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Article
Publication date: 4 December 2023

Giuliano Magno de Oliveira Condé and Maria de Fátima Bruno-Faria

This study aims to explore the configuration of a public university service innovation: the phenotypic evaluation of self-declared black and brown applicants for access to college…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to explore the configuration of a public university service innovation: the phenotypic evaluation of self-declared black and brown applicants for access to college undergraduate courses through racial quota in a Brazilian federal higher education institution (HEI).

Design/methodology/approach

By using qualitative methods and collecting data through semistructured interviews, this case study raises new explanatory aspects about service innovation in a noncommercial context.

Findings

Diversity in team composition and users’ sense of belonging emerged as unprecedented aspects of service innovation. The present study also coined another concept not verified in the literature: service cross-coproduction.

Research limitations/implications

Regarding the limitations of the study, the technological dimension, despite having been shown to underlie the political–administrative process of innovations in services, given its importance reinforced by the literature and the current temporal context itself, did not emanate from the data collected. In addition, the fact that the service innovation investigated has occurred recently prevented longitudinal research that could detail the effects of phenotypic evaluation on institutional performance indicators.

Practical implications

The ethical–methodological care used in the interaction and preservation of the psychological integrity of the users in the case study proved to be subject to systematization and has great potential to enhance the service experience of the users through the humanization of the service delivery process. The linkage of the user’s perception to the phenotypic diversity of people working in the new service provision highlights the importance of incorporating themes such as the diversity of teams’ composition and representative bureaucracy to the scientific production of service innovation and their role in coproduction. The findings suggest that the resource allocation supply of basic goods and services needed to provide the new service reduces the individual risk of academic community members involved with innovation. Further studies could explore this relation.

Social implications

Among the internal factors that influenced the configuration of service innovation, the idea of diversity in the team’s composition stood out. It based the phenotypic evaluation commission’s diverse constitution on gender, race, occupation and even nationality. It conferred greater legitimacy on service innovation, increasing the representation of groups that may not feel represented in public service delivery processes.

Originality/value

The results of the phenotypic evaluation case point to a new coproduction form emanating from the constitutive diversity of the phenotypic evaluation board members. This new type of coproduction is directly related to the complex, integrated and interdependent nature of the services that complement each other to enable the achievement of the objectives of a public university.

Details

Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1750-6166

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 19 June 2023

Fei Song and Danielle Lamb

Perceptions of employment histories are important insofar as they influence future job prospects. Critically, in light of the current pandemic, wherein many individuals are likely…

Abstract

Purpose

Perceptions of employment histories are important insofar as they influence future job prospects. Critically, in light of the current pandemic, wherein many individuals are likely to have unanticipated employment gaps and/or temporary work experiences, this exploratory study aims to seek a better understanding of the signal associated with temporary employment histories, which is particularly germane to individuals' employment trajectories and a successful labour market recovery.

Design/methodology/approach

Drawing primarily on signalling theory and using a simulated hiring decision experiment, the authors examined the perceptions of temporary employment histories, as well as the period effect of COVID-19, a major exogenous event, on the attitudes of fictitious jobseekers with standard, temporary and unemployment histories.

Findings

The authors find that prior to COVID-19 unemployed and temporary-work candidates were perceived less favourably as compared to applicants employed in a permanent job. During the COVID-19 pandemic, assessments of jobseekers with temporary employment histories were less critical and the previously negative signal associated with job-hopping reversed. This study’s third wave of data, which were collected post-COVID, showed that such perceptions largely dissipated, with the exception for those with a history of temporary work with different employers.

Practical implications

The paper serves as a reminder to check, insofar as possible, preconceived biases of temporary employment histories to avoid potential attribution errors and miss otherwise capable candidates.

Originality/value

This paper makes a unique and timely contribution by focussing and examining the differential effect of economic climate, pivoted by the COVID-19 pandemic, on perceptions of temporary employment histories.

Details

Personnel Review, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0048-3486

Keywords

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