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The authors of this article have developed a preliminary theory of network effectiveness wherein the unit of analysis is not the organization but the ties between the parts of a network of organizations that jointly produce a service (Provan and Milward 1995). This theory and the study that produced it differ from most studies of interorganizational relations and networks in that it has a performance-based dependent variable. The leading text in the field of public organizations, Hal G. Rainey's Understanding and Managing Public Organizations (1996, 140), calls the article “particularly important [for] new insights and direction for research and thought on effectiveness of government services.…” The conclusions, which were based on a four-city study, were that the most effective community mental health network was not flexible or adaptive. The most effective network was controlled by a monopoly provider that …