Voluntary Organizations and Public Service Delivery

Voluntary Organizations and Public Sector Delivery examines how aspects of voluntary sector employment are affected by its engagement with the growing trend to the market-based outsourcing in the delivery of public services within industrialized countries. The volume draws together a team of well-recognized academic contributors from the UK, Canada, Australia and the United States to explore how the process of outsourcing is impacting the internal and external labor markets of voluntary organizations, and the implications for the policy objectives underlying the externalization of the delivery of public services to them.

These themes of change in employment are covered in depth in the UK with dedicated chapters exploring, workforce patterns and skill needs, HR policies and practices, recruitment and selection, graduate recruitment, unionization, pay and conditions and psychological contracts in organizations. The book also contains a significant international comparative dimension with individual chapter analysis of employment issues in Australia, Canada and the United States, as well as an Anglo-German comparison.

Ian Cunningham is a Senior Lecturer in Human Resource Management in the Department of Human Resource Management at the University of Strathclyde. He has researched and published in the area of human resource management, employment relations and employment issues in the voluntary sector. His publications include a forthcoming research monograph, contributions to edited volumes and 25 articles in refereed journals.
Philip James is Professor of Employment Relations at Oxford Brookes University Business School. He has researched and published widely in the fields of human resource management and employment relations, his publications including seven authored/co-authored books and monographs, numerous contributions to edited volumes, and over 60 articles in refereed journals. A key strand of his recent research has been concerned with the employment implications of public sector reform, including those associated with the outsourcing of social care services. His recent publications include the following co-edited volumes: Institutions, Production and Working Life (Oxford University Press, 2006) and Modernising Work and Employment in British Public Services: Redefining Roles and Relationships in a Changing Workplace (Palgrave, 2007).

Part I. Introduction 1.Outsourcing and Voluntary Sector Employment – Understanding the Connections. Ian Cunningham and Phil James Part II. Policy and Labour Market Contexts 2. Outsourcing and the Voluntary Sector: A Review of the Evolving Policy Landscape. Steve Davies 3. Trends in Voluntary Sector Employment. Jenny Clark and Karl Wilding 4. Trade Union Organising in the Voluntary Sector. Mike Short Part III. Employment Policies and Practices 5. Shaping HRM in the Voluntary Sector: The Influence of Government. Emma Parry and Clare Kelliher 6. ‘We Could Take On the World if We Had the Space’: Understanding Graduate Recruitment Problems in the Voluntary Sector. Scott. A. Hurrell, Chris Warhurst and Dennis Nickson 7. Recruiting for Values in Charitable Organisations: A Comparative Perspective. Eleanor Burt and Dora Scholarios Part IV. Work Experiences in an Era of Outsourcing 8. Outsourcing in British Social Care: Its Implications for Worker Security. Ian Cunningham and Phil James 9. Taking the Strain? - The Psychological Contract of Voluntary Sector Employees Following Transfers of Employment. Ian Cunningham 10. Beyond National ‘Varieties’: Public-Service Contracting in Comparative Perspective. Ian Greer, Ian Greenwood and Mark Stuart 11. Restructuring and Labour Processes Under Marketisation: A Canadian Perspective. Donna Baines 12. Outsourcing and the Australian Non-Profit Sector. Catherine Mcdonald and Sara Charlesworth 13. Contracting With Voluntary Service Agencies in the US: Implications for Employment and Professionalization. Steven Rathgeb Smith Part V. Conclusions 14. Public Service Delivery and the Voluntary Sector: Trends, Explanations and Implications. Ian Cunningham and Phil James