Behind the curtain

Abstract

Public electronic services (e-services) have for a decade plus attracted both scholarly and political attention as the concept carries with it promises of heightened efficiency and an altered relationship between the governed and its government. Pivotal to the success of e-service implementation but often overlooked by academics, are the men and women responsible for its day-to-day maintenance - the public administrators. This thesis aimed at rectifying this neglect by posing the following research questions: (1) how have the public administrators work been affected by the onset of the new technology (e-service) and (2) how has the public administrators been affected by organizational efforts to sustain the new technology (e-service)? In order answer these questions three case-studies were conducted: the dentist department of the Swedish Social Insurance Agency, Swedish Tax Office and the Street and park department of the Trollhättan municipality. The case-studies were analyzed in the light of the two prevailing constructs on organizational change from technology implementation: change as incremental and informal or planned and formal. Some of the empirical findings suggest that e-service implementation provides an occasion for a shift in the roles and work-processes of the public administrators, however the cases-studies showed a great difference in the amount of changed experienced and precipitated the witnesses change.