Improving public employment service delivery in developing countries: right servicing through the cognitive information processing approach

ABSTRACT

While public employment service delivery in many developed countries today is rendered in a differentiated, needs- or profile-based approach, it remains entrenched in a traditional one-size-fits-all, first-come-first-served approach in most developing countries. The right servicing model offers a system of continuous assessment and determination of the “right” level of service delivery that achieves a specific socioeconomic outcome in accordance with organisational attributes, citizen preferences and resource availability. For developing countries typically faced with data and resource limitations, the model can be operationalised through the cognitive information processing approach to career problem-solving and decision-making which has an established record of successful applications to career and employment services in over 40 countries.

KEYWORDS:

• Cognitive information processing approach
• public employment services
• public administration
• right servicing

Acknowledgements

The views expressed are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the views or policy prescriptions of the Institute for Adult Learning or the Government of Singapore. Comments from colleagues and reviewers are gratefully acknowledged.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 The right servicing model adopts different terminology (in parentheses) from Lee-Archer (2012)’s RightServicing approach for certain organisational attributes, e.g. addressing complexity (responsive); risk management (no correspondence); accessing (accessibility); micro programmes (innovative); and leveraging the ecosystem (collaborative).

2 Transaction costs comprise search and contracting costs (ex ante costs), and monitoring and enforcement costs (ex post costs) (Dyer & Chu, 2003).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ruby Toh

Dr Ruby Toh is Principal Researcher at Institute for Adult Learning, Singapore.

James P. Sampson

Prof James P. Sampson is Professor Emeritus, Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems, and Senior Researcher, Center for the Study of Technology in Counseling and Career Development, The Career Center, Florida State University, USA.