Creating Value in Public Services: The Struggle between Private and Public Interests?

Abstract

This paper focuses on the interaction between public service providers and vulnerable recipients of public welfare services. This work contributes to the discussion on the cocreation and co-destruction of value for service recipients by viewing the provider–recipient interaction as a struggle to realize public and private value simultaneously. Proponents of the co-creation of public services have based their reasoning on service management theory. Drawing on argumentation from another stream of literature – public administration theory – we discuss some limitations in applying service management theory to public services, as the leading proponents of service management theory state that the aim is to create private value for the recipients. The main goal of public services is to create public, not private, value. We illustrate our reasoning with examples from in-depth interviews with recipients of public welfare services.