Pekka Valkama

Smart cities in the new service economy: building platforms for smart services

Recent changes in service environments have changed the preconditions of their production and consumption. These changes include unbundling services from production processes, growth of the information-rich economy and society, the search for creativity in service production and consumption and continuing growth of digital technologies. These contextual changes affect city governments because they provide a range of infrastructure and welfare services to citizens. Concepts such as ‘smart city’, ‘intelligent city’ and ‘knowledge city’ build new horizons for cities in undertaking their challenging service functions in an increasingly cost-conscious, competitive and environmentally oriented setting. What is essential in practically all of them is that they paint a picture of cities with smooth information processes, facilitation of creativity and innovativeness, and smart and sustainable solutions promoted through service platforms. This article discusses this topic, starting from the nature of services and the new service economy as the context of smart local public services. On this basis, we build an overall framework for understanding the basic forms and dimensions of smart public services. The focus is on conceptual systematisation of the key dimensions of smart services and the conceptual modelling of smart service platforms through which digital technology is increasingly embedded in social creativity. We provide examples of real-life smart service applications within the European context.

Vouchers As an Alternative Public Sector Funding System

This paper analyses the voucher concept. It considers different types of vouchers in the public and private sectors, distinguishes between explicit and implicit vouchers, and develops both a general model and a local government model of vouchers. It also reviews arguments for and against vouchers, considers the characteristics and dimensions of vouchers and identifies the rights and responsibilities attached to their use. Based on this comprehensive analysis, it develops a new definition of public service vouchers incorporating exit and voice. The analysis also provides a schema that can be used to design, modify and evaluate individual voucher systems.

The EU's public finance crisis: causes, consequences and cure

This paper considers the causes and consequences of the crisis in the public finances of EU member states and other countries. It critically appraises the proposed ‘cures’ and whether they are likely to be successful by analysing ‘structural gaps’ in the public finances. The paper theorizes the multifaceted causes of the crisis—these being financial, political, institutional, economic and cultural. It concludes that the proposed cures will not necessarily close structural gaps and that a sustainable long-term strategy for the public finances has to be much more holistic, creating symmetry between decisions to spend and liability to finance those decisions.

Post-NPM-style service integration: partnership-based brokerage in elderly care

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss the rationale and functioning of the partnership-based brokerage model as a vehicle of service integration with special reference to its support for information intermediation, learning and service market creation. Design/methodology/approach The theoretical framework is built on the tension between New Public Management (NPM) and post-NPM thinking, which frames the analysis of the brokerage model for elderly care services in the city of Tampere, Finland. The empirical data are derived from interviews, evaluation reports and existing case descriptions. Findings In the Kotitori model, the broker enhances the capacity building of the city government and the cost-effectiveness of its service provision, provides added value through improved information processes and handles matters relating to subcontracting and the facilitation of the service provider network. The model as a whole reflects the hybridisation of public administration. Even if Kotitori contains many NPM-inspired elements, they are complemented by features derived from New Public Governance and the neo-Weberian local state. The most neglected aspect of post-NPM thinking in the design of Kotitori is citizen centredness. Originality/value This paper broadens the perspective on the role of brokers in public service provision and highlights the multi-dimensionality of the brokerage function. It also shows how such partnership-based brokerage model reflects various aspects of both NPM and post-NPM paradigm.

Analyzing Organizational Innovation in Public Services — Conceptual and Theoretical Issues

Chapter 1 provided the rationale for innovation in all sectors of the economy, specifically to promote economic growth and social development. More generally, societies have to be innovative if it is to protect and promote social well-being within a changing global context. Innovation in the public sector can both support and be supported by a cultural predisposition to social innovation, as will be made clear by subsequent chapters. They focus on organizational innovations that adopt new organizational forms and introduce changes in organizational governance relationships.

Risk management challenges of shared public services: a comparative analysis of Scotland and Finland

This paper analyses the risk management challenges of shared service provision in Scotland and Finland. Policy context and institutional frameworks largely determine the local choice of organizational arrangements and so the risks that arise and the way they are shared. Finnish municipalities have developed joint municipal arrangements for sharing services, whereas Scotlands shared service challenges are related to the historical separation of health and social care services and the search for cost savings while improving service effectiveness.

Corporatization as Organizational Innovation

There is good reason to interpret corporatization as an organizational innovation in public services. Corporatized units have become very extensively applied organizational changes in public services during the past 20–25 years (McDonald and Ruiters 2012, 4; Bilodeau et al. 2007; Valkama 2002, 90). This is indeed a radical change as it introduces the principles of private sector organizational characteristics into the sphere of public service responsibilities. Corporatization has proven to be an essential part of governments’ means to not only reorganize conventional public enterprises but also manage new types of public responsibilities. Airports, car parking services, postal services, railways, telecom, gas and water supply are classic governmental enterprises that have been corporatized. Examples of new objects of service corporatization are museums, motorways, pilotage services, hospitals, universities, information and communication technology services and governmental real properties (Herzog 2011; Yamamoto 2004; Harding and Preker 2000).

Application of Baumol’s Cost Disease to Public Sector Services: Conceptual, theoretical and empirical falsities

Abstract This paper argues that justifying lack of productivity improvements in public services by referring to Baumol’s Cost Disease (BCD) is conceptually confused, theoretically misspecified and empirically blind. BCD misconceptualizes public services as categorically distinct from manufactured goods and is based on a theory of productivity not directly applicable to many public services, therefore failing to recognize evidence of substantial scope for improving public services’ productivity. Analysis of the structural and behavioural unbundling of value creation and decomposition of professional skills in service provision leads this paper to conclude that public services are not as technologically non-progressive as BCD asserts.

Vouchers as Innovative Funding of Public Services

A voucher is an instrument issued by a principal that can be redeemed by the holder for a service, commodity or other such benefit provided by an agent. The principal is the organisation that finances and issues the voucher. The holder is the person receiving the voucher and, thereby, the service, commodity or other such benefit. The agent provides the service, commodity or other such benefit in exchange for the redeemable voucher.

The role of localism in the development of regional structures in post-war Finland

A perceived need for a wider resource base for territorial governance has initiated a new trend for regionalisation throughout the developed world. Local governments are frequently opposed to such a development. This article presents an institutional analysis of how Finland’s tradition of strong localism has affected the forms, processes, and results of regionalisation. We argue that path dependence in the form of localist influence from the mid-1990s until the mid-2010s led to an incremental development of regional structures. However, circumstances changed in 2015 due to a historical decision by the centre-right government to establish a new tier of elected regional government. This was due to the diminished credibility of localism given the realities of contextual pressures and the government’s attempts to improve efficiency and competitiveness. Eventually, this turn will radically undermine the role of local government as a stronghold of representative localism.