Leading for public value in multi-agency collaboration
| Author | Steven Parker,Jean Hartley,Jim Beashel,Quoc Vo |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0952076721999490 |
| Published date | 01 January 2023 |
| Date | 01 January 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Leading for public
value in multi-agency
collaboration
Steven Parker
Department of Politics, People and Place, De Montfort
University, Leicester, UK
Jean Hartley
The Open University Business School, Milton Keynes, UK
Jim Beashel
Dorset Police, Dorset, UK
Quoc Vo
Thames Valley Police, UK
Abstract
This paper examines the relationship between leadership and public value in a multi-
agency service, requiring the delicate navigation of tensions when there are diverse and
competing interests among public service collaborators. The paper adopts an actor-
focused perspective arguing for the need to develop theory about leadership in col-
laborative settings which includes understanding political astuteness in leadership, as
this can have an impact on whether or not public value is created. The setting is a multi-
agency service hub and the empirical research is based on interviews and document
analysis. The paper makes two contributions: first, it analyses the pluralistic leadership
processes exercised in the pursuit of public value; secondly, it identifies how political
astuteness is a key capability in leading diverse interest in cross-organisational
collaborations.
Corresponding author:
Steven Parker, Department of Politics, People and Place, Leicester Castle Business School, De Montfort
University, LE1 9BH, UK.
Email: steven.parker@dmu.ac.uk
Public Policy and Administration
!The Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/0952076721999490
journals.sagepub.com/home/ppa
2023, Vol. 38(1) 83–106
84 Public Policy and Administration 38(1)
Keywords
Leadership, multi-agency collaboration, public value management
Introduction
Leadership and public value are increasingly discussed in the public administration
and management literatures, but the link between them is under-researched and
under-theorised (Hartley et al., 2019b). This paper examines how leadership con-
tributes to public value creation in multi-agency collaboration guided by the
research question: How does leadership support public value creation in multi-
agency settings with diverse and competing interests? The paper examines this
question through the empirical study of a service for victims of crime, where
varied agencies co-located in a shared office space with the aims of improving
communication and collaborating to enhance service delivery.
The research setting is a UK multi-agency victim support hub in the west of the
UK, where practitioners work collaboratively in an open plan office to undertake
joint work, share information and thereby to aim to enhance service provision.
This move towards multi-agency collaboration was initiated following the first
elections of Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) in 2012. Under this gover-
nance arrangement, local elected leaders are responsible for the oversight of polic-
ing in a geographical area (Hall, 2018). Collaboration is defined as an activity
where stakeholders from different organisations work together to provide co-
ordination and seamlessness, to identify solutions to social issues that cannot be
tackled by the organisations acting alone (Huxham and Vangen, 2013).
A multi-agency service is a rich and informative setting for the analysis of how
public value is created within a strategically agreed collaboration where leaders
converge on a clear proposition (Moore, 1995) to guide their strategy and practice.
Furthermore, the setting of a multi-agency hub provides a useful lens to investigate
leadership and public value, in contrast with cases that focus on wider networks
(see Bryson et al., 2017; Hartley et al., 2019a). This is important as partners and
their leaders require a degree of sharing of goals to guide service development. In a
hub setting, public value will be sought through developing a collective under-
standing of the most appropriate outcomes to help citizens, in this case victims.
This will be supported by service ‘assessment pathways’, and, additionally, public
value is intended to result from improved communication between the agencies
involved. However, with the diverse and competing interests involved, the public
value proposition may at times be interpreted differently by partners, or even
contested and competed over.
The paper makes two contributions: First, it explores how pluralistic leadership
contributes to public value in partnerships, and how this leadership is exercised to
navigate the tensions which can arise between multi-agency partners in the pursuit
of public value. Second, it adds to the understanding of how political astuteness
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