This chapter seeks to address how frontline officials operating in teams interact about creating societal value. We do so by exploring two different ways in which frontline officials interact about creating societal value, and by reflecting on the role of the concept of societal value within these interactions. Creating societal value comprises all actions and decisions that constitute work processes by which frontline officials’ realize societal value. Societal value is the effect of such work processes i.e. the realized societal value.

We show that frontline officials interact in two different ways about creating societal value: by discussing how to enact their work processes in view of the demands of these work process and by discussing how to enact their work processes in view of the effect of their work processes. These two ways reflect two different directions: when frontline officials discuss how to enact their work process in view of the demands of these work process, they discuss what their work process entails and how to best execute their task. These work processes, in turn, are considered to create societal value. In reverse, when frontline officials discuss how to enact their work processes in view of the effect of their work processes, they discuss which value they aim to realize followed by an analysis of how to get there – what steps they should take, i.e. what their work process should entail, to realize the societal value aimed for. We show that, as a consequence, the realization of societal value is assumed when frontline officials discuss how to enact their work processes in view of the demands of these work process and that the societal value aimed for and how to realize it is reflected upon when frontline officials in teams discuss how to enact their work processes in view of the effect of their services.

Elaborating upon how frontline officials interact about (creating) societal value offers an important perspective to literature on societal value. Drawing on the work of Moore (1994, 1995), the concept of societal value constitutes a paradigmatic shift “which attempts to redefine how we think about the state, its purpose and thus, ways of functioning, operating and managing” (O’Flynn 2007, 353). In addition to such a macro-perspective, micro-perspectives on creating societal value matter. It matters how frontline officials understand and speak about (creating) societal value in their daily work, as their decisions and actions impact value creation and constitute public services (e.g. Lipsky 1980). As frontline officials operate in teams and their work is executed within social dynamics (e.g. Raaphorst & Loyens 2020, Møller 2021), we highlight frontline officials’ interactions in teams reflecting on creating societal value. Where Gyllenhammar, Eriksson & Löfgren (2023) elaborate on frontline officials’ perspectives on creating societal value when respondents speak about these in focus groups, we aim to reflect on frontline officials’ perspectives when they speak about these in interaction with one another in their day to day work.

Under conditions of increasing budgetary cuts and managerial approaches that champion the values of accountability and good service, policy implementation is challenging. Within this environment, the literature has broadly examined frontline workers’ discretionary decisions regarding allocating formal resources, i.e., resources provided by the organization. Fewer efforts, however, have been directed at exploring discretionary practices and decisions made in the provision of informal resources, i.e., resources that are not formally provided by the organization but rather by the workers themselves, from their own capital. Recent evidence points to a phenomenon wherein frontline public workers provide their clients with a wide range of informal resources. This evidence demonstrated that alongside the visible and formal tier of service provision lies a hidden informal tier in which workers perform practices outside their formal role. While existing literature focused on the values, motivations, and decision-making processes among individual street-level workers within the provision of their personal resources, the present study aims to contribute to the current understanding of the use of informal resources by focusing on the role of street-level managers in this process.

Stepping from the assumption that the provision of informal resources might be part of organizational dynamics, we analyze data collected from Brazilian school principals in two municipalities. We selected two cities with different profiles regarding school budgets: one has one of the highest school budgets in the country, meaning that the schools are provided with a large amount of financial and material resources. The other one represents the average budget from Brazilian municipalities, meaning that schools may need more resources. Considering this resource difference, we expect different dynamics regarding using informal resources at schools. We used two strategies for data collection. First, we applied a survey with school principals in the two municipalities, asking: if they use informal resources, why they use them (justifications), and the dynamics around collecting informal resources. The survey was responded to by all principals from the richest municipality (58) and 32 from 34 principals from the other municipality. After that, we selected ten principals from each municipality to interview and explore the dynamics regarding the use of informal resources.

Findings show two sources of informal resources: the ones collected from the community through fundraising activities; and those donated by the principal themselves and the teachers. Moreover, findings show that the decision to use informal resources is highly institutionalized in both municipalities. Despite the difference in resources, more than 95% of the respondents in both cases develop regular activities for fundraising. Regarding their own resources, more than 92% of the principals in both municipalities also donate their own money or allocate extra time to work in school. They justify using informal resources for three reasons: 1. Collecting informal resources is a way to engage the community in the educational process; 2. It is a way to improve the schools’ needs, especially regarding the lack of resources, the urgency to provide some materials, or the need to help certain students with vulnerabilities; 3. They use informal resources to have more flexibility. Findings also show that principals do not feel that collecting or donating informal resources is a burden: they think this is a way to get engagement and practice solidarity. The comparison between the two cases showed few differences in the dimensions analyzed in the paper. This suggests that more than a real need for resources, the use of informal resources at the street level is connected to social dynamics that go much beyond policy implementation.

Public organizations are shifting from external accountability regimes towards internal learning (IL) regimes that do more justice to professional autonomy and the complexity of daily tasks in public service, while still embedded in external accountability frameworks. The idea is that performance information is used as a learning tool in line with professional motivation and knowledge and is achieved through continuous dialogue between professionals and external regulators (Jakobsen et al, 2017). Earlier empirical research indeed suggest that IL regimes enable professionals as they attain knowledge and professional skills (Raaphorst, 2023). An empirical understanding of how, when and why external regulation indeed facilitates IL regimes and professional enablement, however, is lacking.

In healthcare, the shift towards IL regimes is captured by the introduction of Safety-II. Safety-II is an approach to quality of care in which professional autonomy is considered one of the necessary resources to guarantee flexibility, and to respond to complex client needs and situations within healthcare organizations. This, as an extension to Safety-I, that aims to ensure quality of care by focusing on incidents and rules solely (Hollnagel et al., 2015). Scholars suggest that external regulators have a crucial role in this process and should shift from “regulatory oversight to regulatory insight”. External regulators are, for example, increasingly asked to not only assess the delivered quality of care through incidents and numbers (Safety-I), but also to engage in dialogue with organizations on how their regulation is implemented and enables professionals to learn and deliver safe and high quality care (Safety-II) (Leistikow & Bal, 2020). By doing so, it can be expected that external regulation partly determines the extent to which IL regimes enable healthcare professionals in delivering safe and high quality care. This paper, therefore, aims to understand how external regulators might contribute to enablement of healthcare professionals in delivering safe and high quality care?

This study uses a qualitative research design within two healthcare settings. In each setting, we focused on the regulation and implementation of two external regulators (one in each setting). We conducted semi-structured interviews mainly within the healthcare organizations, and interviewed different employees involved in the regulation process; from board members and quality and safety managers to team-managers and nurses working at the frontline. In addition, we interviewed members of the external regulator if possible. By doing so, we aim to gain insight in (1) the role of external regulation within internal learning regimes and; (2) how this may enable frontline professionals in their work.

References:

Hollnagel, E., Wears, R. L., & Braithwaite, J. (2015). From Safety-I to Safety-II: A White Paper.

Jakobsen, M. L., Baekgaard, M., Moynihan, D. P., & van Loon, N. M. (2017). Making Sense of Performance Regimes: Rebalancing External Accountability and Internal Learning. Perspectives on Public Management and Governance, 1(2), 127–141. https://doi.org/10.1093/ppmgov/gvx001

Leistikow, I., & Bal, R. A. (2020). Resilience and regulation, an odd couple? Consequences of Safety-II on governmental regulation of healthcare quality. In BMJ Quality and Safety (Vol. 29, Issue 10, pp. 869–872). BMJ Publishing Group. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjqs-2019-010610

Raaphorst, N. (2023). An empirical conceptualization of front line enablement by performance management. Public Management Review, 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2023.2212255

The German Participation Opportunities Act (POA), in force since January 2019, aims at providing social participation for long-term unemployed who are very remote from the labour market by placing them into subsidized employment with generous financial assistance. But the concept of participation remains ambiguous in the law and the explanatory bill. Implementing the POA thus leaves a lot of room for discretion which was a major focus of our study at the Institute for Employment Research.

Our analyses of the management level, based on 46 qualitative interviews with job centre managers, show two patterns of implementation: In the first pattern, job centres follow the idea that only integration into unsubsidized employment can provide ‘real’ participation. Accordingly, the POA is seen (in line with the activation paradigm) as an instrument for labour market integration. In the second pattern, the subsidized labour itself is seen as providing the opportunity for participation. Here, the POA is interpreted as a “social labour market” that offers social participation as an alternative goal to labour market integration. The organisational arrangements made in the job centres correspond to these interpretations: The alignment of the implementation processes towards labour market integration implies focusing on disciplining the long-term unemployed and selecting the best among the target group. On the other hand, focusing on social participation opens up more freedom for job centres to focus on the clients as autonomous individuals and select those most in need. Apart from that, the job centres’ budgets influence the implementation and we can observe different strategies to cope with tight budgets.

Manager’s strategies and budgets both matter when it comes to the implementation of the POA. But what do these mean for frontline workers who implement the POA at street-level? How can they use their discretionary power? Based on four qualitative case studies in contrasting job centres, we discuss the role of management strategies and budgets for the creative use of discretion. We argue that a combination of frontline workers acting in consensus with the strategy provided by the management level, financial freedom and organizational trust in the professionalism of frontline workers enables creative discretion and provides positive outcomes for clients. In contrast, a consensus based only on the law’s interpretation which does not include the organisational arrangements, in combination with financial restrictions limits the discretionary power, undermines the professional claims of frontline workers and causes conflicts between hierarchy levels. But, interestingly, financial restrictions alone do not necessarily limit discretion at the frontline. They can also remain a management concern without practical implications at street-level. Overall, management and budgets can foster or hinder positive outcomes and innovation at the frontline which has consequences for those affected.

Our data is based on qualitative interviews with management and frontline workers of German jobcenters and employers, besides a standardized survey.