The curse of accountability: Assessing relationships in the delivery of employment services

Abstract

As governments move from being both a funder and provider of human services to a purchaser of services in private sector markets or quasi-markets, ensuring that providers do what they are supposed to do becomes more difficult. Agency theory and stewardship theory have been suggested as ways of overcoming this problem. This article argues that both are inadequate, particularly because they conceptualise the relationship as bilateral (government funding department and service provider), ignoring the role of clients in achieving organisational objectives. Co-production that recognises the role played by clients in the production of employment outcomes can provide a more useful way of thinking about relationships among key actors involved in the provision of employment services.

Keywords

Agency theory Australia co-production employment services stewardship theory

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Adler

(2001) Market, hierarchy, and trust: the knowledge economy and the future of capitalism. Organization Science 12(2): 215–234.

Alford

(2002) Defining the client in the public sector: a social-exchange perspective. Public Administration Review 62(3): 337–346.

Alford

(2009) Engaging Public Sector Clients: From Service-Delivery to Co-production. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Alford

O’Flynn

(2012) Rethinking Public Service Delivery: Managing with External Providers. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Australian Government (n.d.) Disability Employment Services: Flexible, Tailored Employment Assistance. Available at: http://www.deewr.gov.au/Employment/Programs/DES/Documents/DESFactSheet.pdf (accessed 16 March 2011).

Behn

(2003) Why measure performance? Different purposes require different measures. Public Administration Review 63(5): 586–606.

Bonvin

J-M

(2008) Activation policies, new modes of governance and the issue of responsibility. Social Policy and Society 7(3): 367–377.

Braithwaite

(1995) Games of engagement: postures within the regulatory community. Law & Policy 17(3): 225–255.

Bredgaard

Larsen

(2008) Quasi-markets in employment policy: do they deliver on promises? Social Policy and Society 7(3): 341–352.

10.

Briggs

(2010) 21st century service delivery reform – it’s a different perspective. Public Administration Today 22: 21–25.

11.

Broadbent

Dietrich

Laughlin

(1996) The development of principal-agent contracting and accountability relationships in the public sector: conceptual and cultural problems. Critical Perspectives on Accounting 7(3): 259–284.

12.

Brown

Calnan

(2010) The risks of managing uncertainty: the limitations of governance and choice, and the potential for trust. Social Policy and Society 9(1): 13–24.

13.

Brown

Potoski

Van Slyke

(2010) Contracting for complex products. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 20(1): i41–i58.

14.

Bruttel

(2004) Contracting-out the public employment service and the consequence for hard-to-place jobseekers: experiences from Australia, the Netherlands and the UK. In: Paper for the second annual ESPAnet conference, University of Oxford, UK, 9–11 September.

15.

Considine

Lewis

O’Sullivan

(2011) Quasi-markets and service delivery flexibility following a decade of employment assistance in Australia. Journal of Social Policy 40(4): 811–833.

16.

Davis

Schoorman

Donaldson

(1997) Toward a stewardship theory of management. Academy of Management Review 22(1): 20–47.

17.

De Hoog

(1990) Competition, negotiation or cooperation: three models for service contracting. Administration & Society 22(3): 312–340.

18.

Department of Employment Education and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) (2011) Labour Market Assistance Outcomes. Available at: www.deewr.gov.au/labour_market_assistance_outcomes_december_2011-1.pdf (accessed 29 January 2013).

19.

Fowkes

(2011) Rethinking Australia’s Employment Services: Perspectives 6. Sydney, NSW, Australia: Whitlam Institute, University of Western Sydney.

20.

Frey

(1993) Does monitoring increase work effort? The rivalry with trust and loyalty. Economic Inquiry 31(4): 663–670.

21.

Frey

Jegen

(2001) Motivation crowding out theory. Journal of Economic Surveys 15(5): 589–611.

22.

Knapp

Dalziel

Lewis

(2011) Governing top managers: board control, social categorization, and their unintended influence on discretionary behaviors. Corporate Governance: An International Review 19(4): 295–310.

23.

Marston

McDonald

(2006) The political tensions and street-level dimensions of employment services in Australia. Available at: http://www.uq.edu.au/swahs/welfaretowork/Final/paperMarstonandMcDonald.pdf (accessed 28 May 2011).

24.

Mulgan

(2010) The Moran report: where have all the ministers gone? Crawford School of Economics and Government Policy and Governance discussion paper 10-06. Available at: http://crawford.anu.edu.au/degrees/pogo/discussion_papers/PDP10-06.pdf (accessed 23 June 2010).

25.

Murray

(2006) A job network for job seekers. Discussion paper, November 2006. Catholic Social Services Australia: Canberra.

26.

National Disability Services (NDS) (2011) NDS Submission to the Senate Inquiry into Disability Employment Services. Available at: http://www.nds.org.au/publications/page/5 (accessed 15 June 2012).

27.

Nevile

(2008) Human rights, power and welfare conditionality. Australian Journal of Human Rights 14(1): 1–20.

28.

Nevile

(2009) Values and the legitimacy of third sector service delivery organizations: evidence from Australia. VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Non-profit Organizations 20(1): 71–89.

29.

Nevile

Lohmann

(2011) ‘It is like they just don’t trust us’: balancing trust and control in the provision of disability employment services. Available at: http://www.crawford.anu.edu.au/sparc/pdf/2011/20110621_final_report.pdf (accessed 10 December 2012).

30.

Nevile

(2003) Work for the Dole: Obligation or Opportunity? Sydney, NSW, Australia: Centre for Applied Economic Research, University of New South Wales.

31.

Nevile

(2006) Realizing the potential of work for the dole. Journal of Economic and Social Policy 11(1): 73–88.

32.

Productivity Commission (2002) Independent review of the job network. Report no. 21, 3 June 2002. Canberra, ACT, Australia: AusInfo.

33.

Sabel

(2004) Principal-agent governance: experimentalist organisations, learning and accountability. In: Discussion paper prepared for the WWR meeting, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 10–14 May.

34.

Struyven

Steurs

(2005) Design and redesign of a quasi-market for the reintegration of jobseekers: empirical evidence from Australia and the Netherlands. Journal of European Social Policy 15(3): 211–229.

35.

Van Slyke

(2007) Agents or stewards: using theory to understand the government-nonprofit social service contracting relationship. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 17(2): 157–187.