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Beyond indiscipline of Labor Market Intermediaries : The Case of Public Employment Services and Private Providers Partnerships
Remy, Céline; Beuker, Laura; Gérard, Julie
2015IPA 2015 - 10th International Conference in Interpretive Policy Analysis
Peer reviewed
 

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Keywords :
Public employment services; private providers; public-private partnerships; rules; justification
Abstract :
[en] Following the economic and social changes in the countries of the European Union (liberalization requirements, crisis of the welfare State, diversification of users expectations, etc.), compelling readability needs and modernization of Public Employment Services (PES) have appeared. Meanwhile, a spectacular growth of private employment operators - market and non-market - was recognized by the International Labor Organization in all member states, in order to respond effectively to the increased requests of support and training for the beneficiaries of the PES. In this new context, PES are invited by the European Union (EU) – particularly through its multiple directives – to rethink and reposition their traditional activities of placement, training and support for jobseekers according to a "mixed" management of the labor market. Therefore, PES entrust operation and management of their activities to private providers, as part of a contractual agreement. In this way, these operators provide a "back office function for SPE via a system of delegation governed by a specific division of labor formalized in a partnership agreement between PES and the private provider". Thus, these private labor market intermediaries (LMI’s) as active members on the public orders market work both on their own behalf and on behalf of the public authority. These new collaborations, qualified public-private partnerships (PPPs), allow PES to outsource and delegate a part of their missions they could not achieve internally. So PES combine the role of "actor" and the role of "manager" / "principal" in the labor market. To facilitate the coordination of their activities with the private sector, PES made the decision to create a partnerships service. The officers of this service have the mission to oversee this new form of regulation of the labor market. While collaboration rules are initially determined by the PES, the agents are required to implement them and have the private operators following them. Our interest is to study how these actors – or stakeholder of the PPPs – implement this public action device. Despite differences in both organizational and cultural (for instance bureaucratic rigidity versus informal structure, constraint reporting, management autonomy, etc.), public and private actors work together to serve community and beneficiaries of the PES for their professional integration in the labor market. To analyze how these actors interact and live the partnership relationship, established between agreement and disagreement, we will rely on the economy of conventions and especially on the theoretical contributions of the Theory of justification. In this way, we will identify the different logics of action (present in the merchant, civic, industrial worlds, etc.) that guide the practices of stakeholders, from their discourse and in particular the underlying arguments to justify their actions. Our analysis is rooted in empirical material composed of semi-structured interviews (N=89) and various observations of interactions made within the partnership services and with providers (N=132). These observations focused on three key moments in the life of the partnership: the selection of projects, the monitoring and evaluation of projects by the agents. With this approach, our goal is twofold. On the one hand, we want to highlight the moments when the actors "interpret" the regulatory framework that structure their actions within the partnership relationship. On the other hand, we want to understand the arguments used by actors to justify and legitimize their indiscipline.
Research center :
CRIS
Disciplines :
Sociology & social sciences
Author, co-author :
Remy, Céline ;  Université de Liège > Institut des sciences humaines et sociales > Sociologie de l'action publique et des problèmes du travail
Beuker, Laura ;  Université de Liège > Institut des sciences humaines et sociales > Sociologie de l'action publique et des problèmes du travail
Gérard, Julie  ;  Université de Liège > Institut des sciences humaines et sociales > Sociologie de l'organisation et de l'intervention
Language :
English
Title :
Beyond indiscipline of Labor Market Intermediaries : The Case of Public Employment Services and Private Providers Partnerships
Publication date :
08 July 2015
Event name :
IPA 2015 - 10th International Conference in Interpretive Policy Analysis
Event date :
Du 8 au 10 juillet 2015
Audience :
International
Peer reviewed :
Peer reviewed
References of the abstract :
Following the economic and social changes in the countries of the European Union (liberalization requirements, crisis of the welfare State, diversification of users expectations, etc.), compelling readability needs and modernization of Public Employment Services (PES) have appeared. Meanwhile, a spectacular growth of private employment operators - market and non-market - was recognized by the International Labor Organization in all member states, in order to respond effectively to the increased requests of support and training for the beneficiaries of the PES. In this new context, PES are invited by the European Union (EU) – particularly through its multiple directives – to rethink and reposition their traditional activities of placement, training and support for jobseekers according to a "mixed" management of the labor market. Therefore, PES entrust operation and management of their activities to private providers, as part of a contractual agreement. In this way, these operators provide a "back office function for SPE via a system of delegation governed by a specific division of labor formalized in a partnership agreement between PES and the private provider". Thus, these private labor market intermediaries (LMI’s) as active members on the public orders market work both on their own behalf and on behalf of the public authority. These new collaborations, qualified public-private partnerships (PPPs), allow PES to outsource and delegate a part of their missions they could not achieve internally. So PES combine the role of "actor" and the role of "manager" / "principal" in the labor market. To facilitate the coordination of their activities with the private sector, PES made the decision to create a partnerships service. The officers of this service have the mission to oversee this new form of regulation of the labor market. While collaboration rules are initially determined by the PES, the agents are required to implement them and have the private operators following them. Our interest is to study how these actors – or stakeholder of the PPPs – implement this public action device. Despite differences in both organizational and cultural (for instance bureaucratic rigidity versus informal structure, constraint reporting, management autonomy, etc.), public and private actors work together to serve community and beneficiaries of the PES for their professional integration in the labor market. To analyze how these actors interact and live the partnership relationship, established between agreement and disagreement, we will rely on the economy of conventions and especially on the theoretical contributions of the Theory of justification. In this way, we will identify the different logics of action (present in the merchant, civic, industrial worlds, etc.) that guide the practices of stakeholders, from their discourse and in particular the underlying arguments to justify their actions. Our analysis is rooted in empirical material composed of semi-structured interviews (N=89) and various observations of interactions made within the partnership services and with providers (N=132). These observations focused on three key moments in the life of the partnership: the selection of projects, the monitoring and evaluation of projects by the agents. With this approach, our goal is twofold. On the one hand, we want to highlight the moments when the actors "interpret" the regulatory framework that structure their actions within the partnership relationship. On the other hand, we want to understand the arguments used by actors to justify and legitimize their indiscipline.
Name of the research project :
ARC - Understanding flexicurity
Available on ORBi :
since 22 June 2015

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