This dimension warrants inclusion is crucial given the international character of collaboration in public service delivery experiences and the obvious interest in importing or exporting solutions witnessed elsewhere. Successful transfer requires the specific identification of political, social, economic and cultural factors inherent to each country.

The past and current political environment of a given country impacts the environment (favourable or not) surrounding such collaborations just as it affects the institutional framework, its workings, and the programs set up to support or restrict such initiatives. The main aspects to take into consideration are as follows:

• history and more specifically certain milestone events such as wars, ideology, alliances, nationalism, implemented reforms, etc.
• government in power - its stability, adequacy of representation, legitimacy, dominant ideology, and its degree of centralisation or of decentralisation
• institutions and public goods, their nature and role
• government policies in social, economic, budgetary, technological and informational fields.

The social environment also includes some special features that will affect project selection and execution, as well as their relative success. They include, for example, the following factors:

• number of official languages and their distribution
• national average level of education
• population distribution in terms of age and territory
• social values: democracy, family, individual freedom, entrepreneurship and private enterprise, etc.

Some structural factors of the economic environment also impact directly the ability of government to operate collaboration projects at any given time. They are:

• employment and unemployment rates
• GDP, growth rate and inflation rate
• debt ratio and capital structure (debt and equity)
• level of modernisation and technical expertise, rate of penetration of ITCs and the national communication infrastructure

The cultural environment is closely linked to the three above-mentioned factors and would be difficult to present independently. A few aspects to take into consideration are:

distance between the citizen and the government, real or perceived

• social orientation - individualist versus collectivist
• roles of men and women within society
• Risk aversion in terms of social conservatism or liberalism
• Pace of life which provides an idea of the value given to time
• religious beliefs and practices

These 18 factors associated with the macro-environment are significant in two ways. First, they shape the most immediate environment of collaboration projects by specifically identifying their institutional, industrial and technological frameworks. Further, these characteristics are the major differentiating elements among nations. Overall, they provide the opportunity to more efficiently identify those macro- environmental factors that enable or inhibit collaboration for public service delivery as they allow the identification of conditions for transferring specific projects to other countries.