The goal of this article is to examine the basic characteristics and factors that impact inter-organisational coordination in sustainable local governance to address: 1. What are the factors that effective inter-organisational coordination between independent units creating public safety system on local level in sustainable local governance depends on? 2. What are the principal features of inter-organisational coordination in the public safety management system studied in the context of sustainable local governance? The article’s goal was reached using desk research analysis and empirical research. The desk research covers an analysis of international scientific publications. In turn, the empirical research was based on the example of public safety management. It covered interviews with practitioners dealing with public safety and a hermeneutic process within a focus group of scholars. As a result of the conducted research, interdependencies between coordination and other factors of inter-organisational collaboration were identified and the process of inter-organisational coordination during the emergency situations was characterised.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to recognition and understanding of the inter-organisational learning processes in the public safety management system.Design/methodology/approach: The findings presented in this paper are based on empirical data including: first, desk research in the scope of inter-organisational learning; second, participant observation conducted in the Provincial Headquarters of the State Fire Service in the Silesia Province in the years 2013–2014; third, hermeneutic process within a focus group of scholars conducted in December 2014 within a four-person group of researchers. The carried out studies have shown the usefulness of the three-loop learning model appliance.Findings: The paper analyses the course of inter-organisational learning in dynamic and uncertain operating conditions. As a result, the main methods and effects of inter-organisational learning in the public safety management system are identified.Originality/value: The paper adds a new value to understanding of inter-organisational learning in the framework of public safety management by driving attention to the importance of inter-organisational learning and its practical use. It also provides a useful research model for investigating inter-organisational learning and effective public safety management.

Competencies are a set of distinctive resources and opportunities. They relate to specific capabilities of management and to performance of management methods. In the catalogue of existing managerial competencies, an increasingly important role is played by trust. The deep insight in this field of literature gives grounds for the inference that trust is rather a means to achieve public organisations’ goals, than being the end in itself. Therefore in this article we have assumed, that contemporary competencies, to a large degree, rely on trust which is rationally and relationally rooted. The main aim of this paper is to identify and evaluate components of trust with reference to the competences of public managers mirrored in their new profiles. To achieve the goal of the article, publications of the field of organisational studies and public management which aim to show the importance of creating trust within an organisation were reviewed to identify main managerial competences analysed in the context of public trust as an important factor of improving public organisations. Moreover, the results of a survey with 93 respondents carried out in 2014 in 8 units of local public administration from the Malopolska Region were used. As a result the main components of trust in new public managers’ profiles have been identified and assessed.

The search for possibilities to increase the efficiency of implementing public services creates prospects for the use of logistics management. However, research on this subject is sporadic. This has been the reason for undertaking research in this area and attempting to develop a concept for the research of logistics management in public networks, which is the purpose of this article. In the course of the analyses, logistics management and public networks were characterised. The focus is on the complexity and problems of public networks, which determine their specificity. Getting to know public networks’ specifics is facilitated by the developed map of relations in public networks and the model of public institution sub-networks. The nature of this article is conceptual and its result is setting the directions and procedure of researching logistics management in public networks.