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A Municipal Service Center – For What and For Whom?: Understanding the Political Nature of a Public Administration Reform Process
Örebro University, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences. (Center for Democratic Government in Change)ORCID iD: 0000-0002-9599-7776
Örebro University, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences. (Center for Democratic Government in Change)ORCID iD: 0000-0002-3602-1837
2016 (English)In: Scandinavian Journal of Public Administration, ISSN 2001-7405, Vol. 20, no 3, p. 33-54Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Organizational reforms in public administration have been high on the agenda for decades. A popular type is the municipal service center (MSC) gathering citizen–government interaction in one location, physically and virtually. Previous research has mainly focused on the organizational solution and operation of MSCs. This article contributes by using a processual approach to study how priorities are handled during a reform process with fundamental effects and consequences for the organizational solution. The article is based on a deep case study of a MSC in a mid-sized Swedish municipality. The empirical data comprise documents and 29 interviews with politicians, managing directors, and other key actors. We discern a number of process factors and analyze the process in relation to four key priorities: organizational change or organizational solution, efficiency or democracy values, politicians or administrators as key actors, and citizens as customers or co-creators. The article also relates the priorities to more comprehensive public administration perspectives in the literature such as NPM and more citizen-centered perspectives. The results show that the process was characterized by a view of citizens as service-recipients and customers; a focus on efficiency and the MSC as an organizational solution, and a process pushed forward by leading public administrators with a significant influence over vital value priorities. 

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Göteborg, Sweden: Göteborgs universitet, 2016. Vol. 20, no 3, p. 33-54
Keywords [en]
Municipal service center, public administration reform, public management, processualism, value-priorities
National Category
Public Administration Studies
Research subject
Political Science
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:oru:diva-50231OAI: oai:DiVA.org:oru-50231DiVA, id: diva2:926917
Projects
Örebro kommuns servicecenterAvailable from: 2016-05-10 Created: 2016-05-10 Last updated: 2025-02-21Bibliographically approved

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Kristianssen, Ann-CatrinOlsson, Jan

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CiteExportLink to record
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Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
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