M.E. Honingh

Restoring Trust Through the Co-Production of Public Services: A theoretical elaboration

Abstract Co-production, the involvement of clients in the delivery of public services, is believed to foster trust. However, there is insufficient research on this topic to prove what is at present merely an assumption. This article gives theoretical insights into this relationship. First, it is identified that co-production relates to identification-based trust. Second, the most important theoretical mechanisms are identified that link the two concepts: increasing self-efficacy and the creation of trust networks. A third step is to move towards a more contingent perspective. This involves not only favourable conditions, but also obstructions to trust-building, such as crowding-out motivations and free-riding.

User co-production of public service delivery: An uncertainty approach

Engaging public service users as co-producers is expected to lead to more efficient services and better outcomes. What has been missing so far, however, is a solid theoretical basis to explain what compels actors to pursue co-production, or not, and what strategies they adopt in this pursuit. Building on established theories, it is argued that although co-production of public service delivery decreases uncertainty for users, it seems to increase uncertainty for organizations. The main conclusion is that the need of organizations to reduce this uncertainty might diminish the possibilities for users to coproduce. The consequences of this conclusion for future research are discussed in this article.

Professionals and Shifts in Governance

The position of professionals in public services is affected directly by public management reforms. This article systematically links different types of governance to professionalism, using Osbornes (2010) distinction between Public Administration, New Public Management and New Public Governance. In the development of professionalism in the context of public management, one can observe an increasing fragmentation of sources of legitimacy, an accumulation of different professional requirements and a growing difficulty to distinguish professionals and non-professionals.

Marketization in the Dutch vocational education and training sector

Abstract Significant educational reforms have resulted in Dutch schools for vocational education and training having to operate in a complex, more market-oriented environment, as if they were entrepreneurial organizations while remaining in the public sector. That makes these schools hybrid organizations. To get a better understanding of the phenomenon of hybrid organizations, this article presents a new approach to examining behavioural aspects of hybridization and a conceptual model that can be used for this purpose. The model includes the following concepts: attitudes to education, organizational commitment, school climate and entrepreneurial behaviour.

The effect of school-leader support and participation in decision making on teacher collaboration in Dutch primary and secondary schools

Over the last three decades, the concept of teacher collaboration has been embraced as a promising concept in the sphere of educational policy and educational research. Teacher collaboration is now considered crucial to strengthening the position of teachers, shaping their professional space and improving their professionalism. However, the concept of teacher collaboration lacks consensus: both its definitions and its purpose are the subject of discussion and criticism. Against this background, we present a theoretical and empirical analysis of teacher collaboration. We carried out secondary analyses on existing data from a large quantitative study conducted in primary schools (n = 271) and secondary schools (n = 343) to examine the extent to which teachers collaborate and to identify organizational characteristics and teachers’ personal characteristics that affect teacher collaboration. The models we developed using structural equation modelling reveal that teacher collaboration in primary schools is influenced by the extent to which teachers perceive school-leader support, teachers’ satisfaction concerning their participation in decision making and teachers’ orientation towards student performance. The model for secondary schools is more straightforward: only perceived school-leader support directly influences teacher collaboration.

Are school boards aware of the educational quality of their schools

School boards are expected to monitor and enhance the educational quality of their schools. To know whether and how school boards are able to do so, we first of all need to know whether school boards are aware of the educational quality of their schools in the first place. Taking Dutch school boards in primary education as an exemplary case (N = 332) we developed and tested a path model using structural equation modelling to analyse the extent to which school boards discern educational quality in their schools. The results show that, in general, school boards in primary education believe that they can contribute to enhancing the quality of school education. If the school board and school(s) management stick to their governing and management roles respectively, this positively affects the extent to which the school board is able to identify educational quality in the schools it governs.

Why people co-produce within activation services: the necessity of motivation and trust – an investigation of selection biases in a municipal activation programme in the Netherlands

Activation services that aim at re-employment of jobseekers often suffer from ‘creaming’, i.e. selecting those who have the best qualifications to re-enter the labour market. New ways of delivery, such as co-production, are supposed to be less subject to selection mechanisms. To analyse whether co-produced activation programmes suffer from selection biases, participants in a local innovative activation programme (n = 60) were compared to non-participants (n = 18). Participants are more motivated in general and showed higher levels of generalized, municipal and interpersonal trust. Moreover, high general motivation relates to high levels of trust and perceived control. This indicates that there is indeed a selection bias within co-produced activation programmes. Therefore, it remains uncertain whether co-production is more successful in dealing with creaming than common types of service delivery. Points for practitioners Public services, in the field of activation policies for instance, are increasingly delivered in a fashion that requires more responsibility and effort from users. This study shows that such demands elicit a selection of users. Professionals dealing with co-produced services should be aware that when they choose clients they are likely to leave out vulnerable individuals. In particular, when intrinsic motivation is an important selection criterion, those who have low levels of trust and perceived control will not be involved. Consequently, seemingly inclusive strategies could in fact lead to exclusion.

Reconsidering the tension between bureaucracy and professionalism in publicly and privately funded schools

This article sheds new light on the so-called ‘natural tension’ between bureaucracy and professionalism in schools. As it is quite common in the educational field to appoint teachers, it is debatable whether the assumed tension really exists. It seems more reasonable to find hierarchical control within the professional group. This notion forces to discuss the professional bureaucracy antagonism and to examine the interplay between teachers and managers within schools more concretely. The presented findings are based on a recent empiric study that compared the interplay between teachers and middle managers in publicly and privately funded schools.

Changing School Board Governance in Primary Education through School Inspections.

This paper addresses if, and to what extent, the current working methods of the Dutch Inspectorate of Education affect the governance of school boards in schools for primary education. A key facet of the working method is the inspection meeting with the school board. Drawing upon a large quantitative study (n = 244) we are able to identify some changes in school board governance due to these inspection meetings. School boards that had an inspection meeting indicate changes in their governance of quality assurance and data use, and in the amount of data that they collect on the functioning of their schools. School boards indicate very small amounts of activities with regard to the curriculum and instruction in their schools.

The Teaching Profession against the Background of Educationalisation: An Exploratory Study.

This article focuses on the teaching profession against the background of educationalisation in the Netherlands in the sense that Dutch schools are increasingly regarded as focal points at which to address and solve social issues. Our research project concentrated on the extent to which teachers, being key figures in the school organisation, understand their role as one that embraces a social in addition to an educational mission. It explores teachers’ professional identity and their awareness, task perception and self-efficacy with respect to performing a social mission. The results show that ‘addressing social issues’ can be identified as a dimension of teachers’ professional identity. However, teachers report low self-efficacy as regards carrying out social tasks, irrespective of their task perception and awareness. The phenomenon of educationalisation is occurring in other Western European countries and in the US. The results of this exploratory study raise questions about the feasibility of educationalising social problems.