Information sharing in public-private relationships: The role of boundary objects in contracts

The management of public-private relationships to deliver vital public products and services is crucial to ensure high performance. While extant public management studies have started to position contracts as vital in managing information exchange, these studies paid limited attention to unpack the elements within a contract, and their role and capacity, to support (or hinder) information sharing. Drawing on primary and secondary datasets, we examine three relationships between a pharmaceutical company and public healthcare organizations. While findings reveal that contracts can function as a common reference point, individual boundary objects differ both in their information processing and exchange capacities.