Organizational Innovation in Public Services: Forms and Governance(Governance and Public Management)

Reforming public services has become an integral part of instituting austerity measures as governments around the world struggle to balance the books in the wake of the financial crisis. Vital public services and government departments have been given the seemingly impossible task of delivering better services to the public while receiving less funding. This excellent and highly original collection brings together contributors from across the globe to explore and analyse innovational methods aimed at helping overburdened and under-funded public services cope with the demands of austerity and continue to deliver high quality services to the public. In the process this book develops new theoretical models and analyses case studies to provide an important and timely insight into how to reform public services across the globe.

Table of Contents:
List of Tables, Figures and Boxes Notes on Contributors 1. Contexts and Challenges of Organisational Innovation in Public Services 2. Supporting Organisational Innovation in the Public Sector: Creative Councils in England 3. Analysis Organisational Innovation in Public Services: Conceptual and Theoretical Issues 4. Agentifcation Processes and Agency Governance: Organisational Innovation at a Global Scale? 5. Corporatisation as Organisational Innovation 6. Mutulatisation and Public Services 7. Organisational Innovation in Public Procurement in Scotland: The Scottish Futures Trust (SFT) 8. Outsourcing Public Services: Process Innovation in Dutch Municipalities 9. Governance of Public Service Companies: Australian Cases and Examples 10. Governance of Social Enterprises as Producers of Public Services 11. Championing and Governing UK Public Service Mutuals 12. Improving Governance Arrangements for Academic Entrepreneurships 13. Governance and Accountability of Joint Ventures: A Swedish Case Study 14. Contractual Governance: A Social Learning Perspective 15. Lessons for the Governance of Organisational Innovations Index

About the Author :
Pekka Valkama is Research Director in the School of Management at the University of Tampere, Finland and Adjunct Professor in the Turku School of Economics at the University of Turku, Finland. He was also an expert member of the Finnish Market Court from 2003 until 2010. Stephen J. Bailey has undertaken public finance work for UK government departments, international organisations (OECD, Council of Europe, UN), professional bodies (CIPFA), trades unions (UNISON) and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. His other Palgrave titles are Innovations in Financing Public Services, Strategic Public Finance, Public Sector Economics and Local Government Economics. Ari-Veikko Anttiroiko is an Adjunct Professor at the School of Management, University of Tampere, Finland. Anttiroiko's research areas include local governance, e-government, public sector innovations, and high-tech centre studies. He is a co-editor of Innovations in Public Governance (2011) and several other globally distributed books. He has memberships in editorial boards of several international journals.

Review :
The topic of public service reform discussed in this book is relevant to all advanced industrial societies. There are no easy answers and this book does not fall into the trap of trying to provide any. Instead it offers the reader food for reflection on the challenges involved. In doing so it provides a valuable service to policymakers and practitioners as well as researchers - Gerry Stoker, Professor of Governance, University of Southampton, UK. A valuable and timely volume highlighting the considerable diversity of organizational innovation in the management of public affairs. The variety of organizational forms is immediately apparent - from agencies through corporations, mutuals, social enterprises and beyond. They are all possible contributors to public governance, while themselves needing to be governed effectively - as the analyses astutely confirm. - Ian Thynne, Adjunct Professor, Australian National University, Australia & Visiting Professor, University of Hong Kong - The reform and innovation of public sector services will be essential, but how will it be done? Will Information Technology transform public sector services as profoundly as it is altering the private service economy, indeed making possible the reforms and innovations. This volume usefully opens these and other debates about public sector governance. - John Zysman, Professor of Political Science & Co-Director of the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy, University of California, Berkeley, USA