The influence of dissensus on governmentality during competitive tendering: A longitudinal field study

Jean Claude Mutiganda

doi:10.22495/cocv19i1art3

Abstract

This paper investigates the ways in which dissensus has influenced governmentality during a longitudinal process of competitive tendering of public services. Data are from a field study conducted in the field of public care for the elderly from 2007 to 2015 in Finland. Public elderly care in Finland is under the responsibility of each municipality. Municipalities have local autonomy; including municipal taxation right. In addition to municipal tax revenues, the central government finances each municipality on a per capita basis annually. Every municipality is run by democratically elected local politicians. The elected politicians have the power to appoint leading public managers in charge of each public service sector. Findings showed that political dissensus arose from a lack of appropriate policies of governing for performance during a new and international competitive tendering process. Managerial dissensus arose from a low-level professional experience and a lack of appropriate technologies to deal with highly advanced profit-making companies competing for entry and expansion into a prestigious public elderly care market. In consequence, costs of outsourced services continued to increase. As time passed, however, political and managerial dissensus improved the process of governing for performance; key decision-makers took reactive measures to limit procurement risks in future competitive tendering processes. The potential contribution is to show the relevance of dissensus when it motivates public managers and political decision-makers to improve specific programs, techniques, and strategies used to manage public services

Highlights

The question of ethics quality, dissensus, and governmentality when public funds are used to outsource public services, has attracted the attention of many practitioners, politicians, and interdisciplinary scholars (Garegnani, Merlotti, & Russo, 2015; Hodgson, 2012; Labelle, Gargouri, & Francoeur, 2010; Milne, Roy, & Angeles, 2012; Passetti, Bianchi, Battaglia, & Frey, 2017; Whelan, 2013)
In contrast to political dissensus, the findings of this study suggest that managerial dissensus was cognitive (Suchman, 1995), that is, the level of takenfor-grantedness that technologies of government including calculating technologies (Ahrens et al, 2020; Rose, 1991) which they used to apply before implementing competitive tendering were going to function well in the new era
The theoretical part has used the concepts of governmentality and dissensus in conceptualising relationships between the problematics of government, governing with specific end, dissensus, and change in the context of using competitive tendering to outsource public elderly care services

Summary

Introduction

The question of ethics quality, dissensus, and governmentality when public funds are used to outsource public services, has attracted the attention of many practitioners, politicians, and interdisciplinary scholars (Garegnani, Merlotti, & Russo, 2015; Hodgson, 2012; Labelle, Gargouri, & Francoeur, 2010; Milne, Roy, & Angeles, 2012; Passetti, Bianchi, Battaglia, & Frey, 2017; Whelan, 2013). Ethics quality refers to the quality with which codes of ethics are designed, implemented, communicated, and understood by organisational members (Garegnani et al, 2015). Dissensus appears when there is a lack of consensus, or agreement, between two or more persons or organisations (Whelan, 2013). The gap in the literature begs for investigating how dissensus can lead to cost savings in outsourcing public services (Isaksson, Blomqvist, & Winblad, 2017; Neu et al, 2015)

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