Samverkan och gränser. Studier av samverkansprojekt i offentlig sektor
Abstract
The collaboration projects studied in this thesis originate from national experiments that
took place from the late 1990s to the early 2000s. In those experiments, attempts were made
to determine whether collaboration could, as part of the organization of the public sector,
generate welfare gains for both the individual user and society as a whole. Other forms of
political governance of public organizations were also tested in these experiments. Activities
were very often carried out in the form of collaboration projects involving joint evaluation
groups and through co-localization. The collaboration projects are about in which actors
bring their different v rules, values and preconceptions, from their regular activities into a
meeting with other activities with different boundaries in order to organize new boundaries.
The purpose of the thesis is to achieve an understanding of why collaboration projects encounter
difficulties in contributing to lasting integration between government organizations,
and the importance of boundaries in the organizing of collaboration projects.
The thesis is based on four articles. The first article elucidates the ways in which different
boundaries are constructed when inter-organizational collaborations are being carried out.
The second article develops a model for analyzing uncertainty factors in the interaction environment
of the project. The third article addresses the problem of implementing, within the
public sector, results from development projects in the home organization. The fourth article
analyzes the ways in which collaboration projects can help to increase integration between
government organizations.
The results from the studies show that the collaboration projects do provide opportunities
for trying out new forms of collaboration, but also that the actors in collaboration projects
have to deal with multiple boundary-related problems. The construction of boundaries must,
on the one hand, regulate the activities being carried out in the collaboration projects, in that
the boundaries enable the actors to come together in a common activity. On the other hand,
the boundaries in collaboration projects must be part of the home organizations’ activities
and their boundary constructions. This leads to a complex spatial construction in which
different boundaries entail different distinctions and regulations of the relationship to the
outside world. In turn, this leads to problems involving the home organizations in the collaboration,
resulting in the collaboration becoming confined to only the collaboration projects.
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy
University
University of Gothenburg. School of Business, Economics and Law
Institution
Department of Business Administration
Disputation
Fredagen den 19 november 2010, kl. 13.15 i CG-salen, Företagsekonomiska institutionen, Vasagatan 1, Göteborg
Date of defence
2010-11-19
View/ Open
Date
2010-10-25Author
Löfström, Mikael
Publication type
doctoral thesis
ISBN
978-91-85659-67-8
Language
swe