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Introduction − Covid-19, which first emerged in Wuhan, People’s Republic of China, in January 2020, with an unknown source, spread to all countries of the world very quickly and caused the death of over two million people world-wide. This ever-increasing global need for health care has created a radical transformation in terms of not only in health care, but also in all public services. Transportation services for the transfer of patients to health institutions, education services due to the dangers of face-to-face training, justice services due to the postponement of non-urgent court proceedings, security services in terms of restriction sanctions and all public services in general due to the disruption of access to public services due to flexible working hours applied to public personnel has entered into an unplanned provision.

Purpose: The aim of this chapter is to identify the problems that arise in the provision of public goods and services due to the global epidemic of Covid-19, and to bring a new interpretation to the theoretical discussions about the optimal delivery level of public services when there is a situation of communicable disease.

Methodology: The principles of public goods and service provision of G20 countries, Covid-19 mortality rates, indicators of the well-being of healthcare delivery such as the number of bed and personnel, the type and number of devices used to diagnose the Covid disease, and the public service restrictions taken to eliminate Covid-19, have been evaluated by employing descriptive analysis. In order to prevent income and advanced levels from becoming distinctive features, G20 countries with similar income and development levels were selected for this research.

Findings: Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been a distortion in the preference of provision of almost all public goods, and it has been observed that the delivery level of public services affects each other since all are linked like a chain. Failure to achieve what is expected from international organizations, which should be in a regulatory position in this regard, has increased concerns about the optimal presentation level of all public goods, especially health, in the future. As long as there is a global pandemic and countries do not take effective measures, a bad second best position that is far from optimal results but provides that instant solutions.

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.

The chapter aims to compare public, private and non-profit working citizens’ preferences for cross-sectoral relations in England and Finland. Its main contribution is in identifying preferences in the delivery of services in the respective countries in which citizen choice has become an issue in times of public sector austerity. Challenges arise because in these two similarly institutionalized healthcare systems but pluralistic societies people have contrasting perspectives on the values that should guide policy decisions. The survey data was therefore collected in both England (N = 2,000) and Finland (N = 1,973) in 2013 from cities in which citizens have choices regarding health service delivery. Our informants in England anticipated more potential for better ‘privatized driven public interest’ than did those in Finland. Surprisingly, over 60% of public sector employees in England would like for-profit healthcare to carry main responsibility, and almost 55% of all employees agree with this. Almost 20% of respondents in both countries did not care who the service provider is if only services are available. Thus, the research has pioneering relevance for policymaking, public strategic management and the comparative empirical study of managing people’s preferences in cross-sectoral relations. We conclude that identifying working citizens’ preferences is crucial for effective utilization of current welfare services because the preferences derive from both service and work experience. In sum, strategically, this identification lets public managers balance biased images of the cross-sectoral differences and reconstruct functional hybridity of services.

This work aims at investigating how different governments, and political contexts, perform public service organisations as hybrid organisations in the case of health social assistance care services. Run using qualitative methods (interviews and direct observation), it presents a descriptive comparative study upon five local PSOs, from five European countries, engaged in delivering services for people with autism. Analysing their developmental paths in the light of neo-institutional theories, the study points out that the trigger for the development of hybrid organisations lies in the users and governments have the crucial role of being the enabler of the process, within an evolving complex relationship between public sector and third sector, as well as society at large.

This chapter discusses the major steps and issues related to the inclusion of public services in inequality research. Empirically, it investigates how the income distribution in countries changes when the value of publicly provided services to households is included. The authors consider five major categories of public services: education, health care, social housing, childcare and elderly care. On average across OECD countries, spending on these ‘in-kind’ benefits accounts for about 13% of GDP, slightly more than the spending on cash transfers – but with considerable cross-country variation. Broadening the income concept to account for in-kind benefits considerably increases households’ economic resources. But public services also contribute to reducing income inequality, by between one-fifth and one-third depending on the inequality measure. This chapter suggests that publicly provided services fulfil an important direct redistributive role in OECD countries.

Over the past few decades, the subject of governance has come to the fore in many public discussions, notably with regard to reforms of the social protection system. Without entering into various debates the concept has generated, we shall use it in its positive sense (Gilly, Leroux, & Wallet, 2004), to designate all of the interactions between various public and private actors in the elaboration and implementation of public policies to attain shared objectives of general interest (Enjolras, 2008; Le Galès, 1998). Governance thus reflects a change in the forms of collective action – which certainly would qualify as modernisation – and the growing importance granted to management strategies in this change. It also brings out the complexity of the interrelationships between the different levels of decision-making (horizontal and vertical), which might be characterised as ‘poly-governance’ (Eme, 2005). And governance also permits a simultaneous approach to the new territorial, productive and partnership arrangements emerging in response to the different levels of constraints and socio-demographic changes. These issues lie at the heart of the transformations of the welfare state and related policies for rationalising public intervention and stabilising public finances. Studies dealing with welfare mix and welfare pluralism (Evers & Svetlik, 1993; Esping-Andersen, 1999; Ascoli & Ranci, 2002; Pestoff, 2006; Richez-Battesti, 2008) bring out different ways of combining sources of risk protection or other forms of solidarity. Such research reinforces analyses of co-ordination, as well as those of management and decision-making.

As entrepreneurship and market mechanisms are increasingly seen as a central part of public sector reforms to health and education, this chapter examines the entrepreneurial behaviour of public service providers in rural areas of the United Kingdom. Specific questions to be addressed include: How do rural providers (GPs, hospitals, schools) respond to the ‘market’ for provision of public services in rural areas? What are the constraints in acting entrepreneurially in these rural ‘markets’?

This chapter draws on a review of the literature and an empirical study of health care providers and schools with an emphasis on provision in rural areas and non-metropolitan urban areas. The results are based on 130 interviews with public, private and not-for-profit sector providers, and commissioners in health and education. Providers interviewed include schools, primary health care providers (General practitioners) and hospitals.

The challenges facing rural provision are examined. In terms of income generation providers reported the difficulties in having the critical mass required to keep services viable. There was particular attention to finding ways of diversifying income sources to increase turnover. Providers for rural areas are also having to find ways of coping with increased costs compared to urban providers, with limited account taken by the commissioners/buyers of services. The constraints related to introducing entrepreneurial behaviour to individuals who are resistant to risk taking and innovation based on market forces are also examined.

The work is based on a qualitative survey of a number of sectors. Further larger sample work is required to explore the propositions identified in more detail. The policy context has also been changing, with a need to identify how changes in government have affected the nature of entrepreneurship in public services.

The chapter provides policy implications and insights for providers of rural public services. There is a need to encourage diversity of income sources and to encourage collaboration between providers. There is also a need to identify where entrepreneurs in the public, private and social enterprise sectors are unwilling to deliver.

The chapter identifies key theoretical issues related to the role of enterprise in delivering public services. Further insights are provided regarding the role of rurality on both enterprise behaviour and public service delivery.

The puropse of this paper is to understand the components of Vroom's expectancy theory; to create or develop a public library customer motivation model using Vroom's expectancy theory; to suggest appropriate public library services marketing mindset which public libraries can employ to enhance customers’ perceived expectancy and instrumentality of public library services to motivate customers to use public library services more frequently based on the proposed public library customer motivation model; and to suggest appropriate public library services marketing strategies to motivate customers to use public library services more frequently based on the proposed public library customer motivation model.

Research paper based on expectancy theory.

Customer‐centered mindset is the most important factor to motivate public library customers. Furthermore, the suggested marketing strategies can be also achieved through a customer‐centered marketing mindset. In conclusion, public libraries should continuously focus on the recognition of customers’ needs and deliver long‐term value to customers.

There were few studies that focused on library users’ motivations for using library products and services. In addition, there was a lack of developed theory in library and information science field.

The study of citizens' perceptions of the performance of public services and their relationship with the taxes allocated to them is of great interest in the context of public and fiscal management and the welfare state. This study has a twofold objective in defining a structural equation modeling (SEM) model: on the one hand, to measure the relationship between the perception of the performance of public services and the taxes allocated to them and on the other hand, to study the reflection of the perception of the performance of public services on the happiness and satisfaction of citizens.

To achieve this objective, a descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out based on data from the “Public opinion and fiscal policy, 2022” questionnaire of the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (CIS) through a survey with a sample of 2,543 citizens representative of the Spanish population. The partial least squares (PLS) method was applied to test the following hypotheses.

The result of this research allows us to know which variables in relation to citizens' perception of the functioning of public services have a positive influence on use of taxes and on citizens' happiness and satisfaction.

One of the novelties of this study is to analyse the effect of consumer perception on the performance of public services from the perspective of the welfare state by improving citizens' happiness and satisfaction.

Telework has been widely used during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, distance work performed through teleworking may hinder organisational operations in public services owing to lower-than-expected work performance. This research paper aims to explore how teleworking relates to work performance and flexibility during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The sample included 178 managers and employees in public services. The relationships between the variables were evaluated using linear regression.

The findings indicated that telework affected work performance in public services in different ways. This research also explored the relationship between work performance and work flexibility. The findings revealed that telework had not improved the efficiency of public service work performance; however, the implementation of flexible work schedules owing to teleworking has improved the work performance of public services.

This study only focussed on organisations operating in the public services in Greece.

Teleworking in public services may negatively affect organisational operations due to lower-than-expected work performance.

This study could assist managers by showcasing that telework may be better implemented to improve work performance through work flexibility rather than as organisational change.

This novel research aims to gain a better understanding of the impact of telework on factors such as work performance and flexibility.