Hybrid Organisations in the provision of Local Public Services

The aim of our work is to investigate the risk of anti competitive behaviour implied by temporary groups of service providers. The point bears policy implications as local authorities, following European Union directives, have stressed the role of such alliances in the public procurement of services. We first, summarize the fragmented literature on temporary horizontal alliances in public works and services. The coopetitive perspective is then discussed as an explanation recognizing that, within firms’ groups, both processes of value creation and value sharing take place. We then deal with a case study referring to the public transport provision in Piedmont in order to evaluate the performance of a temporary group of service providers in terms of efficiency and competitive behaviour