Value Creation in the Public Service Ecosystem: An Integrative Framework

• Published date: 01 July 2022
• Author: Stephen P. Osborne,Madeline Powell,Tie Cui,Kirsty Strokosch
• Date: 01 July 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13474

Research Article

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited,

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Abstract: This article develops the concept of the “public service ecosystem” across four levels—the institutional,

service, individual, and beliefs levels. It does this by integrating service management and marketing theory with public

administration and management theory. Consequently, it explores both the dimensions of value and value creation

within the public service ecosystem at each level, and the interactions and inter-relationships across these levels. It

concludes with the key implications for public administration and management theory and pactice.

Evidence for Practice

This article highlights important implications for practice in its conclusions:

• Public service management practice requires appreciating that value creation, for public service users and

other key stakeholders, is not the purview of public service organizations solely but occurs within dynamic

public service ecosystems.

• Consequently, both public service managers and politicians need to grasp that such value creation

occurs across the institutional/societal, organizational, local milieu, individual, and belief levels of these

ecosystems.

• This requires a shift for performance management for public service organizations away from internal value

chains and to external value creation.

• Public service staff, managers, and politicians also need to embrace the necessity to mediate both between

societal and individual value creation and between value creation aspirations of different stakeholders to a

public service.

A

re-evaluation of public administration

and management (PAM) has occurred

in the twenty-first century (Pollitt and

Bouckaert2017)—in part through the ongoing

evolution of PAM theory but also in response

to some of the tectonic changes in society over

the past 20 years. These have included the digital

transformation of society, increasing globalization,

and most recently, the impact of the global COVID

pandemic.

The dominant paradigm of the late twentieth

century, New Public Management (NPM), offered

a “product-dominant” approach1 to the delivery of

public services. It concentrated upon organizational

efficiency and dyadic relationships between public

service organizations (PSOs) and their users, often

conceptualized as customers (Radnor, Osborne, and

Glennon2016). This frequently occurred within

market or quasi-market environments though other

models of the NPM also developed—such as the

Dutch “Tilburg Model” that was influential within

Western Europe (Kickert2003). Increasingly, though,

the NPM has become subject to widespread critiques,

including the appropriateness of its product-dominant

assumptions, its challenge to democratic governance,

its adherence to outmoded models of competition,

and its introspective emphasis on the internal

efficiency of PSOs rather than external impact (Funck

and Karlsson2020; Haveri2006).

These critiques coalesced around a range of issues

(Hood and Peters2004; Kickert2003). These included

the ability/inability of PSOs to create external value

through public service delivery, the lack of attention

to broader networks of PSOs rather than individual

PSOs, the failure to address citizens other than as

atomized consumers (for example as active citizens

at the interface of democracy and public service

provision), and the preoccupation with models of

public service delivery that drew heavily upon private

sector manufacturing experience. These critiques led

subsequently to the proliferation of alternative reform

frameworks for understanding the delivery of public

Stephen P. Osborne

Madeline Powell

Value Creation in the Public Service Ecosystem:

An Integrative Framework

University of Edinburgh Business School

University of York Management School

University of Greenwich (Edinburgh

Napier University from April 2022)

Glasgow Caledonian University

Kirsty Strokosch is a Lecturer in

Management in Glasgow Caledonian

University, Scotland.

Email: kirstystrokosch@hotmail.com

Tie Cui is a Lecturer in Management in

the University of Greenwich, England. From

April 2022, he will become Lecturer in

Management at Edinburgh Napier University.

Email: t.cui@greenwich.ac.uk

Madeline Powell is a Lecturer in

Marketing in the University of York

Management School, England.

Email: madeline.powell@york.ac.uk

Stephen P. Osborne is a Professor and

Chair of International Public Management

and Director of the Centre for Service

Excellence (CenSE) in the University of

Edinburgh Business School, Scotland.

Email: stephen.osborne@ed.ac.uk

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 82, Iss. 4, pp. 634–645. © 2022 The

Authors. Public Administration Review

published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on

behalf of American Society for Public

Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13474.

Tie Cui

Kirsty Strokosch