Coordinating mechanisms include hierarchies, markets, and networks. Recent administrative reforms can be understood as attempts to utilize markets or networks as major coordinating mechanisms, rather than the hierarchies that have been regarded as the main governing structure for most of the 20th century. This study, based on analyses of the British reform cases of CCT and JUG, aims to highlight the difficulties of utilizing markets and networks in their pure forms, and finds that they can be applied in reality only as hybrid forms which contain elements of hierarchies. The results of the study suggest that hierarchies are necessary elements for coordination, and successful administrative reforms depend on the effective amalgamation of markets or networks with hierarchical coordinating mechanisms.