This paper explores the conference theme of “creating and co-creating value in public service delivery” through a consideration of whether Human Resource Management is a force for co-creation or coercion. Using a case study of a large public service agency it is proposed that Human Resource Management provides only limited capacity for genuine co-creation in its most common form.
Co-production is defined by Alford (1998:128) as the “involvement of citizens, clients, consumers, volunteers and/or community organizations in producing public services as well as consuming or otherwise benefiting from them”. Co-creation is the broader concept in that it covers the full gamut of the interrelationships between people and processes (Alford, 2016). Both concepts are of ancient heritage, emerging from the work of early Greek philosophers and the teleological-based principles of self-organization. Self-organization pre-supposes that action takes place without the need for any external force; that is, action can occur based solely on internal reasons and driven by the internal dynamics of a system (Morcöl, 2012). Teleological models do not comply to any planned sequence of events, but instead rely on constructive mechanisms within organizations to work towards the achievement of a desired future state (Van de Ven and Poole, 1997).
Contrary to this perspective of self-organization, the term Human Resource Management embeds a utilitarian view of humans as resources. Like other resources, humans are therefore purposefully leveraged for the creation of value through what Legge (1995) describes as Hard HRM. In an environment where self-organizing and co-creation are the main game, the authors consider this highly embedded view of humans as resources as outdated and inappropriate. Yet scholars have only focused on coercion of the regulated citizen (Alford, 2016), and not that the public servant themselves is coerced. Some organisation are, however; attempting to work past this to authentically engage their personnel to spark ideas that result in integrative outcomes through people and purpose.
This paper therefore considers the other half of the co-creation equation – the public servant. In particular it examines the possibilities for public servants to engage in genuine co-creation through purposeful self-organization rather than through coercive HRM.
Organisational change and the organisation of public sector work
