Achieving horizontal policy objectives and getting individual departments and agencies contribute to their achievement is a major challenge for contemporary governments. The extent to which individual organizations contribute to horizontal policy programmes is according to literature a question of organizational priorities, accountability relationships and motivation. This article seeks to explain which organizational features make organizations contribute to horizontal policy programmes, in terms of commitment and prioritization of actions, allocation of responsibilities and resources, and in terms of monitoring and reporting. Competing hypotheses based on agency theory and stewardship theory are tested by using survey-based regression analyses and interview data. In line with the developed hypotheses, the analysis shows that organizations having policy formulation as primary organizational task contribute relatively more to horizontal programs, in contrast to policy implementing organizations. However this effect disappears when taking organizational culture into account. While organizations with a strongly developed costumer-oriented culture contribute relatively less, organizations with an innovation-oriented culture make more efforts for horizontal policy programmes. However, the extent to which the organization is steered by its portfolio minister and is hold accountable for its contribution to the horizontal policy programme by this minister has the strongest positive effect. These findings suggest that vertical steering and accountability might motivate organizations to contribute to horizontal programmes, but also that an organizational culture oriented towards risk taking, creativity, experimenting and innovation enables the open mindset needed for such a meaningful contribution through connecting the horizontal efforts to the own organizational tasks.
More detail can easily be written here using Markdown and $\rm \LaTeX$ math code.