European societies face ‘polycrises’, which encompass the climate/ environmental crisis, the war in Ukraine and accompanying energy crisis, migration, cost of living crisis and strikes in public services. These, together with the lasting effects of the pandemic and its influence on the way that public services are run, have intensified a questioning of social welfare systems and the role of public professionals working within them.

These crisis conditions are challenging for public professionals. Although the impact of new public management and marketisation has already changed the way in which public professionals operate, there are still unresolved issues about how participation and consultation can be more effective and whether co-production will become an essential part of public service delivery.

Dzur (2008/2019), Tonkens et al (2013), Lethbridge (2019) and others have argued that democratic professionalism is a response to many of the changes triggered by public management reforms. What has intensified in the sense of crisis that dominates debates on changes in welfare state reforms. This paper will explore whether democratic professionalism can contribute to understanding how public professionals are responding to two major crises in Europe societies: refugee migration and the cost-of-living crisis.

Schools have played an important role in working with migrant and refugee children during recent periods of increased migration in Europe. How schools and teachers have responded can be seen in the ‘Schools of Sanctuary’ movement, which supports schools in providing welcoming environments for these children.

The cost-of-living/ inflation crisis that is partly the result of post-pandemic conditions has made public professionals, through their trade unions, demand improved pay, better terms and conditions and recognition of their role in providing public services. However, this has been placed in the context of the importance of investing in public services for service users. It has led to some alliances between public unions and service users, reflected in continued public support for strikes.

These are two different problems, but they have led to actions by public professionals that support demands for new ways of working with children, families and service users. This paper will use the three elements of Hannah Arendt’s vita activa’ - work, labour and agency - to analyse the strategies that public professionals have used to respond to these crises.

(380 words)

Dr. Jane Lethbridge

j.lethbridge@gre.ac.uk

Centre for Research in Employment and Work/ Public Services International Research Unit (PSIRU), University of Greenwich, London, UK

References

Arendt H. (1958) The Human Condition Chicago; University of Chicago Press

Dzur A. (2008) Democratic Professionalism Citizen Participation and the Reconstruction of Professional Ethics, Identity and Practice Pennsylvania; The Pennsylvania State University Press

Dzur A. (2019) Democracy Inside: Participatory Innovation in Unlikely Places Oxford; Oxford University Prese

Lethbridge J. (2019) Democratic Professionalism in Public Services Bristol: Policy Press

Tonkens E., Hoijtink M. and Gulikers H. (2013) ‘Democratising Social Work: From New Public Management to democratic professionalism’ in Professionals under Pressure The Reconfiguration of Professional Work in Changing Public Services (eds) Mirko Noordegraaf and Bram Steijn Cambridge University Press on-line

Significant gaps in public services management were highlighted when service-dominant logic (Vargo, 2004; Lusch, 2008) emerged in services science, resulting in fundamental changes in attitudes. The business model application in public services was initiated by offering public service logic (Osborne et al., 2013). Although there has been more than a decade of research in the field of Service-dominant logic, research focusing on management practices is limited (Wilden et. al., 2017). Traditional management models need to be replaced by a much more adjusted model for managing the planning, development and implementation of value creation processes (Grönroos, 2019). The VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity) environment (especially evident in the post-pandemic era) has changed the existing managerial approach in organizational performance and services management (Van der Wal, 2017). This raises research question: how can public sector organizations ensuring agility and responsiveness improve public services delivery in a VUCA environment?

This research aims to highlight the key aspects and justify the application of services management methodologies (Agile practices, Customer experience management framework, and the Design thinking approach) that coincide with the business model approach in public services management in a VUCA environment. This raises the following tasks: 1) to identify the specific characteristics of changes in the public services context (a VUCA environment); 2) to detect management approaches, frameworks, and practices that should be applied to the business model approach in public services to respond to the VUCA environment; 3) to propose an integrated framework for public services management.

To achieve a comprehensive characterization of services management system a framework-based approach, which combined several multidisciplinary contributions, was followed. The model of public services management system was developed based on the results of a systematic literature review, the principles of qualitative meta synthesis and theoretical synthesis, identifying divergent and converging elements of identified approaches, theories, models and unifying and combining them.

The research introduces a new framework of public services management system which consolidates the essence of the service customer-provider interaction within the service lifecycle and indicates that at the core of service management is the creation of service value. In the context of the topic "Innovative service arrangements as a consequence of post-pandemic societal changes," this study contributes to development of innovative approaches in public services delivery.

European social policies are traditionally focused on material conditions and indicators of well-being, such as income or productivity, and on foundations of social justice and equity characteristic of the welfare state paradigm. The welfare state is used here to refer to a system of social organization that ensures a satisfactory standard of living through the provision of social services in areas such as income, work, education, health, social protection, among other areas that may condition welfare.

In this article, we conducted a narrative review of the literature, focusing on the last ten years, with the main objective of substantiating a scientific understanding of the concept of well-being, identifying both the indicators assumed by the literature and by international and national organizations, as well as the governance parameters that encourage, affect, and determine individual well-being. The central question that this article seeks to answer is therefore the following: what can we learn, from the scientific literature, international guidelines, and the cases analyzed in the works consulted, regarding the multidimensional relationships that are established between living conditions and well-being?

The results suggest that: 1) a country's political systems, formal institutions, and social policies can significantly influence the ability of citizens to participate in processes that concern them and that impact subjective well-being; 2) the inclusion of subjective indicators of quality of life are increasingly used in the design and governance of social policies. This research recognizes the importance of using a set of subjective indicators of well-being beyond income, which result from various configurations drawn from the multidimensional relationships that are established between living conditions and well-being.

Key-words: Subjective well-being, social policies, political systems, well-being indicators, governance.