Serving Multiple Masters: Exploring HRD in the Context of Third Sector Partnerships for Public Service Delivery

Organisations in the Non-Profit and Voluntary (NPV) sector increasingly face challenging and uncertain times with an increasing shift from public grant funding towards contract funding. As a result many of these changes employees in such organisations have often found themselves working more closely under contract with colleagues in public sector organisations in order to provide public services. Using a multiple case study methodology and in-depth interviewing of a range of stakeholders form two large Northern Irish based Non Profit Organisations in the social care sector, the purpose of this research was to
investigate HRD and people management issues and how a turbulent environment can affect how organisations approach HRD strategy and implementation.

The research identifies the importance placed upon NPOs adopting HRD strategies and addressing the development of unique and specialised skills in order to claw back power within the relationships they serve with statutory funding bodies. However this research also notes that the manner in which HRD and its associated issues are considered within NPOs can have an impact on the loyalty and commitment of the workforce which serves them. What is of concern is that the context for the delivery of public services under contract is putting increasing strain on NPOs and this has been felt markedly by their respective workforces, and unless strong values-led leadership and managerial practice is in
place in NPOs, the voluntary-centred ethos of those who work in the sector may be significantly damaged.

Public Value as Performance: Politicians’ and Managers’ Perspectives on the Importance of Budgetary, Accruals and Non-Financial Information

Purpose
The study contributes to the literature on public value and performance examining politicians’ and managers’ perspectives by investigating the importance they attach to the different facets of performance information (i.e. budgetary, accrual based- and non-financial information (NFI)).

Design/methodology/approach
We survey politicians and managers in all Italian municipalities of at least 80,000 inhabitants.

Findings
Overall, NFI is more appreciated than financial information (FI). Moreover, budgetary accounting is preferred to accrual accounting. Politicians’ and managers’ preferences are generally aligned.

Research limitations/implications
NFI as a measure of public value is not alternative, but rather complementary, to FI. The latter remains a fundamental element of public sector accounting due to its role in resource allocation and control.

Practical implications
The preference for NFI over FI and of budgetary over accruals accounting suggests that the current predominant emphasis on (accrual-based) financial reporting might be misplaced.

Originality/value
Public value and performance are multi-faceted concepts. They can be captured by different types of information and evaluated according to different criteria, which will also depend on the category of stakeholders or users who assesses public performance. So far, most literature has considered the financial and non-financial facets of performance as virtually separate. Similarly, in the practice, financial management tends to be decoupled from non-financial performance management. However, this research shows that only by considering their joint interactions we can achieve an accurate representation of what public value really is.

Profiling: a Strategy for Successful Volunteer Recruitment in Credit Unions

Credit unions are non-profit financial organisations that provide financial services to their members. They are located in 97 countries across the world. All credit unions are governed by a volunteer board and many are reliant on volunteers for all their labour requirements. However, recruiting volunteers is a problem. The literature on recruitment issues in volunteering in general, suggests that the not-for-profit sector looks to the private sector for guidance on recruitment policies and approaches. One such approach which is considered in this paper is ‘market segmentation’ wherein the potential volunteer body is profiled to determine if an individual is likely to volunteer and if they are, to identify the type of role they are most likely to be attracted to. Prior literature on volunteering in non-profit organisations suggests that certain types of individual (dominant individuals) are more likely to volunteer. This paper investigates whether this dominant status profile is evident amongst volunteers in credit unions in Northern Ireland (NI). The study finds that people with dominant characteristics are more likely to be attracted to volunteering to the board of directors and individuals who have less dominant traits overall should be offered more social/participative type roles. This information can be used by credit union governing boards for volunteer recruitment, retention and management purposes.

'Someone Big and Important': Identification and Affect in an International Development Organization

Psychoanalysis has been widely used to develop our understanding of power in organizations. In this paper, I draw on a case study of a non-profit organization in the field of international development, in order to explore in depth how people engage with powerful discourses at play in this context. I use an ethnographic approach to do so, and find Lacan's ideas on identification and affect to be useful in the analysis of the case. I show how, at first glance, people appeared to readily alter their activities and goals in response to the wishes of an important donor. However, moving deeper to examine identifications on the part of people themselves reveals complex forms of recognition that were inscribed by affective relations. I discuss the implications of these findings for the study of organizations, including the contribution of the concept of affect for studies of identification and subjection in organizations, and the value of ethnographic research approaches that draw upon Lacan's work on recognition.

Aesthetics and emotion in an organisational ethnography

In this paper, I argue that an aesthetic approach can help us to better understand workplace ethnography. Ethnography is sensory by nature; it can incorporate a feeling of rightness and beauty in the experience of 'being-with' the organisation being studied. The process is inherently aesthetic. I explore this argument with an in-depth account of a researcher's experiences at a non-profit organisation. I identify the aesthetic of belonging that developed over time. This study shows how an aesthetic perspective helps us to understand the day to day experience of ethnography, and how the it can be emotionally ambivalent and somewhat dark. © 2008, Inderscience Publishers.

Performance management systems and Public Value Strategy: a case study

Purpose
This article aims to analyze the role of performance management systems (PMS) in supporting public value strategies.

Design/methodology/approach
This article draws on the public value dynamic model by Horner and Hutton (2010). It presents the results of a case study of implementation of a PMS model, the ‘Value Pyramid’ (VP).

Findings
The results stress the need for an improved conceptualization of PMS within public value strategy. Through experimentation using the VP, the case site was able to measure and visualize what it considered public value and reflect on the internal/external causes of both creation and destruction of public value.

Research limitations/implication
This article is limited to just one case study, although in-depth and longitudinal.

Originality/value
This article is one of the first attempting to understand the role of PMS within the public value strategy framework, answering the call of Benington and Moore (2010) to consider public value from an accounting perspective.

Oil and Dependency::The Case of Kazakhstan

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the newly independent oil-rich country of Kazakhstan has become a major recipient of foreign direct investment (FDI). Although international organisations such as the IMF and UNCTAD have claimed that FDI could be considered an engine in the transition from state socialism and as a powerful force for integration of this region into the global economy; this investment also poses significant risks to Kazakhstan. These risks fall into two broad categories: The first category can be broadly described as issues associated with the “resource curse” or the “Dutch Disease”. The term Dutch Disease describes a situation where booming demand in oil exporting countries, due to high oil revenues, leads to shift of an economy’s productive resources from the tradeable sector to the non-tradeable sector. The second category is associated with the over-dependency of oil exporting countries on a relatively small number of large multinational corporations (MNCs). This over-dependency can lead to a situation where licenses and concessions are granted at less favourable conditions than if they were auctioned in an efficient market. Examining the licensing policy of the Kazakhstani Energy and Mineral Resource Ministry, this paper notes that the latter issue of over-dependency has become less of a risk due to deliberate efforts to diversify investment relationships. Notwithstanding this situation there is some evidence that it remains difficult for oil exporting nations such as Kazakhstan to ensure that oil revenues are channelled into sustainable economic development.

EU Cross-Border Cooperation and Conflict Transformation in the Basque and Irish Border Regions

Comparative research on violent conflict in the Basque Country and Ireland has yielded a sizable body of published academic work. Less well explored is the relationship between conflict transformation and cross-border cooperation in that specific comparative context. This paper provides a comparative examination of Third (not for profit) sector cross-border cooperation as conflict transformation in the Basque (France/Spain) and Irish (UK/Ireland) border regions. To what extent does cross-border cooperation contribute to peacebuilding in the two last violent ethnonationalist conflicts in Western Europe? The comparison is based on the premise that the EU played a different role in both cases. In the Irish case, the EU contributed to the institutionalization of a peace process that included cross-border cooperation between third sector organizations among the policy instruments contributing to conflict transformation. In the Basque case, the unilateral renunciation of violence by ETA (Euskadi eta Askatasuna) in 2010 did not generate the consistent involvement of the EU in a comparable institutional peace process. However, some third sector organizations used EU instruments for cross-border economic, social and cultural cooperation between France and Spain in order to reinforce their cross-border networks, which indirectly impacted on conflict transformation. The effectiveness of this cross-border cooperation for conflict transformation is assessed comparatively. To what extent does this increase in cross-border cooperation “from below” connect to wider institutional and social processes of conflict transformation in Ireland and the Basque Country? Crucially, does the strengthening of cross-border relations on shared issues mollify or sharpen existing identity cleavages? Also considered is the sustainability of such cooperation in these regions in light of the less favourable post-2004 EU funding environment, and the post-2008 economic and political turmoil affecting the relevant EU member states, especially Ireland and Spain.