Can you give a brief summary of your career to date, and the journey that brought you here to us at the University of Edinburgh Business School?
I had fifteen years’ experience of working as a social work practitioner and manager before moving to work in the higher education sector in 1990 – first at Aston and now at Edinburgh. Since then, my research has focused on four areas: the role of the third sector in delivering public services, co-production, innovation in public services and public services reform, and latterly the development of the theories of the New Public Governance and Public Service Logic. This latter work has shifted public management theory and practice away from a manufacturing and Product-Dominant business logic and towards one that recognises the special challenges of service management for public services.
I was the Founding Editor and am the current Editor of the ABS 3* journal Public Management Review. I was also the founder of the International Research Society for Public Management (IRSPM).
I have published extensively throughout my academic career in the leading journals of the field of public management, including Public Administration, British Journal of Management, Local Government Studies, Non-profit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Human Relations and Public Money & Management.
If you had to give your ‘elevator pitch’ and explain in layman terms what your research focuses on, how would you answer?
My research is about the need to understand public services as ‘services’ and within a public service logic. In particular it looks at what ‘value’ and ‘value creation’ mean in the context of public services and how it is created in complex interactive ecosystems rather than in dyadic relationships between a public service organisation and a citizen.
What do you enjoy most about your teaching and research?
Making a difference to the quality of life of citizens using public services – and exciting students with new ideas.
What do you enjoy most about working at UEBS?
The people!
What advice would you give to your younger self, about to leave home and embark upon further education?
To enjoy the journey and not to close down opportunities too quickly.
What one book, piece of music and beloved item would you take with you to a Desert Island?
- Book: Dickens – Little Dorrit
- Music: Wagner – the Ring Cycle
- Beloved item: my vegetable plot on my garden
If you could invite anyone over for dinner, who would it be and why?
I would definitely invite composer and pianist Phillip Glass – what a mind!
If you could visit anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?
Japan – simply because I love the country.
In Conversation with Stephen Osborne: Citizen-Centred Public Services
Stephen Osborne’s research focuses on how public services can provide resources for citizens to build value in their own lives. Currently, he is engaged in a project to develop supportive communities for elderly people in Scotland, working alongside stakeholders to co-design services and evaluate their success, with the goal of impacting real-world practices and improving the quality of public services.
Chair of International Public Management and Head of Strategy Group