CHAPTER 5 REFLECTION AND LEARNING AS AN ACTION RESEARCHER
5.4 Future Research
This research concentrated its efforts on examining the factors that influence the performance of SSCs, and the differences between the SSCs of the private and public sectors. This analysis resulted in the identification of eight measures that can contribute to the correct implementation and management of a public service SSC. Other measures may be identified. The results and conclusions obtained by this research, although they have generated knowledge that can be put in place immediately, also pave the way for new research on the public sector SSCs. As mentioned in Chapters Introduction and Literature Review, very little research has been conducted on the SSCs of the public service, although they represent a source of billions of dollars in cost reduction for governments that adopt them as government policy. As the trend continues to be the expansion of public SSCs, the time is opportune for more research to help public managers in identifying opportunities of SSC adoption, in projects ranging from the conception to the implementation, and on management and improvement of the services offered.
It has been found, for example, that some so-called SSCs in the public sector, does not present the necessary characteristics so that they can be categorized as SSCs. For instance, they do not collect for the given services (chargeback), they are not orientated to the clients, are not organised like unities of services, with relative independence, among others. In short, they are not SSCs, but departments that centralised activities that were carried out by government agencies, decentralized. Research in this area, to
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understand the motivations and offer alternative ways, possibly can help such departments to become effective SSCs. Another opportunity from the evidence of this study is that, although the New Public Management has encouraged the adoption of SSCs by governments—so that services to citizens could achieve quality levels like those of the private sector—was found that, although there are SSCs with high-quality service in some governments, this does not seem to be a predominant reality. This provides an opportunity for understanding the extent to which the NPM has failed, or not, to achieve this objective and why this occurred.
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