Understanding Public Services as “Services”: Service Management in Public Healthcare

Lunch Seminar in presence

Building BL26 – Room 0.19 (ground floor)
Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering
Via R. Lambruschini, 4/B

Erik Eriksson
University of Borås, Sweden

Abstract:

The lunch seminar explores how service-based perspectives reshape understandings of value creation in public sector contexts.

Building on service logic’s emphasis on value-in-use, resource integration, and relational interaction, the seminar highlights how public service logic (PSL) extends these principles by incorporating public values, collective outcomes, and the institutional complexities of public governance.

It examines how value creation in public services is not confined to dyadic interactions between provider and user but emerges through broader service ecosystems involving citizens, public organizations, and collaborative networks. Particular attention is given to representative co-production, resource integration, and coordinated value propositions as mechanisms for enabling inclusive and system-wide value creation.

At the same time, the seminar critically addresses the tensions between PSL ideals and the enduring influence of New Public Management (NPM), illustrating how measurement, control, and efficiency-oriented structures may constrain relational and collaborative service practices.By drawing on recent theoretical and empirical developments, the seminar argues that PSL should not be understood as a replacement for existing public management paradigms, but as a complementary framework that broadens the understanding of how value is facilitated, negotiated, and sometimes constrained in complex public service systems.

Erik Eriksson is a Senior Associate Professor of Public Administration at the University of Borås, specializing in governance, public management, and organization within the public sector, with a particular focus on healthcare and welfare services. He received his PhD from Chalmers University of Technology in 2016, with a dissertation on healthcare quality improvement from a service management perspective. Prior to his academic career, he worked for ten years as a public official in regional and national government agencies. His research examines public service logic, co-production, value creation, and the organizational conditions that enable or constrain collaboration in public services. His work has been published in journals such as the British Journal of Management, Public Management Review, and the International Public Management Journal.

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