Steven Parker, Open University

Kate Broadhurst, Loughborough University

Public service hubs are organizational arrangements bringing together multiple services and professionals to address complex social challenges. Despite their growing adoption, these hubs remain poorly conceptualized and theoretically underdeveloped. The special issue seeks to advance understanding of what constitutes a hub, how it differs from other collaborative forms, and what value it creates.

The call particularly welcomes research examining financial and resourcing dimensions of hub working, including funding mechanisms, commissioning, and value-for-money evaluations. Submissions should critically explore hub design, implementation, governance, and evaluation, acknowledging the diversity of models ranging from specialist to inclusive arrangements, and including emerging digital variants. Contributions may draw on various theoretical frameworks and examine hubs internationally using alternative terminology.

The journal invites practitioner-academic collaborations and welcomes debate and new development formats alongside research articles.

Appel publié par Public Money & Management. Voir l'appel sur le site de l'éditeur. Fiche de l'appel sur kerostig.

Potential topics

• Conceptualizing and defining public service delivery hubs
• Evolution of hub-based approaches across public services
• Hub forms, hybridity, and access
• Governance, leadership, and management of hubs
• Information sharing and inter-professional working in hubs
• Funding, commissioning and financial sustainability of hub models
• Hub user experiences, accessibility, and equity
• Public value creation in hub models
• Evaluating hub outcomes and value for money
• Challenges and unintended consequences of hubs
• Global hub perspectives

Timeline

• December 31, 2026: Extended abstract submission deadline
• March 31, 2027: Research articles submission deadline
• June 30, 2027: Debate articles and new development articles submission deadline

Paula Rossi, University of Vaasa

Jim Broch Skarli, University of Inland Norway

Maria Petrescu, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Edwina Zhu, University of Edinburgh Business School

This special issue examines how public services can create value for citizens within public service ecosystems (PSEs), moving beyond traditional service-user and organization-centric perspectives to encompass the complex interplay of multiple actors, political contexts, and non-living elements. The PSE framework emphasizes systemic, relational, and context-dependent nature of value creation, recognizing how administrative and political governance shapes what is possible in public service environments.

The call seeks contributions that explore both societal value for communities and individual value for service users, addressing the dynamics and conditions that enable or hinder value creation across individual, organizational, and institutional levels. Submissions should advance understanding of public administration and management theory and practice, with both theoretical and empirical approaches welcome, including research articles, debate pieces, and new development articles.

Appel publié par Public Money & Management. Voir l'appel sur le site de l'éditeur. Fiche de l'appel sur kerostig.

Potential topics

• Examining the implications of the roles and individual characteristics of service users in value co-creation, for example from the perspective of vulnerable service users and family carers
• Addressing the implementation and utilization of technologies from a PSE and value creation perspective
• Widening the empirical focus from private-benefit services to include more public-benefit services such as utility services, transportation, housing, prison management or urban development, emphasizing 'value for citizens' as an outcome
• Exploring the implications of understanding place-based public services from a PSE and value creation perspective
• Addressing the hindering or enabling dynamics and conditions of value creation in and between the individual, organizational and institutional levels of PSEs in particular contexts, for example by utilizing 'conflict' as an analytical tool
• Interrogating and developing Public Service Logic (PSL) as a framework for investigating and evaluating value creation within PSEs

Timeline

• December 1, 2026: Manuscript deadline for research articles and new development pieces
• March 1, 2027: Manuscript deadline for debate pieces