Abstract:The article addresses an under-explored aspect of public partnerships: individuals' role in the effectiveness of collaborations such as the Local Safeguarding Children's Boards (LSCBs) in England and Wales. Building upon theoretical concepts around complex emergence, we conceptualise individuals as conveyors of complex negotiated individual, professional and organisational frames. Shifting focus away from organisations and towards inter-personal communication in partnerships is consistent with miscommunication… Show more
“…The centrality of uncertainty in child protection work has been recognised in the literature (Dudau & Kominis, ; Dudau, Fischbacher‐Smith, & McAllister, ; Kominis & Dudau, ). It has also been addressed in comprehensive practice reports, such as Munro's () review of child protection practice: Child protection work involves working with uncertainty: we cannot know for sure what is going on in families; we cannot be sure that improvements in family circumstances will last.…”
This study investigates how rhetoric is used to generate trust in public sector inter-organisational networks. Drawing on evidence from a Local Safeguarding Children Board in England, where formal control systems were recognised to be insufficient to deal with the uncertainty inherent in the particular policy area, we explore how trustworthiness is negotiated amongst network partners through network leaders' use of persuasive rhetoric. The main contribution that we bring to the existing literature is providing a description of the processes through which trust is generated in a public sector multi-partner setting. Our findings suggest that these are established within a feedforward control framework within the given network setting.
“…The centrality of uncertainty in child protection work has been recognised in the literature (Dudau & Kominis, ; Dudau, Fischbacher‐Smith, & McAllister, ; Kominis & Dudau, ). It has also been addressed in comprehensive practice reports, such as Munro's () review of child protection practice: Child protection work involves working with uncertainty: we cannot know for sure what is going on in families; we cannot be sure that improvements in family circumstances will last.…”
This study investigates how rhetoric is used to generate trust in public sector inter-organisational networks. Drawing on evidence from a Local Safeguarding Children Board in England, where formal control systems were recognised to be insufficient to deal with the uncertainty inherent in the particular policy area, we explore how trustworthiness is negotiated amongst network partners through network leaders' use of persuasive rhetoric. The main contribution that we bring to the existing literature is providing a description of the processes through which trust is generated in a public sector multi-partner setting. Our findings suggest that these are established within a feedforward control framework within the given network setting.
“…These collaborations are not only inter-organizational but also inter-personal, which means that often the actors around the table are not equalthey have different strengths such as power, mandate, and status (Agranoff 2006;McGuire 2006). These differences may be a reason that miscommunication is the most common problem in collaborations (Dudau, Fischbacher-Smith, and McAllister 2016).…”
Section: How Are Collaborations Carried Out?mentioning
Drawing from collaborative public management, this article seeks to contribute to public service logic by focusing on what precedes the public service user's realization of value: the value proposition. A new care model for elderly people with multiple chronic diseases shows that coordinators with an inter-organizational mission, vertical and horizontal supporting structures, trust established through relationships, and recognition of service systems' embeddedness in social systems are pivotal for the ability of public service organizations to develop coordinated value propositions. The contribution to policy and practice is an increased understanding of a coherent, rather than fragmented, welfare system for users/citizens.
“…It has been argued that NPM has been the cause of unprecedented complexity and tight coupledness (Brookfield and Smith 2006;Dudau 2010;Dudau, Fischbacher-Smith, and McAllister 2016) in the public sector. Some organizations, however, cannot afford to have their operations tightly coupled at the expense of client safety, such as organizations working with human life and health (e.g.…”
With a little help from my friends:The positive contribution of teams to safety behaviour in public hospitals Against the backdrop of decreased organizational slack in public sector organizations, we investigate the direct and indirect effect of teams on safety behaviour in an Italian acute care hospital. Quantitative findings confirm the positive contribution of teams to individuals' safety behaviour. Qualitative findings then offer further insights into the context of safety as well as how deficient teamwork manifests itself and what it means for clinical staff. The study contributes to the limited empirical research on safety behaviour in high-reliability settings as part of a wider conversation about public sector professionals under crisis. Specifically, it enhances our understanding of the role played by teamwork in supporting clinicians with their individual positive resources and safety behaviour towards patients. The findings can assist managers of public sector hospitals to facilitate conditions for effective team communication in the interest of patient safety, and can, conceivably, be extended to other public sector highreliability settings.
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