Negotiating job quality in contracted-out services: An Israeli institutional ethnography

Authors from liberal welfare states generally agree that the neoliberal orientation towards reduced costs of social services has impaired the quality of caring services (e.g. Armstrong, 2013; Baines, 2004; Fine, 2014). Attention to the outsourcing of social services, as one measure that was introduced by this orientation, may shed light on the processes that shape the reported impaired quality of services. Particularly deserving of such attention is an institutional site that was created by outsourcing: the contract preparation process enabling the commissioning of services. This institutional site involves at least three parties: first, occupational experts who hold the standards for operating services; second, budgeting administrators who set forth financial limitations; and third, potential deliverers of services.1 As employees are rarely involved in the shaping of jobs within the process of commissioning (Glasby, 2012), this institutional site may be fruitful not just for investigating the processes involved in the deterioration of service quality but also for understanding the deterioration of the quality of jobs held by employees operating the services. Such a deterioration has, for example, been identified by Rubery (2013), who argues that the quality of jobs accessible to women - Especially jobs in caring services - has been dramatically reduced with public sector reforms that are aimed at evaluation-measurement-quantification.