Outsourcing Public Services: A Multilevel Model of Leadership-Driven Gradual Institutional Change of Public Services Provision

Abstract

Leaders derive their capacity for driving institutional change from their power over organizations, but prior research says little about how leaders with limited power over a dominant intraorganizational group can acquire such a capacity for institutional action. This chapter develops a multilevel model that helps to understand how leaders of public service organizations were able to introduce “contract organization” form of organizational governance that enabled them to outsource the provision of public services to private firms. By doing so, this chapter adds to existing accounts of how power and political processes can give rise to organizational and institutional change.

Citation

Ruotsalainen, R. (2019), "Outsourcing Public Services: A Multilevel Model of Leadership-Driven Gradual Institutional Change of Public Services Provision", Haack, P., Sieweke, J. and Wessel, L. (Ed.) Microfoundations of Institutions (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 65B), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 257-271. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X2019000065B018