PROPOSAL

Do Coworkers Make the Service Customer? A Field Study in the Public Sector

[Name of the Institute]

Do Coworkers Make the Service Customer? A Field Study in the Public Sector

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Citizens have come to expect a better quality of service from the public sector (Coyle- Shapiro & Kessler, 2002; Milakovitch, 2003), a challenge that has faced public sector organizations for more than 20 years. To meet this challenge, one recent trend in the public sector has been to adopt management practices commonly used in the private sector (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2000) under the auspices of the new public management (NPM; Battaglio, 2010). In line with the universality criticism (Hood, 1991), a number of studies have shown that the modernization of the public sector has taken a wide range of forms and directions (Dunleavy & Hood, 1994).

Public administration has undergone modernization at varying rates in different countries (Simonet, 2008) and with varying degrees of efficacy, with cultural differences playing a key role (Bouckaert, 2007; Kickert, 2002). In examining this process, Pollitt (1995) identified a major paradox: although NPM requires measurable outputs of administrative activities, no assessment tool has so far been provided to evaluate NPM. A number of studies (e.g., Box, 1999; Pollitt, 1995) have indicated that one of the most important aspects of NPM is the increasing emphasis on customer service quality (other key aspects include cost-cutting, the creation of separate agencies, the decentralization of management authority, the introduction of market mechanisms, the introduction of performance-related pay, quality management, privatization, downsizing, rightsizing, and entrepreneurism).

The modernization of public administration requires an improvement of the services provided to citizens, who expect to be treated as customers. As a critical resource in customer service, public human resource management has become a key target of recent NPM reforms (Battaglio, 2009; Battaglio & Condrey, 2006; Kellough, Nigro, & Brewer, 2010). Irrespective of their position (i.e., blue collar or white collar), their rank in the hierarchy (i.e., manager or subordinate), or the nature of their interactions with customers (i.e., back office or frontline), all public service employees have become involved in this process. At the point of service delivery, managers are able to assess employees' willingness to provide better service to the public based on their commitment to the customer (i.e., the citizen). As a result of the modernization of public administration, there has been a radical shift in the status of citizens, who have come to be viewed as customers by public servants.

Although service delivery to citizens as customers has emerged as an important concern for public management in recent years (e.g., Osborne & Gaebler, 1992; Vigoda- Gadot & Golembiewski, 2001), Kelly (2008) indicated that the adoption of a citizen-as-customer model reflects a confusion between means and objectives, arguing that “if citizens are dissatisfied with high-performing services, the modern public manager may be more inclined to intensify his or her outreach activities than to adjust the way services are delivered to increase satisfaction” (p. 78).

Furthermore, simply defining citizens as customers is not enough ...