Does austerity drive public service innovation? Evidence from shared senior management teams in local government

Bellò, Benedetta; Downe, James Daniel; Andrews, Rhys; Martin, Stephen James

doi:10.1080/09540962.2018.1407161

Cited by 8 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Resource deficiencies might be also be related to other characteristics such as local labour market conditions. Those English councils identified for possible amalgamation in the late 2000s might have experienced such difficulties, in which case those that ultimately survived the threat of abolition might pursue shared services instead (Bello et al ). Indeed, inter‐council cooperation often develops as an alternative to amalgamation, as evidenced by its significance in countries uninterested in mergers, like France (Teles and Swianiewicz ), and its decline after amalgamation has occurred, as in Germany (Norton ).…”

Section: Considerations In Shared Service Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A former council leader, one of Pickles' first decisions was to halt a series of in‐progress amalgamations initiated by the previous Labour administration (Elcock et al ). Although Whitehall already encouraged councils to share administration, Pickles wanted an expansion—and austerity provided the impetus (Bello et al ). As the government implemented major spending reductions following the global financial crisis, cutting overall grants to councils by 40 per cent in real terms over four years (Hastings et al ), guidance was issued to councils that ranked shared services first among ‘fifty ways to save’ (DCLG ).…”

Section: English Local Government: Structure Sizism and Self‐sufficimentioning

confidence: 99%

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Efficiency and legitimacy in collaborative public management: Mapping inter‐local agreements in England using social network analysis

Dixon

Elston

2020

Public Administration

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English councils have long aspired to be ‘self‐sufficient’, providing services within single jurisdictions with limited inter‐local collaboration. However, by 2017 almost all local councils (97 per cent) participated in one or more frontline or back‐office ‘shared service’ involving 338 distinct partnerships. We analyse this new‐found enthusiasm for inter‐council collaboration by performing exploratory social network analysis on organizational and financial data for all 353 English councils. We examine factors predicting collaboration and the characteristics of the service networks that result, focusing on resource, organizational and political considerations. Propensity to collaborate was found to be unpredictable, but partner choice was rational, driven by geographical proximity and similarity in organizational and resource characteristics. We argue that, according to the institutional theory of organizations, both efficiency and legitimacy influenced these reform choices, and the risks of fashionable collaboration were mitigated by careful partner selection. We highlight implications for future quantitative research into symbolic (non‐instrumental) forms of collaboration.

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Section: Considerations In Shared Service Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: English Local Government: Structure Sizism and Self‐sufficimentioning

confidence: 99%

Efficiency and legitimacy in collaborative public management: Mapping inter‐local agreements in England using social network analysis

Dixon

Elston

2020

Public Administration

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“…For the public sector, innovation has been increasingly cited as a driver of solutions in times of austerity and rationalization -common situations in recent years -in which, in addition to the competitive potential, innovation brings improvements in the performance of provided services while adding value and reducing costs (Agolla and Van Lill, 2017;Bello et al, 2018;Kinder, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluation of Public Sector Innovation: Systematic Review

Rodrigues¹,

Matos²,

Ensslin³

et al. 2023

PAI

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This study aimed to understand what the literature has been approaching regarding public sector innovation and which measurement practices have been used, in addition to seeking research opportunities. The process was guided by the ProKnow-C instrument, a process of selection and critical analysis of the literature which allowed the selection of 33 articles. In general, it was found that: (i) the meaning of what innovation is has changed over the years; (ii) although there are attempts to evaluate these innovations, they are still incipient, especially in defining what is being considered as an innovation, which qualitative scale best represents what innovation is, how to transform this qualitative (ordinal) scale into a mathematical scale (cardinal); (iii) the evaluation has been promoted by the adoption of methods from the private sector, which are considered inappropriate for the public sector, since they make use of successes interpreted in organizations with divergent contexts. The results of the study make it possible to form, on the basis of institutional situational perception and needs, an instrument that meets the properties of measurement and determine the direction of managerial activity.

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“…Conceptually, innovation is the provision of new products aimed directly at the community so that the impact of policies can be felt effectively and efficiently for the community (Atthahara 2018). In the process of public service innovation, it is very dependent on leadership from the national level to the regional level (Bellò et al 2018;Liu et al 2018;Salas-Vallina et al 2018;Schwarz et al 2020;Wipulanusat et al 2018); and the innovation climate it creates (Demircioglu & Berman 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social and Political Issues on Sustainable Development in the Post Covid-19 Crisis

Sukmana¹,

Salahudin²,

Robbie³

et al. 2022

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Pandemics are a real threat to mankind because the spread of such outbreaks has a wide coverage not limited to only one or two countries but affecting almost all countries in the world. As a threat, a pandemic has indirect implications for social, economic and political conditions both at domestic and international levels. Thus, collective and comprehensive efforts are needed in responding to and preventing the expansion of infections caused by viruses, including Covid-19. Since the outbreak of Covid-19 in March 2020, many countries have tried their best to prevent the spread of the virus in their countries. Nevertheless, only few have succeeded in responding to this pandemic. Then it tends to create new problems, for example the disruption of the social and economic order. The heterogeneous social order has resulted in a lot of premature speculation related to the Covid-19 virus, this causes many people to tend to ignore it.This neglectful attitude itself is a problem within humankind due to the lack of information and knowledge, especially since the characteristics of Covid-19 are a quickly-spread type of flu. The implication for the economic order is the cessation of the flow of production as well as discontinuation of goods and services transfer. It is because the virus spreads through the air, so that the fear of infection is definitely great. In addition, the implementation of policies or regulations that are tentative in nature has caused political turmoil. These three implications can at least illustrate that the Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted the existing order. As a result, governments must work hard to deal with and prevent the spread of the Covid-19 virus.The Faculty of Social and Political Sciences and the Faculty of Economic and Business, University of Muhammadiyah Malang held an international conference under the name

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Does austerity drive public service innovation? Evidence from shared senior management teams in local government

Cited by 8 publications

References 20 publications

Efficiency and legitimacy in collaborative public management: Mapping inter‐local agreements in England using social network analysis

Efficiency and legitimacy in collaborative public management: Mapping inter‐local agreements in England using social network analysis

Evaluation of Public Sector Innovation: Systematic Review

Social and Political Issues on Sustainable Development in the Post Covid-19 Crisis

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