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Article
Publication date: 16 August 2013

Katarina Giritli Nygren, Karin Axelsson and Ulf Melin

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the consequences of citizens' increased use of public e‐services for agency employees' work situation.

1067

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the consequences of citizens' increased use of public e‐services for agency employees' work situation.

Design/methodology/approach

In order to accomplish the purpose of the paper the authors focus on the way in which the increased use of public e‐services also implies internal process and routine changes in public administration. The authors analyze work conditions for case officers at a government agency in Sweden by applying occupational ideal types to identify the specific work conditions in the studied case. The case study is based on qualitative data collected with a back office perspective.

Findings

The findings indicate a new hybrid organization where the increased use of e‐services challenges earlier demands for competence. The transformation of e‐government has implications for job codification, rule observation, job specification, and interaction with the general public.

Originality/value

The paper extends the knowledge on how the increased use of public e‐services affects back‐office work conditions, with an increased high level of complexity in work content, but with low level of work autonomy. It argues that studying back‐office work conditions is an important management issue in public administration research as well as practice.

Article
Publication date: 2 August 2011

Katarina Lindblad‐Gidlund and Katarina Giritli Nygren

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the discussion of the IT‐related public sector transformation by reintroducing the question of employees' organisational power and…

387

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the discussion of the IT‐related public sector transformation by reintroducing the question of employees' organisational power and position in technological and technocratic systems.

Design/methodology/approach

To examine how formal organisational positions, together with the way in which employees position themselves in relation to technology, affect how employees interpret their accessible action space (position and action strategy), a survey in a local municipality was conducted.

Findings

As indicated in the hypothesis, the empirical results verify that the techno‐relational action space is two‐dimensional, consisting of both a formal position (how the organisational members are positioned) and a certain amount of action space outside a formal position (i.e. how they are position themselves). Elaborating on these dimensions generates rewarding insights into a micro‐change perspective where technology‐related innovation processes are concerned.

Practical implications

Identifying and acknowledging employees perceived techno‐relational action space is of great importance in understanding organisational members' participation, cooperation and innovative capability in government transformation.

Originality/value

The paper combines analysis of how the organisational members position themselves in relation to technology with how they are positioned organisationally in relation to technology and structures of power. Instead, the authors claim that the techno‐relational space is both a matter of how the organisational members position themselves in relation to technology and a matter of how they are positioned organisationally in relation to technology and structures of power.

Details

Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, vol. 5 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1750-6166

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 12 October 2010

Katarina Giritli Nygren

The purpose of this paper is to analyse everyday practices in e‐government from a labour perspective in order to understand how administrative rationalization and citizen service…

462

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to analyse everyday practices in e‐government from a labour perspective in order to understand how administrative rationalization and citizen service become connected in the organizational restructuring of the labour process, namely job codification and specification and rule observation.

Design/methodology/approach

The analysis applies an organizational e‐government implementation perspective and labour process theory to an analysis of a Swedish municipality's implementation of e‐government, using both qualitative and quantitative data.

Findings

The main finding is the formulation of two distinct types of ideal employee – “monotonized administrators” and “personalized bureaucrats” – who carry e‐government work in different directions according to administrative rationalization and the service offered citizens.

Originality/value

The paper extends our knowledge of everyday practices in e‐government from a labour perspective. It offers practitioners as well as researchers new insights by analysing the transformation of practice as an ongoing process, characterized by micro‐political translation processes amongst actors, actions, and meanings in both rhetoric and practice.

Details

Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, vol. 4 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1750-6166

Keywords

Content available
Article
Publication date: 2 August 2011

Zahir Irani and Yogesh Dwivedi

451

Abstract

Details

Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, vol. 5 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1750-6166

Content available
Article
Publication date: 12 October 2010

Zahir Irani and Yogesh Dwivedi

332

Abstract

Details

Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, vol. 4 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1750-6166

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