Trust and control in public sector reform: Complementarity and beyond

ABSTRACT

This paper provides an analysis of trust-based management reform in the Danish public sector from the point of view of the trust–control nexus. Based on a qualitative case study of home care in the municipality of Copenhagen we argue that a complementary view of trust and control is superior to a substitution view when it comes to accounting for public sector reform as structure and process. Also, we propose a widening of the theoretical lens in the form of an emergent view of how trust and control, instead of being beforehand determinable and more or less stable identities, emerge in multiple and singular ways from multiple events in the organisation. Noticing a dearth of research that explicitly addresses trust issues with regard to public sector management and organisation, the paper is a response to the call for more studies of trust as an institutionally embedded phenomenon.

KEYWORDS:

• Trust
• control
• new public management
• organisation
• public sector management
• new public governance

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the editors and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback and important contributions to the development of this article. We also wish to thank Rasmus Hagedorn-Olsen (MSc, Copenhagen Busines School) for his contribution to the gathering of empirical data for this study. The article is partly based on the same data as Vallentin and Thygesen (2016), but provides an extended and updated analysis of the effects of trust reform in home care.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Steen Vallentin is Associate professor in the Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy and Director of the Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility at Copenhagen Business School. Apart from trust and public sector reform, his research interests are centred on corporate social responsibility as a social and political phenomenon in the broadest sense. He regularly contributes to international journals in his fields of study.

Niels Thygesen is Associate professor in the Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy at Copenhagen Business School. His research focuses on public management in general and uses and implications of modern management technologies in particular. He has written, edited and contributed to numerous books on public management and trust and is a prolific speaker and educator in these fields.