Australian welfare workers and street-level discretion when working with clients from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds

2019 ◽  
Vol 68 (3) ◽  
pp. 372-389 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tran Nguyen
Keyword(s):  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Linguistically Diverse ◽  
Culturally And Linguistically Diverse ◽  
Welfare To Work ◽  
Cultural Understanding ◽  
Street Level ◽  
New Public ◽  
Welfare Workers

This article explores street-level discretion of Australian welfare workers when working with clients from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds. The research is situated within the context of New Public Management (NPM) and neoliberalism in the welfare sector. Findings suggest that workers’ discretion oscillates between extra support for clients, or further scrutiny and sanction. Such contradictory patterns of discretion highlight workers’ capacity to resist neoliberalism while concurrently upholding it. The article argues that cultural understanding, recognition of the limitations in welfare-to-work policies and neoliberalism, and how those factors, together with ethnicity, may influence street-level discretion are necessary for welfare workers to support CALD clients effectively.

scholarly journals Client Abuse to Public Welfare Workers: Theoretical Framework and Critical Incident Case Study

Sociology ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 762-777 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pernille S Stroebaek ◽  
Marek Korczynski
Keyword(s):  
Market Economy ◽  
Public Management ◽  
Critical Incident ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Public Welfare ◽  
Social Market Economy ◽  
New Public ◽  
Social Market ◽  
Welfare Workers

We analyse a case study of workers’ experience of client abuse in a Danish public welfare organisation. We make an original contribution by putting forward two different theoretical expectations of the case. One expectation is that the case follows a pattern of customer abuse processes in a social market economy – in which workers are accorded power and resources, in which workers tend to frame the abuse as the outcome of a co-citizen caught in system failure and in which workers demonstrate some resilience to abuse. Another expectation is that New Public Management reforms push the case to follow patterns of customer abuse associated with a liberal market economy – in which the customer is treated as sovereign against the relatively powerless worker, and in which workers bear heavy emotional costs of abuse. Our findings show a greater match to the social processes of abuse within a social market economy.

Swiss public servants' perceptions of performance in a fast-changing environment

2008 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 307-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yves Emery ◽  
Carole Wyser ◽  
Noemi Martin ◽  
Joelle Sanchez
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Performance Management ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Shared Vision ◽  
Civil Servants ◽  
Public Servants ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Public Sector Organization ◽  
New Public

The notion of performance is central in all the modernization processes that have been conducted during the last 20 years, notably under the New Public Management (NPM) movement. Since the models and notions of performance analysed in research nearly always reflect the vision of top management, this article proposes to consider the vision of personnel at the street level, specifically Swiss civil servants. A highly capable public sector organization, focused on efficiency, quality services provided for the citizens and outcomes needs motivated employees to achieve these ambitious objectives. But how is `performance' perceived by civil servants without any management responsibilities? Using the typology of Boltanksi and Thévenot, the article highlights several reference worlds to which civil servants refer when speaking of performance, revealing the dominant influence of the industrial world over that of the civic world, with the domestic and commercial worlds placed third and fourth in importance, respectively. It details the evolution of performance as seen by civil servants, allowing us to better understand their reactions when faced with the transformations under way as well as the identity crisis caused by the contradictory worlds they currently face. Points for practitioners Under the NPM-banner, performance management has been introduced in almost every public sector organization. Performance must be clearly operationalized at all levels of the hierarchy, which is a difficult process because NPM has introduced new values that potentially conflict with traditional public sector values. This article highlights and analyses the way Swiss civil servants at the street level perceive performance, providing useful insight into their dominant value framework. Their perception of a `highly capable public sector' must be set against actual standards in order to achieve a shared vision of the main dimensions and criteria of performance, a prerequisite for effectiveness in every performance management system.

New Public Management and Service Privatization in Australia

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Siobhan O'Sullivan
Keyword(s):  
Public Service ◽  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Welfare To Work ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Private Companies ◽  
Employment Services ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
New Public ◽  
Australian Experience

Since at least the 1980s, New Public Management (NPM) has had a dramatic impact on public service delivery in Australia. NPM is a contested concept, but it is often closely associated with making government more businesslike, using a range of techniques such as the establishment of quasi-markets for the delivery of goods and services by private companies that work for government on short-term contracts. Australia’s strong embrace of NPM principles is most evident in its transformation of welfare-to-work under the Keating and Howard governments. Yet the evolution of Australia’s employment services system also points to some of the unresolved tensions inherent in NPM. In particular, the Australian experience suggests that it is difficult to strike a balance between maintaining control in a way that meets the expectations of citizens and allowing private companies freedom to innovate and capitalize.

The Role of Interorganizational Competition in Motivating Street-Level Bureaucrats to Adopt Policy Entrepreneurship Strategies: The Case of Israeli Rabbis in Government Hospitals

2020 ◽  
pp. 027507402098269
Author(s):  
Niva Golan-Nadir
Keyword(s):  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Policy Entrepreneurship ◽  
Street Level ◽  
New Public ◽  
Government Hospitals ◽  
Street Level Bureaucrats ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
Do So

What is the role of interorganizational competition in motivating street-level bureaucrats to adopt policy entrepreneurship strategies? What are their main goals in adopting such strategies? We argue that in the wake of New Public Management, interorganizational competition encourages street-level bureaucrats to adopt policy entrepreneurship strategies. We further suggest that three competition-oriented elements motivate entrepreneurial initiatives at the street level: (a) personal, (b) organizational (interorganizational and intraorganizational), and (c) cultural demographic. In addition, we argue that the goal of street-level bureaucrats as policy entrepreneurs is to influence public policy results for their own benefit. They do so because they and their organizations are rewarded financially as their clients’ satisfaction with the services provided increases. Using in-depth interviews, online questionnaires, and textual analysis, we test these claims by analyzing the case of Israeli rabbis in government hospitals. We demonstrate how their goal in entrepreneurship is mainly to attract patients to their organization.

scholarly journals Resistance-driven Innovation? Frontline Public Welfare Workers’ Coping with Top- down Implementation

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gry Høiland ◽  
Elisabeth Willumsen
Keyword(s):  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Public Welfare ◽  
Frontline Employees ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Critical Realist ◽  
New Public ◽  
Resis Tance ◽  
Welfare Workers

Employee-based innovation researchers point to the important role of welfare workers in public service innovations. Bureaucratic and New Public Management inspired managerial agendas, still widely present in Nordic welfare organizations have been tied to an increase in feelings of inau- thenticity and use of coping strategies by welfare workers. At the same time, post-NPM principles of collaboration and service tailoring are more in line with professional values of welfare workers. Drawing on a critical realist informed case study comprising qualitative interviews and observations in the Norwegian public welfare and employment services, we describe types of revision and resis- tance practices used by frontline employees when faced with top-down implementation instructions, linking them to different types of innovations. The article adds to literatures on employee-based innovation by conceptualizing resistance practices as value-motivated resistance-driven innovation that may have a function of calibrating public value creation in welfare organizations submerged in bureaucratic and NPM-inspired managerial regimes

The Street-Level Bureaucracy at the Intersection of Formal and Informal Water Provision

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie-Hélène Zérah
Keyword(s):  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Service Improvement ◽  
Structural Constraints ◽  
Discretionary Power ◽  
Street Level ◽  
Evaluation Procedures ◽  
Social Settings ◽  
New Public ◽  
Water Provision

Street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) interact directly with users and play a key role in providing services. In the Global South, and specifically in India, the work practices of frontline public workers—technical staff, field engineers, desk officers, and social workers—reflect their understanding of urban water reforms. The introduction of technology-driven solutions and new public management instruments, such as benchmarking, e-governance, and evaluation procedures, has transformed the nature of frontline staff’s responsibilities but has not solved the structural constraints they face. In regard to implementing solutions to improve access in poor neighborhoods, SLBs continue to play a key role in the making of formal and informal provision. Their daily practices are ambivalent. They can be both predatory and benevolent, which explains the contingent impacts on service improvement and the difficulty in generalizing reform experiments. Nevertheless, the discretionary power of SLBs can be a source of flexibility and adaptation to complex social settings.

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