‘‘Social Transformations in Contemporary Society’’, 2014 (2)

ISSN 2345-0126 (online)

MODELING A VALUE CHAIN IN PUBLIC SECTOR

Daiva Rapcevičienė

Mykolas Romeris University, Lithuania

daiva54@yahoo.com

Abstract

Purpose – Over the past three decades comprehensive insights were made in order to design
and manage the value chain. A lot of scholars discuss differences between private sector value
chain – creation profit for the business and public sector value chain, the approach that public
sector creates value through the services that it provides. However, there is a lack of a common
understanding of what public sector value chain is in general. This paper reviews the literature
on how the private value chain was transformed into public value chain and reviews a
determination and architecture of a value chain in public sector which gives a structural
approach to greater picture of how all structure works. It reviews an approach that the value
chain for the public sector shows how the public sector organizes itself to ensure it is of value to
the citizens.
Design/methodology/approach – descriptive method, analysis of scientific literature.
Findings – The public sector value chain is an adaptation of the private sector value chain.
The difference between the two is that the customer is the focus of the public sector context,
versus the profit focus in the private sector context. There are significant similarities between
the two chain models. Each of the chain models are founded on a series of core components. For
the public sector context, the core components are people, service and trust.
Research limitations/implications – this paper based on presenting value chain for both
private and public sectors and giving deeper knowledge for public sector value chain model.
Practical implications – comprehension of general value chain model concept and public
sector value chain model helps to see multiple connections throughout the entire process: from
the beginning to the end. The paper presents the theoretical framework for further study of the
value chain model for waste management creation.
Originality/Value – The paper reveals the systematic conceptual overview on
comprehension of value chain model for both private and public sectors.
Keywords: value chain, public sector, value model.
Research type: scientific literature review.

Introduction

Value Chain Management is a broad topic and has been examined and expanded by
researchers from different angles over the last thirty years. One prominent research field
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ISSN 2345-0126 (online)

is sustainability in value chain management. Public services can be regarded as a critical

factor for the competitive development and the growth of ‘country systems’ (national
economic, social and industrial systems). According to this approach, the organizations or
any public body, or even concession operator operating in the public sector play a key role
as providers of services of general interest, which unquestionably have a strong impact on
both the life quality of citizens and the productivity of enterprises. The performances of
these organizations should be characterized by high quality and cost effectiveness as the
aim is to bring Public Administration as much closer as possible to citizens and
enterprises by creating 'public value' through the production of services increasingly more
tailored to the needs of users.

Evolution of Value chain concept

The value chain itself describes the full range of activities which are required to
bring a product or service from conception, through the different phases of production
(involving a combination of physical transformation and the input of various producer
services), delivery to final consumers, and final disposal after use (Kaplinsky and Morris,
2000).
The concept of value chain came from business management and was first described
and mostly popularized by Michael Porter in his 1985 best-seller “Competitive
Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance”. Porter termed the larger
interconnected system of value chains the "value system". All firms’ activities were
divided into two value streams: primary and supportive activities. Primary activities
relate directly to the physical creation, sale, maintenance and support of a product or
service, while support activities support the primary functions. This value system
includes the value chains of a firm's supplier (and their suppliers all the way back), the
firm itself, the firm distribution channels, and the firm's buyers.

Source: Porter, 1998

Figure 1. Porter’s value chain

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ISSN 2345-0126 (online)

Porter’s main idea of value chain is that value chain is a high-level model of how
businesses receive raw materials as input, add value through various processes, and sell
finished products to customers. The value chain categorizes the generic value-adding
activities of an organization (Brown, 2009).
All basic value streams were introduced in Michael Porter’s book but were explained
more clearly by James Martin in his 1995 book called “The Great Transition”, where were
pulled together many issues, models, and methods for transforming the traditional old-
world organization into a value-creating enterprise. Martin uses value stream, rather
than process, to define the end-to-end stream of activities that deliver particular results
for a given customer (external or internal).
Ralph Whittle and Conrad Myrick in the book, Enterprise Business Architecture
(2004), provides a common reference model by defining the business strategy, governance,
organization, and business functions, and establishes a baseline that links strategy and
results by defining which organizations perform those functions. This book provides a
consistent classification of all the tasks, activities, functions, and processes into value
streams. A value chain is the disaggregating of a firm into its strategically relevant
activities for the purpose of understanding the behavior of costs as well as the existing
and potential sources of differentiation. The concept has been extended beyond individual
organizations. The industry wide synchronized interactions of those local value chains
create an extended value chain, sometimes global in extent. Capturing the value
generated along the chain is the new approach taken by many management strategists.
By exploiting the upstream and downstream information flowing along the value chain,
the firms may try to bypass the intermediaries creating new business models (Brown,
2009).
The promotion of value chains is a complex challenge within the realm of private
sector development and beyond. Actors in a value chain may range from microenterprises
to multinational corporations, and it is thus beyond doubt that developing a holistic
approach to deal with such diverse actors is challenging (Stamm and Drachenfels, 2011).
Moreover, these actors – the different links of the value chain – can be embedded in quite
different environments. Domestic value chains may e.g. link rural producers with urban
marketers; in global value chains producers from developing countries might for example
be linked to firms in industrialized countries. The specific location of firms implies
differing regulatory frameworks and differing access to input factors and information.

Public value chain

Any public sector organization that provides services to the citizens plays a key role
in value creation for the country. Providing a quality service and creating public goods,
competitive development and the growth of the county are ensured. So the main issue for
the public sector organizations is to create better value through public services and to
meet needs provided by citizens, private organizations and other public bodies.

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In the last three to four decades, government and business have been part of a far-
reaching economic transformation, made possible by remarkable advances in information,
communication and transport technologies. Both theory and practice in the private sector
have already identified a link between employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction,
on the one hand, and between customer satisfaction and the bottom line, on the other.
The combination of these two relationships yields a causal chain in which an
improvement in employee attitudes and behaviours leads to an improvement in customer
attitudes and behaviours, which leads in turn to an increase in growth and profit.
The main idea of the public value chain architecture is creation of the two basic
value flows:
1. Primary activities, such as service concept design, physical resources
procurement, human resources selection and management, service creation and
delivery and etc.;
2. Support activities, such as strategic planning, financial management, brand
management and ect.

It is important to note that the Public Sector Service Value Chain Model builds on
previous knowledge. In the present context, the Public Sector Service Value Chain model
is an adaptation of the Private Sector Service Profit Chain Model (Heintzman and
Marson, 2003; Marson and Heintzman, 2009).

Source: Heintzman and Marson, 2003

Figure 2. Public value chain

Primary activities are the basic flow of services provided by public institution and
support services helps to increase value to different groups of society. Value chain can by
anlysed from the different dimension of the interest groups. The main analysis explores
the ways in which the organization creates value for its stakeholders and distributers
this value between them. For private sector companies, this normally refers to the set of

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ISSN 2345-0126 (online)

benefits which are required by the firm’s stakeholders (although now there also pressures
for corporate social responsibility’ even in the private sector). Public sector has to meet
more expectations. Typically, in the public sector we can find these dimensions:
1. User value;
2. Value for wider groups;
3. Political value;
4. Social value;
5. Environmental value.
These five dimensions have to meet to meet demand expectations taking into
consideration three macro segmentations:
• Demand from people
• Demand from any kind of enterprise;
• Demand from institutions, including Public administration bodies and non-
profit organizations (Alberto, 2013).
The Public Sector Service Value Chain consists of three core components: People,
Service and Trust (Hietzman, 2010; Heintzman and Marson, 2003; Kaplinsky, 2002;
Kaplinsky and Morris, 2000) and this approach of public value chain is analyzed in three
dimensions:
1. Employee satisfaction and commitment;
2. Citizen/client service satisfaction;
3. Citizen trust and confidence in public institutions.
The model has three key building blocks, similar to the private sector models. This
three-part model can help to widen not just the academic discussion on trust and
confidence, but, even more important, the perspective and priorities of public managers.
It serves to link two of the key priorities for public sector reform – service improvement
and human resource modernization – priorities that are usually addressed in isolation,
despite the fact that success in one depends on success in the other (Heintzman and
Marson, 2003).
This model highlights three sets of “drivers,” one for each of the building blocks. All
three elements have “drivers” and could be understood as an independent variable that
can be shown to be an important predictor of performance outcome. If we are to make
progress on any of these public sector building blocks, or, more properly, on all three
together, further research and reflection will be needed to identify the precise “drivers”
for each of them, especially the first and third building blocks – a key issue for managers
and practitioners, to which we will return. As noted, it is in the consideration of the
drivers and their relative priority, and of the relations and interactions between them,
that the complexity of this model, as of other such models, emerges.
The fourth feature of the model to note is that it involves two sets of linkages: one
between the satisfaction and commitment of public employees and the satisfaction of
citizen clients (or client citizens) with the quality of government service delivery; and the
other between citizen satisfaction and citizen trust and confidence in public institutions.
Obviously a key issue is the empirical evidence for these linkages (Heintzman and
Marson, 2003).

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Source: Heintzman and Marson, 2003

Figure 3. Public sector service value chain

According to the Figure 3 links between dimensions are not symmetrical. The first is
a two-way linkage and the second is a one-way relationship. This is a key point, because
it helps to advance understanding of these relationships in the public sector. There is a
reciprocal or mutually reinforcing relationship between employee and citizen/client
satisfaction, but not between satisfaction and trust. In other words, a priori trust appears
to play less of a role, either in service satisfaction or in the a posteriori trust generated by
service satisfaction, than might be assumed.

Source: Heintzman and Marson, 2010

Figure 4. Strong services internally and externally contribute to confidence in the public
service

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According to Heintzman and Marson (2010), the success of the Public Sector Service
Value Chain to empower employees to respond effectively to customer concerns and
enhance the delivery of public services has been attributed to the scope of the components
and their linkages. Marson and Heintzman first proposed the model in order address a
concern that the public sector would be unable to meet its service objectives without an
internal focus on the employees delivering the service. This is particularly relevant for
management staff and corporate structures since management is recognizably at a
distance from the delivery of public services and the employees delivering those services.
Successful integration of the Public Sector Service Value Chain value has resulted in
amendments to management structures to ensure employees remain satisfied with their
jobs and feel well equipped to respond to client needs. The importance of a satisfied and
motivated labour force is evident from Figure 4 and the role of employee satisfaction as
one of the model’s core components (DPRA, 2012).

Conclusions

Value chain is examinated over thirty years. During that time value chain model
was established for both, public and private sector. The findings suggest that there were
similarities between the public sector value chain and the private sector value chain.
Public sector value chain is analysed from the point of service to citizens. The public
sector value chain is an adaptation of the private sector value chain. The difference
between the two is that the customer is the focus of the public sector context, versus the
profit focus in the private sector context. There are significant similarities between the
two chain models. Each of the chain models are founded on a series of core components.
For the public sector context, the core components are people, service and trust. Under
different titles, the importance of people and trust are found in the private sector model
context. The core components of the private sector service profit chain are customer
loyalty, profitability and growth (DPRA, 2012).

References

Alberto P., 2013. An Innovative Public Value Chain to Improve Public Services. International
Journal of Advances in Management and Economics, 2(5):85-94
Brown G. W., 2009. Value Chains, Value Streams, Value Nets, and Value Delivery Chains
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DPRA 2012. Public sector service value chain. Service value chain literature scan. [accessed 2014-01-
27]. <http://www.iccs-isac.org/library/2013/10/Service_Value_Chain_Scan_-_May_2012_-
_Final_Report.pdf>.
Heintzman, R., & Marson, B. 2003. People, Service and Trust – is there a Pubic Sector Service Value
Chain? Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat EGPA Conference, Oeiras, September 2003.
Kaplinsky R. and Morris M. 2000. A handbook for value chain research.
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Improvement in Canada. The Institute of Public Administration of Canada

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Marson, B. and Heintzman, R. 2003. People, Service and Trust: Is there a Public Sector Service
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<http://webh01.ua.ac.be/pubsector/lisbon/paper_lisbon_heintzman_marson.pdf>.
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