Public Services Under Austerity: Structure of the Public Sector and Drivers of Outsourcing

2019 ◽  
pp. 33-57
Author(s):  
Anna Mori
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Public Services ◽  
The Public

ISO 9001 and the public service: an investigation of the effect of the QMS on the quality of public service organizations

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge Armando López-Lemus
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Service Quality ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Public Services ◽  
The State ◽  
Iso 9001 ◽  
Knowledge Generation ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify the influence exerted by a quality management system (QMS) under ISO 9001: 2015 on the quality of public services organizations in Mexico. Design/methodology/approach The methodological design was quantitative, explanatory, observational and transversal, for which a sample of 461 public servants from the state of Guanajuato, Mexico was obtained. To test the hypotheses, a structural equation model (SEM) was developed through the statistical software Amos v.21. For the analysis of the data, software SPSS v.21 was used. Regarding the goodness and adjustment indices of the SEM (χ2 = 720.09, df = 320, CFI = 0.933, TLI = 0.926 and RMSEA = 0.05) which, therefore, proved to be acceptable. Findings According to the results obtained through the SEM model, the QMS under ISO 9001: 2015 is positively and significantly influenced tangible aspects (β1 = 0.79, p < 0.01), reliability (β2 = 0.90, p < 0.01), related to response quality (β3 = 0.93, p < 0.01), guarantees (β4 = 0.91, p < 0.01) and empathy (β5 = 0.88, p < 0.01) of the quality related to public services in Mexico. The study’s key contribution is that it discovered that implementing a QMS in accordance with the ISO 9001: 2015 standard has an impact on the quality of public services, with the most influential quality of response. Similarly, the assurance and dependability of service quality turned out to be important in providing public service quality. Research limitations/implications In this paper, the QMS was only evaluated as a variable that intervenes in the process of obtaining quality in public service under the ISO 9001 standard in its 2015 version. In this regard, the results’ trustworthiness is limited to the extent that the findings may be generalized in the state of Guanajuato, Mexico’s public service. As a result, the scientific community is left primarily focused on service quality to promote new future research. Practical implications The ISO 9001: 2015 standard’s QMS is one of the tools for success in both the commercial and government sectors. However, there are practical limitations, which focus on the time during which managers exercise their vision in the public sector: first, the dynamics that managers play in public policy; second, the length of time they have served in public office; and third, the interest of directors of public institutions to improve the quality of service provided by the government. Other practical consequences concern organizational culture and identity, public servant commitment, senior management or secretaries of government, as well as work and training. Originality/value The findings of this paper are important and valuable because they foster knowledge generation in the public sector through the ISO 9000 quality area. A model that permits the adoption and implementation of a QMS based on the ISO 9001: 2015 standard in public organizations that seek to provide quality in their services offered to the user is also presented to the literature. Similarly, the paper is important because there is currently insufficient research focusing on the variables examined in the context of public service in Mexico.

scholarly journals Public private partnership as a last resort for traditional public procurement

2006 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 299-311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Viktorija Bojovic
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Public Services ◽  
Developing Economies ◽  
Public Procurement ◽  
Public Private Partnership ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Private Partnership ◽  
The Public ◽  
Management Culture ◽  
Complex Projects

This paper discusses recent changes in the way public services are delivered A marked increase in the cooperation between the public and private sector in the realization of complex projects, mostly concerning development of infrastructure, is the main characteristic of present-day developing economies. The creation of new, innovative agreements is driven by the limitation of public funds and an ever-growing demand for an increase in the quality of public services. Looking upon the western economies experience alternatives to the traditional public sector procurement are identified in the public/private partnership. The public/private partnership can be seen as one component in the rearrangement of the public sector with a management culture that focuses on the citizen or customer. Also included in this are accountability for results, investigation of a wide variety of alternative service delivery mechanisms, and competition between public and private bodies for contracts to deliver services consistent with cost recovery and the achievement of value for money. The partnership can be realized through an array of models and in this paper priority is given to the DBFO (design-build-finance-operate) model, due to its importance in implementation. The DBFO model is considered to be a synonym for the public/private partnership, as it is the most suitable for complex projects and gains the most benefits.

scholarly journals Corporate succession practices: A public sector perspective

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 441-446
Author(s):  
Nomalinge Amelia Pita ◽  
Chengedzai Mafini ◽  
Manilall Dhurup
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Succession Planning ◽  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Public Services ◽  
Turnover Intentions ◽  
Pearson Correlation ◽  
Service Employees ◽  
Intentions To Leave ◽  
The Public

In today’s globally competitive and modern environments, organisational future plans often fail due to the lack of succession planning. Literature has shown that in most public services, very little is done to transfer employee skills before they leave the organisation, which largely is attributed to the lack of proper corporate succession planning. This study examined the association between corporate succession planning practices, internal succession barriers and intentions to leave within a public service in South Africa. The study was inspired by the absence of documented evidence of corporate succession planning initiatives, the barriers to succession planning and turnover intentions of employees in the public sector in the South African context. The study is located within a quantitative research paradigm in which a three-section structured questionnaire was administered to a sample of 243 public service employees. Two factors; namely, replacement planning and employee development/grooming were extracted using exploratory factor analysis. The Pearson correlation coefficient showed that corporate succession planning practices and internal succession barriers are negatively related to intentions to leave in the public service. Regression analysis showed that replacement planning and employee grooming are predictors of intention to quit. The results of the study are significant in that they facilitate the development as well as the effective implementation of succession planning initiatives that enable public services to improve human resource practices and counter any existing barriers to internal succession.

New Organisational Culture for New Public E-Procurement

2013 ◽  
pp. 73-86
Author(s):  
Pietro Previtali
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Public Services ◽  
Organisational Culture ◽  
Striking Feature ◽  
Market Exchange ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
The Public ◽  
The People ◽  
New Public

Effective e-government involves rethinking organizations and processes, and changing behavior so that public services are delivered more efficiently to the people who need to use them. But the nature of the public sector is not a simple one. Lots of variables have to be considered: the number of entities involved in public sector procurement, the complexity of relationships among them, historical events that impacted on the public sector and different tensions between central and local parts of the public sector. In general, the most striking feature is the sheer complexity of the public sector. In the author’s opinion, it required a reconceptualisation of market exchange, evolving the procurement scenario from competition to collaboration. Nowadays public (e) procurement is still an under-researched area which has not spread out yet. Therefore, the aim of the chapter is to conduct a reflection to identify the features of purchasing and supply in the public sector and its further developments toward forms of collaboration and group purchasing.

Organisational Challenges of Implementing E-Business in the Public Services

2011 ◽  
pp. 2231-2252
Author(s):  
Francesca Andreescu
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
Private Sector ◽  
Economic Activity ◽  
Public Services ◽  
Geographic Information ◽  
Information Industry ◽  
The Public ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
New Strategy

Underpinning £136 billion of economic activity in the United Kingdom, Britain’s National Mapping Agency is a commercialising public sector organisation having trading fund status and existing in the intersection of two different spheres—the public and the private. Recognised as a leading participant in the geographic information industry, within which it is forging partnerships with key private sector companies, the organisation has enthusiastically grasped e-business as an all-embracing phenomenon and implemented a new strategy that transformed the way it did business. Drawing on longitudinal data gathered over a period of four years, this article explores the processes of strategic and organisational transformation engendered by e-business implementation in this organisation and discusses the successful elements, as well as some of the challenges to its change efforts.

The Practical Challenges of Implementing Algorithmic Regulation for Public Services

2019 ◽  
pp. 150-177
Author(s):  
Alex Griffiths
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Risk Prediction ◽  
Public Services ◽  
The Public ◽  
Regulatory Domains ◽  
Limited Effectiveness

This chapter focuses on one particularly salient application of algorithmic regulation in the public sector—for the purposes of risk assessment to inform decisions about the allocation of enforcement resources, focusing on their accuracy and effectiveness in risk prediction. Drawing on two UK case studies in health care and higher education, it highlights the limited effectiveness of algorithmic regulation in these contexts, drawing attention to the pre-requisites for algorithmic regulation to fully play to its predictive strengths. In so doing, it warns against any premature application of algorithmic regulation to ever-more regulatory domains, serving as a sober reminder that delivering on the claimed promises of algorithmic regulation is anything but simple, straightforward or ‘seamless’.

scholarly journals A Systematic Review of Indicators for Evaluating the Effectiveness of Digital Public Services

Information ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 472 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glauco Vitor Pedrosa ◽  
Ricardo A. D. Kosloski ◽  
Vitor G. de Menezes ◽  
Gabriela Y. Iwama ◽  
Wander C. M. P. da Silva ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
Public Services ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Quality Standards ◽  
Systematic Research ◽  
Digital Government ◽  
The Public ◽  
Use Of Resources ◽  
Technical Factors

Effectiveness is a key feature of good governance, as the public sector must make the best use of resources to comply with the needs of the population. Several indicators can be analyzed to evaluate the effectiveness of a service. This study analyzes theoretical references and presents a systematic research of indicators to assess the effectiveness of digital public services in the perspective of the user. First, a literature review was carried out to identify the most common indicators employed to evaluate effectiveness in the public sector; then, the perception of academics and professionals regarding digital government was assessed to analyze the relevance of these indicators. As a result, two groups of indicators were found: technical factors based on service quality and usefulness of the service. This work contributes to enrich the discussion on how to create an effective model to evaluate the effectiveness of public services to guarantee quality standards and comply with the expectations of users.

Voluntary cooperation of citizens in the community model of public service delivery

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beáta MIKUŠOVÁ ◽  
Nikoleta JAKUŠ ◽  
Marián HOLÚBEK
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Service Delivery ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Public Services ◽  
Revealed Preferences ◽  
Public Service Delivery ◽  
Continuous Increase ◽  
The Public ◽  
Community Model

Most of the developed countries have implemented new principles of public sector reform – new approaches to the management of the public sector. A major feature of the new public management (NPM) is the introduction of market type mechanisms (MTM) to the running of public service organizations: the marketization of the public service. The marketization of public services aims at a continuous increase in public expenditure efficiency, continual improvements in public services quality, the implementation of the professional management tools in the public sector, and last but not least, charge for public services. Price of public services in mainstream economics theory is connected with preference revelation problem. Economic models explain the relationship between consumer behavior (revealed preferences) and the value of public goods, and thus determine the value of the goods themselves. The aim of the paper is to determine the success of the community model of public service delivery based on the demonstrated preferences of individuals in the consumption of public services / public goods. The direct way of determining the preferences of individuals was used in this paper (willigness to pay and willigness to accept). These preferences will be identified based on the crowdfunding campaign as an example of community model of public goods provision by using survey experiment method. The willingness of individuals to pay is dependent on the individual's relationship with the organisation, the organisation's employees, or sympathise with those for whom the collection is, for whom the project is designed.

scholarly journals Choice and Information in the Public Sector: A Higher Education Case Study

2012 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamie Harding
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Quality Of Service ◽  
Public Sector ◽  
Public Services ◽  
Student Survey ◽  
Prospective Students ◽  
Consumer Evaluations ◽  
The Public

Successive governments have encouraged the view of users of public services as consumers, choosing between different providers on the basis of information about the quality of service. As part of this approach, prospective students are expected to make their decisions about which universities to apply to with reference to the consumer evaluations provided by the National Student Survey. However, a case study of a post-1992 university showed that not all students made genuine choices and those who did tended to be in stronger social and economic positions. Where choices were made, they were infrequently based on external evaluations of quality.

PPPs and the Changing Public Sector Ethos: Case-Study Evidence from the Health and Local Authority Sectors

2003 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 481-501 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gail Hebson ◽  
Damian Grimshaw ◽  
Mick Marchington
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Public Services ◽  
Health Sector ◽  
Traditional Values ◽  
Term Survival ◽  
Private Finance Initiative ◽  
The Public ◽  
Government Sector ◽  
Work Intensification ◽  
Contractual Approach

This article explores the extent to which a new contractual approach to delivering public services, through public private partnerships (PPPs), is transforming the traditional values underpinning the public sector ethos among both managers and workers. Drawing on two detailed case studies of PPPs - a Private Finance Initiative in the health sector and the outsourcing of housing benefit claims in the local government sector - we identify a range of new pressures impacting on five key elements of a traditional notion of the public sector ethos. Our findings demonstrate that the contractual relations of PPPs have led to a clear weakening of traditional notions of managerial accountability and bureaucratic behaviour, reflecting both a shift to new lines of accountability (private sector shareholders) and a vicious circle of monitoring and distrust between partner organizations, in place of the old faith in bureaucratic process. Among workers, certain traditional values - especially a concern for working in the public interest - continue to inform the way they identify with, and understand, their work in delivering public services. However, the cost cutting and work intensification associated with PPPs present a significant threat to these values.The article identifies examples of short-term resilience of the traditional public sector ethos, as well as developments that threaten its long-term survival.

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