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Service networks are inherently complex as they comprise of many interrelated actors, often driven by divergent interests. This can result in imbalance, which refers to a situation where the interests of at least one actor in a network are not secured. Drawing on the “balanced centricity” perspective, the purpose of this paper is to explore the causes of imbalance in complex service networks.

Adopting a qualitative case-based approach, this paper examines a public health service network that experienced imbalance that was detrimental to the lives of its users: the Mid-Staffordshire National Health Service (NHS) Trust, UK. Drawing on service-dominant logic and stakeholder theory, case evidence provides insight into the origin and drivers of imbalance in complex public service networks.

The origin of imbalance stems from competing institutional logics of various actors (patients/public, employees, managers, regulatory bodies, etc.), but the degree to which these competing institutional logics lead to imbalance is moderated by accountability, communication, engagement, and responsiveness within the service network.

By uncovering causes of imbalance in complex public service networks, this paper pinpoints important research avenues for developing the balanced centricity perspective.

The inherent existence of multiple parallel institutional arrangements makes networks imbalanced, but value creation can be achieved when the appropriate mechanisms are fostered to manage balance between divergent logics.

By examining imbalance as the underlying cause of network dysfunction, this research contributes to understanding of the dynamics in, and performance of, complex public service networks.

There is a current trend in healthcare management away from produced and standardized one-size-fits-all processes toward co-created and individualized services. The purpose of this paper is to increase understanding of the value concept in healthcare organization and management by recognizing different levels of value (private, group and public) and the interconnectedness among these levels.

The paper uses social constructionism as a lens to problematize the individualization of service logic’s value concept. Theories from consumer culture theory/transformative service research and public management add group and public levels of value to the private level.

An intersubjective (rather than subjective) approach to value creation entails the construction and sharing of value perceptions among groups of people. Such an approach also implies that group members may face similar barriers in their value creation efforts.

Healthcare management should be aware of the inherent individualism of service logic and, consequently, the need to balance private value with group and public levels of value.

Identifying and addressing disadvantaged groups and the reasons for their disadvantaged positions is important in order to enhance the individual’s value creation prerequisites as well as to address public and societal values, such as equal/equitable health(care).

It is important to complement service logic’s value creation with group and public levels in order to understand the complexity and interconnectedness of value and the creation thereof.

The present paper describes the interplay between the “why” and “how” in co-production based on a case study of community-based healthcare in Denmark involving municipalities and voluntary sports clubs. So far, policy practice and research have focussed on the “why” – the rationales and pre-requisites – of co-production. However, there seems to be a lack of knowledge about the “how” of co-production in the interplay between professionals and volunteers. The paper asks how co-production is being perceived and practised according to existing norms and objectives of public healthcare and civil society, drawing on the theory of institutional logics.

The paper uses a critical case study approach to examine the practice of co-production. The analysis builds on qualitative data from nine semi-structured interviews, two information interviews and project documents. Interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim and coded.

This paper demonstrates that compatibility of institutional logics was not given, nor did the co-existence of potentially competing logics necessarily result in conflict in co-production. Instead, in this case study co-production emerged as highly contingent, reflecting the dynamic interaction between logics and context-specific management.

This paper makes an original contribution to the conceptual understanding of co-production in emphasising the benefit of paying attention to the network logic when building bridges between public healthcare and civil society – and to unite the seemingly contradictory “why” and “how” of co-production in practice.

The purpose of this paper is to examine conflicting institutional demands on individual frontline employees in hybrid public sector organisations. Specifically, it examines the competing accountability pressures professional and commercial logics exerted on academics at a business school, how individual lecturers responded to such pressures, and what drove these responses.

The paper draws on a case study of an English business school and is informed by the literatures on institutional logics and hybrid organisations.

The paper shows that the co-existence of professional and commercial logics at the case organisation exerted competing accountability pressures on lecturers. It moreover shows that sometimes deliberately and purposefully, sometimes ad hoc or even coincidentally, lecturers drew on a wide range of responses to these conflicting pressures, including compliance, defiance, combination and compartmentalisation.

The paper sheds light on individual level responses to competing institutional logics and associated accountability pressures, as well as on their drivers. It also highlights the drawbacks of user, customer or citizen accountability mechanisms, showing that a strong emphasis on them in knowledge-intensive public organisations can have severe dysfunctional effects.

The paper aims to investigate how the governance practices of public-sector entities (PSEs) in Tanzania are shaped by competing institutional logics and strategies used to manage the logics.

In the paper, empirical evidence was gathered through documentary sources, non-participant observations and in-depth interviews with members of boards of directors (BoDs), chief executive officers (CEOs), internal and external auditors, senior executives and ministry officials. The data were analyzed using thematic and pattern-matching approaches.

The paper shows that bureaucratic and market logics co-exist and variations in governance practices within and across categories of PSEs. These are reflected in CEO appointments, multiple roles of CEOs, board member appointments, board composition, multiple board membership, board roles and evaluation of board performance. External audits also foster market logic in governance practices. The two competing logics are managed by actors through selective coupling, compromise, decoupling and compartmentalization. Despite competing logics, the bureaucratic logic remains dominant and is largely responsible for variations between the underlying logics and governance practices.

The findings suggest that public-sector reforms in emerging economies (EEs) must account for the fact that governance practices in PSEs are shaped by different institutional logics embedded in socioeconomic, political and organizational contexts and their corresponding management strategies.

Few previous studies explicitly report relationships between institutional logics and the governance practices of PSEs in EEs. The current study is one of few empirical studies to connect competing institutional logics and the associated management strategies, as well as governance practices in EEs in the context of public-sector reforms.

To provide a case study of a Belgian ministry, within the framework of the Copernicus reform.

The paper uses both interpretative and interactionist approaches and a range of research methods including a survey, involving a questionnaire and interviews, content analysis and some elements of speech analysis.

The paper confirms the hypothesis that an identities evolution is taking place following the implementation of new public management (NPM) principles in the Belgian federal service. Using two identity logics “public service,” relating to the principles and values associated with traditional public administration, and “public managerialism”, relating to the principles, values and representations linked to NPM, it distinguishes six identity profiles. These are characterised by their positioning according to two principles fidelity and reality. The conclusion is that organisational identity is complex, hybrid and composite and in constant evolution according to perceptions of reality and context

This adds to the literature on the change process in public organisations under the banner of new public management or modernisation. It illustrates that the change process results in multiple identities with implications for human resources management.

In providing a fine-grained analysis of public service management, the purpose of this paper is to make an important contribution to furthering research in service management, a body of literature that has tended to regard public services as homogenous or to neglect the context altogether.

Integrating public management and service management literatures, the past and present of public service management are discussed. Future directions for the field are outlined drawing on a service-dominant approach that has the potential to transform public services. Invited commentaries augment the review.

The review presents the Public Service Network Framework to capture the public value network in its abstraction and conceptualizes how value is created in public services. The study identifies current shortcomings in the field and offers a series of directions for future research where service management theory can contribute greatly.

The review encourages service management research to examine the dynamic, diverse, and complex nature of public services and to recognize the importance of this context. The review calls for an interdisciplinary public service management community to develop, and to assist public managers in leveraging service logic.

The review positions service research in the public sector, makes explicit the role of complex networks in value creation, argues for wider engagement with public service management, and offers future research directions to advance public service management research.

Based on the concept of “intelligent public organisation” as a new theoretical trajectory for New Public Management (NPM) theory, this paper brings together the recent critical discussion on NPM as it relates to public services and service science while specifically pinpointing the nature of public sector intelligence, evaluation, as well as management and leadership of public services. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The paper highlights the ongoing discussion on service-dominant logic and reflects the major innovations in service research, innovation studies, organisational learning, development methods, and evaluation from the public services’ perspective.

It is argued that contemporary public management theories and practices – and theories reflecting the role of public services – should make more use of that body of literature focusing on substantive service-dominant theories found in marketing and business studies. The paper concludes that the academic discourse on NPM and New Public Governance (NPG) has been rich in content, but to date rather biased from a public services perspective.

It is argued that public services are arenas for interaction, co-operation, and co-creation, orchestrated by the networks of organisations providing these services. The essence of “service user” has also changed in recent decades. This development has practical implications for developing leadership practices in public services.

Doctrines of NPM and NPG have been missing an appreciation of the comprehensive role played by public services and the role of evaluation of public services has also been largely ignored. In this light and in regards to public services in particular, the new wave of public policy evaluation paradigms could usefully be integrated with NPG.

Literature seldom admits the importance of historical contingency and politics in the creation of hybrid organisations. Nevertheless, the circumstances of their creation play a pivotal role in the subsequent operation, priorities and success of these prolific organisations. Through a single case study, this paper aims to explore the connection between the multiple and concurrent crises that created London Transport and the subsequent balance of its institutional logics.

This case study uses in-depth data collection from multiple archival and public sources to offer quantitative and qualitative analysis of the priorities, logics and services offered by London Transport before and after its transition from a private to a hybrid organisation.

Providing London’s transport via a quasi-autonomous non-governmental monopoly was justified as being more efficient than competition. However, by applying accounting ratios to the archival records from London Transport, the authors find that there were few decisive efficiencies gained from amalgamation. Instead, the authors argue that the balance of institutional logics within the new, unified organisation showed a political response outwardly addressing market failure but primarily concerned with marginalising democratic control. This reality was obscured behind the rhetoric of rationality and efficiency as politically neutral justifications for creating a public service monopoly.

This paper challenges supposedly objective systems for judging the effectiveness of “hybrid” organisations and offers an alternative political and historical perspective of the reasons for their creation. The authors suggest that London Transport’s success in obscuring its enduring market-based institutional logics has wider resonance in the development of municipal capitalism.

Recent literature within public service logic has called for more explicit conceptualisation of customer value in public services. This study aims to fill this gap by examining how the customer value approach can be applied in the management of public health care services.

This study is a qualitative case study of management of public health care services in Finland. The authors interviewed 17 regional health care service developers and analyzed the interview data using thematic analysis.

The study suggests five propositions for applying customer value approach from the marketing literature in public health care service management. The study enables a deeper understanding of customer value creation in this context and improvement of public health care services.

This study contributes to the public management research in general and public service logic research in particular by suggesting what constitutes customer value in public health care services.