘‘governance’’ broadly defined, taking seriously the idea that decision and implementation are not neatly divided; that political contention over goals and processes continues through the life of an agency, program, initiative, or policy; and that the set of players cannot be easily divided into ‘‘interest groups,’’ ‘‘agencies,’’ ‘‘service providers,’’ etc.