The Hidden Tier of Social Services. Frontline Workers' Provision of Informal Resources in the Public, Nonprofit and Private Sectors By Einat Lavee , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2021. pp. 74. (including index), $22 (paperback). ISBN: 9781009101370

• Published date: 01 March 2023
• Author: Jos Raadschelders
• Date: 01 March 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13604

BOOK REVIEWS

The Hidden Tier of Social

Services. Frontline Workers’

Provision of Informal

Resources in the Public,

Nonprofit and Private Sectors

By Einat Lavee, Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press. 2021. pp. 74. (including

index), $22 (paperback). ISBN:

9781009101370

Jos Raadschelders

Correspondence

Jos Raadschelders

Email: raadschelders.1@osu.edu

What a delight to read Lavee’s Cambridge Element on all

things that frontline workers in health care, education,

and social work in the public, nonprofit, and private sec-

tors do that goes well beyond their job description. Espe-

cially, those in the public sector are documented to

provide their citizen-clients with emotional, instrumental,

and material resources. There is much literature on street-

level bureaucracy, and Lavee has added valuable insights

into how far frontline workers are prepared to go to help

people in need. Reading this well-written book is time

well-spent, because it reminds us that there are many in

the public sector who care for and share resources with

people in need, despite the frigid environment of New

Public Management and austerity politics. I will get back

to this later in the review. Also, I suspect that people who

read this book will be reminded of a personal experience.

I sure did, remembering how a social worker in 1972 gave

my mother 100.- guilders out of her wallet so she could

buy groceries for the four children and herself. This was

to tie my mom over for the week until the social services

cheque came in. In this review, I will first describe how

Lavee structured the research. Next, I will briefly address

Lavee’s argument and findings, and place these, third, in

the larger situational context that prompts frontline

workers to help people in need when organizational

resources are insufficient. (nota bene, references between

parentheses refer to the page number in her book).

Dr. Einat Lavee is an assistant professor at the Depart-

ment of Human Services, University of Haifa, and she has

built up an impressive record of research into the informal

resources (she abbreviates as IFRs) that frontline workers

provide their clients. In this booklet, she presents the find-

ings of two studies. The first study is based on semi-

structured interviews with 214 frontline workers in public

sector organizations in welfare, health, and education in

Israel. The second study is based on interviews with 84 front-

line workers in the public, nonprofit, and private sectors. In

both studies, three-quarters of the interviewees are female.

The size of the interviewee sample was not decided up

front but determined by the moment that no new data

emerged (p.12). While I am not known for my prowess in

qualitative methods, it seems to me that the interviews

have been carefully analyzed. What puzzled me somewhat

is that Lavee notes that one basic weakness of qualitative

research is its “intuitiveness and subjectiveness”when com-

pared to quantitative research (p.11). While I am also not

known as a powerhouse in quantitative methods, we all

know that what and how data are collected and analyzed

include value-laden choices. Furthermore, people—scholars

included—cannot but continuously balance instinct and

intent, emotion and rationality. In the social sciences and

the humaniora, scholars deal with phenomena that are, at

best, understood at an intersubjective level (Berlin, 2000,

11–12) and often enough are simply subjective.

Lavee’s database has interviews with frontline workers

in various professions, organizations, and clients and almost

all the interviewees report IFR as routine practice. She orga-

nizes these IFRs in three main buckets. Emotional resources

include, for instance, psychological support through close

relationships. Instrumental resources concern helping clients

to navigate bureaucratic and administrative procedures.

Material resources such as cash or cash-equivalents (food

and clothing) are given from their own pocket or collected

from acquaintances (p.16). The most common resources are

emotional (p.17) but there is some variation in how frontline

workers perceive themselves. Those working in the public

sector are focused on being a public representative and feel

a personal responsibility for the well-being of people. They

also feel to represent the entire institutional framework, that

is, government (p.26). Frontline workers in the nonprofit sec-

tor perceive themselves as a representative of humanity

and their relationship with clients is non-hierarchical, that is,

one between two human beings (p.26). Their colleagues in

the private sector first and foremost regard themselves as

representatives of their organization and believe that extra

commitment to a client will show that what they provide is

better than what other private organizations can provide

(p.27). Lavee goes into detail about the various emotional,

instrumental, and material resources (pp.28–49) deftly

Received: 30 January 2023

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13604

442 © 2023 American Society for Public Administration. Public Admin Rev. 2023;83:442–448.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/puar