Creating or destroying value for users? Lessons about activation from qualitative studies in Norway and Denmark

ABSTRACT

This article contributes to a growing stream of research on service co-creation and users’ experiences and use of activation services. In public management research, the idea of a public service logic has gained increasing prominence. A key point is that a better understanding of what a service genuinely is, has implications for how to develop more user-centric and efficient services. This article applies a public service logic in a critical interpretive synthesis of qualitative research findings regarding users’ experiences with activation services in Denmark and Norway. It shows that activation services are necessarily co-created, as users contribute resources to co-create services. Only users can transform these services into individual value, helping them in their process towards work. Services made by utilizing users’ resources but not answering to users’ needs may destroy individual value. Some activation services tend to contribute more to individual value creation than other services, but most services can contribute to both value creation and destruction, depending on users’ needs and circumstances. Public services must also create public value. Services users are obliged to participate in co-creating and which give priority to the creation of public value, such as clarifying eligibility for long term benefits often lead to the destruction of individual value. Taking users’ co-creation of service as a starting point in the design of and research on activation services will contribute to provide more user-centric services, increase the priority given to creation of individual over public value and thereby improve the outcome of activation policy.

KEYWORDS:

• Activation policy
• vulnerable jobseekers
• public service logic
• public service
• value creation

Introduction

Activation policy involves a set of multi-purpose tools that make up a ‘people-changing’ or transformative service designed to alter the personal attributes, motivation and behaviours of users, with the goal of increasing their chances of entering work (R. I. K. van Berkel 2010). Co-creation is now being investigated to increase individualization and service outcomes, often understood as an option to improve services (Fledderus, Brandsen, and Honingh 2015; Lindsay et al. 2018; Røhnebæk and Bjerck 2021). To better understand the ways in which activation works or fails, there has been growing research interest in studying users’ experiences of activation services (Larsen and Caswell 2022; R. van Berkel and Knies 2018; Wathne 2021; Wright 2016; Wright, Fletcher, and Stewart 2020). Together with increased understanding of users’ own experiences, there is a need for a new theoretical perspective to support the user perspective and contribute to increase our understanding of how activation policy may contribute in better ways to labour market participation among marginalized citizens.

Recent perspectives in public management research have drawn on service theory to argue that public services must be based on service logic (Alford 2016; Osborne 2020). In service logic, a service is defined as an offering that helps with individuals’ processes, enabling them to achieve their goals in ways that are valuable to them (Grönroos 2019). From this perspective, co-creation is not an option that a service provider can choose. Services cannot be made beforehand. They are necessarily co-created in the meeting between the service provider and the service user, with both parties contributing resources to co-create the service (Osborne, Nasi, and Powell 2021; Vargo and Lusch 2008). When service users utilize the service in their own process towards their goal, the service creates individual value – it can be used in the individual’s process (Grönroos 2019; Osborne 2020). ‘Value is always uniquely and phenomenologically determined by the beneficiary’ (Vargo and Lusch 2008, 7). It is only the service user and not the service provider who can determine what the individual value of a service is. This does not imply that the service users are solely responsible for the outcome. The quality of the service offering and beneficiaries’ situatedness in social structures affect their prospects of turning a service into individual value. If the service leaves the service users worse off by reducing their chances of achieving their goal, the individual value of the service is negative, and individual value is destroyed (Engen et al. 2020).

Service research has mainly been developed for private sector services (Engen et al. 2020). In addition to individual value public services must also create public value (Osborne 2020). It is argued that public value is both the substance of public administration and the reason that services are public (Alford 2016; Jørgensen and Rutgers 2015). Public value is created when public services align with the needs and preferences of the community as determined through political deliberation. Some public values, such as legitimacy, trust, fairness and the efficient use of public funds, concern all public services, while others are of sector-specific concern (Hartley et al. 2017). In activation policy public values are such as increasing the labour force, preventing free riders, encouraging social inclusion, and increasing employment (OECD 1994).

Public value is usually created through the same service processes as individual value (Alford 2016; Osborne 2020). Public services must therefore be analysed in two dimensions, whether they contribute to the users individual vale creation and/or to the service providers creation of public value (Engen et al. 2020). At times individual and public value coincide, as when activation services help users in vulnerable situations into work and increase the work force at the same time (Vooren et al. 2019). At times they conflict, as when strict conditionality may prevent free riders but imped users’ progress towards work (Wright and Patrick 2019). Even though public services primarily are offered to help individual users, it may be the other way around, public services creating public value at the expense of individual users.

This article asks as follows: What can public service logic add to our understanding of activation policy? Or shorter, what can we learn from viewing activation as a service? It does so through a reinterpretation of research findings from Denmark and Norway regarding users’ experiences with activation services. Five service offerings are inductively identified: generic information which is information offered to everyone on for instance web sites, counselling which is a person centred, dynamic interaction between activation workers and users, activation programmes which aim to increasing users’ competency and giving work experience, knowledge sharing to help the user to understand the activation system, and eligibility for long-term benefits. Although some of these services tend to contribute more to individual value creation than other services, most services can contribute to both value creation and destruction, depending on users’ needs and circumstances.

I argue that the public service logic perspective necessitates a user-centric approach and individualization of activation services, as users contribute resources to co-create services and turn them into individual value as a step towards work or for use in other personal processes. The article argues much of the destruction of individual value results from users participating in co-creating services aimed at creating public value. The co-creation of these services often drains users’ resources and destroys individual value. The one benefitting from such services is the serviced provider (jobcentre) that creates public value. Although further research into co-creation of services and the making of individual value is necessary, this article argues that aligning public value to individual value creation and changes in the provision of activation services will increase users’ individual value creation and improve the outcomes of activation services.

Method

This article applies concepts from public service logic to reinterpret and provide a new perspective on empirical findings in previous activation research. Critical interpretive synthesis is well suited to identifying themes in the literature for inclusion in the study and formulating synthesizing arguments (Depraetere et al. 2021). Utilizing findings across numerous studies and samples can increase the reliability and generalizability of findings beyond the possibilities of a primary study, contribute to evaluating new theory and help in developing novel explanations (Siddaway, Wood, and Hedges 2019). Such a research strategy also connects the perspective of activation as a service more closely with the larger body of activation research. It entails some limitations which primary data could have circumvented, such as providing less information on users’ own processes of value creation and their integration of benefits and activation services.

In this study, Denmark and Norway were selected as study sites, as both have relatively high-intensity activation programmes that aim to integrate groups with complex social problems into the labour market. Jobseekers in vulnerable situations receive a broad range and high frequency of activation services (Dølvik et al. 2015; Kreiner and Svarer 2022), and conditionality is integrated into benefit schemes (Hagelund et al. 2016; Hussain, Ejrnæs, and Larsen 2021). Thus, these two countries suit the article’s research rationale, as they offer a wide spectre of activation services aimed at improving the conditions of people in vulnerable situations in relation to work.

The process of selecting the articles was designed to identify information-rich studies providing thick descriptions of users’ experiences with general activation policies. In line with critical interpretive synthesis, the literature search prioritized sources of direct relevance to the research question. I utilized flexible inclusion criteria to select these sources as well as a multiple-sampling process and a broad search strategy (Depraetere et al. 2021; Dixon-Woods et al. 2006). Several strategies were used, including a search of the Norwegian database Oria, which contains publications in Scandinavian languages and English, reference chaining from central articles and searches in relevant English and native language journals until saturation was reached. Due to this article’s broad focus on activation policy, I only included articles presenting users’ experiences with general activation services, not specific interventions. I included only peer-reviewed articles based on interviews with users in vulnerable situations. Interviews had to be conducted without the presence of the activation worker in order to reduce the tendency towards self-censorship. To ensure rich descriptions, users’ experiences must constitute the main component of the findings in the article. To avoid the effects of the large organizational changes to the delivery of activation policy that took place in both countries in 2006–2007, the selected articles must be based on data from after 2010. Table 1 gives an overview of the articles used in this study. In the analysis I only use citations of and references to users answers not the researchers further interpretation and discussion of these.

Table 1. Research on user's experience of activation services used in this study.

Author	Title	Year	Aim	Method	Informants	country	publication
Danneris S.	Ready to work (yet)? Unemployment trajectories among vulnerable welfare recipients	2018	Analysing individual unemployment stories through time identifying changes in the trajectories	A qualitative longitudinal study of the unemployment trajectories of vulnerable welfare recipients in Denmark. The data were collected in four to five irregular empirical waves over four years.	25 vulnerable jobseekers categorized as ‘activity ready’. 30 to 59 years old. 12 male 13 female. The informants were recruited through their activation worker.	D	Qualitative Social Work
Danneris, S., & Caswell, D.	Exploring the ingredients of success: studying trajectories of the vulnerable unemployed who have entered work or education in Denmark	2019	What can we learn from the limited number of clients who have been categorized as vulnerable but who have succeeded in stopping cash benefits and entering employment or education?	Interviews conducted as short, retrospective narratives	12 former recipients of benefits who had been categorized as vulnerable and found and held on to employment for at least three months. 27 to 53 years old. 6 female, 6 male.	D	Social Policy and Society
Danneris, S., & Herup Nielsen, M	Bringing the client back in: a comparison between political rationality and the experiences of the unemployed	2018	What aspects of life do the current political rationality of welfare-to-work fail to address?	A qualitative longitudinal study of the unemployment trajectories of vulnerable welfare recipients in Denmark. The data were collected over two years.	25 vulnerable jobseekers categorized as ‘activity ready’. 30 to 59 years old. 12 male 13 female. The informants were recruited through their activation worker.	D	Social Policy & Administration
Fugletveit & Lofthus	From the desk to the cyborg’s faceless interaction in The Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration	2021	How do NAV service users with mental health challenges and co-occurring disorders experience the digitalization of NAV’s services?	Individual interviews and focus group interviews with 3–5 participants per focus group	25 persons with mental health challenges and persons with both mental health and drug challenges. 19 to 65 years old. 14 male and 11 female. The informants were recruited through various services.	N	Nordisk välfärdsforskning
Gubrium, E	Participant meaning-making along the work trajectory of a labour activation programme.	2013	Understanding construction of clientification and jobseekers meaning-making over time	In-depth semi-structured interviews, one to two hour long	14 vulnerable jobseekers who were or had recently been engaged in activation measures. 30 to 58 years old. Recruited through program caseworkers	N	J. F. Gubrium & M. Järvinen (Eds.), Turning troubles into problems Clientization in human services
Gubrium, E., & Leirvik, M. S	Taking time seriously: Biographical circumstance and immigrant labour integration experience.	2022	How do immigrants make meaning of labour integration processes, with reference to changing personal histories and encounters within Norway’s activation and integration systems over time?	In-depth semi-structured interviews, one to two hour long	14 vulnerable jobseekers who were or had recently been engaged in activation measures. 30 to 58 years old. Recruited through program caseworkers	N	Journal of International Migration and Integration,
Hansen, H. T., Lundberg, K., & Syltevik, L. J.	Digitalization, street‐level bureaucracy and welfare users’ experiences	2018	How is the new technology implemented on the frontline of the organization? To what extent and for what purposes do welfare beneficiaries use the ICT provided by NAV? Does new technology replace traditional faceto-face encounters, and does the use of new technology depend on individual resources, i.e. is there a tendency towards a digital divide?	Interviews with benefit recipients, observation in job centres and user satisfaction surveys	38 users between 22 and 66 years old. Recruited by the researchers from observed offices.	N	Social Policy & Administration
Hansen, H. C., & Gubrium	Activating the person in the changing situation: A dynamic analytical approach to labour activation.	2021	How do participants in an activation programme experience and make meaning of labour activation processes, with reference to changing personal histories and their changing positions within relevant institutions over time?	Individual semi-structured interviews lasting from one to two hours with 16 service users and observation of 34 meetings between social workers and service users	34 vulnerable jobseekers ranged in age from 18 to 58 years old, including 21 women and 13 men, 22 with an immigrant background. The informants were recruited through their activation worker.	N	Journal of Comparative Social Work
Hansen, H. C., & Gubrium	Moving forward, waiting or standing still? Service users’ experiences from a Norwegian labour activation programme	2022	how service users variably and situationally understand what objectively appears to be ‘waiting’ in their personal labour activation trajectories	Individual semi-structured interviews lasting from one to two hours with service users from two separate fieldwork studies	62 vulnerable jobseekers 34 women and 26 men with varying levels of education, professional backgroud and civil status	N	Nordic Social Work Research
Hansen H.C.	From problems to-barriers A bottom up-perspective on the institutional framing of a labour activation programme	2020	To investigate how service users activation process take place within a broader context that includes measures, social workers, as well as employers and work-placement contacts, policy papers, legislations, municipal finances, and local labour markets	Individual semi-structured interviews lasting from one to two hours with service users and observation of 34 meetings between social workers and service users	34 participants in age from 18 to 58 years old, 21 women and 13 men,	N	Social Policy & Society
Hansen, H. C	Recognition and gendered identity constructions in labour activation: Gendered identity constructions	2018	How gender may affect labour activation recipients’ identity construction and sense of social value	Individual semi-structured interviews lasting from one to two hours with service users and observation of meetings between social workers and service users	16 articipants ranged in age from 18 to 58 years old, including 21 women and 13 men,	N	International Journal of Social Welfare
Hansen L.S. & Nielsen M.H.	Working Less, Not More in a Workfare Programme: Group Solidarity, Informal Norms and Alternative Value Systems Amongst Activated Participants	2021	To explore the lived reality of a Danish workfare programme	Ethnographic data from a Utility Jobs activation site gathered over a period of 12 months combine with 42 in-depth interviews with participants activated at the site	The interview group consisted of 22 men and 12 women. The participants have varying educational background and previous time on benefits.	D	Journal of social policy
Lundberg, K.	The Welfare Subject in the ‘One-stop Shop’: Agency in Troublesome Welfare Encounters.	2018	Coordination issues and accountability in NAV from the standpoint of service users and the production of situated agency.	Interviews aimed at exploring the subjects’ experiences whith and points of view on the job centre	29 people who had wide-ranging backgrounds with regard to former employment, as well as social and medical history, 22 to 66 years old. The informants were recruited with assistance from two job centres	N	Journal of sociology and social welfare
Natland et al.	Jeg fikk blankpusset håpet om at jeg hadde en fremtid		Present a user perspective on what characterizes good experiences in the meeting between users and service provider, and why they perceive this as good	User-led dialogue seminars within the framework of user-involved research	Long-term recipients of health and welfare services	N	Fontene
Nielsen et al	Waiting and temporal control: The temporal experience of long-term unemployment	2021	Analyse how long-term unemployed persons experience time during their unemployment trajectories	Interviews with open questions about what happened during the unemployment trajectory and a drawing exercise	12 former recipients of benefits who had between 3 and 10 years of user experience. 26 to 53 years old, nine female, three male. Informants recruited by the aid of activation workers.	D	Time & society
Ohls	Dignity‐based practices in Norwegian activation work	2020	To identify dignity-based practices in activation programs	Semi-structured individual qualitative interviews	Useres having taken part in activation program for vulnerable jobsekers. 13 woman, 7 men, 30–55 years old, large variation in working experience and formal qualifiqations	N	International Journal of Social Welfare
Olesen, S. P., & Eskelinen, L	Short narratives as a qualitative approach to effects of social work interventions.	2011	Analyse how cash benefit recipients experienced the employment efforts in which they participated, and whether the efforts made a difference to their working life perspective and their relationship to the labour market.	Observation in an activation program over a one yerar period and semi-structured narrative interviews aimed at a selected periods of time and topic: work, employment efforts, work identity and self-sufficiency	Utlising one informants narrative	D	Nordic Social Work Research
Solheim et al.	The importance of relationships in the encounter between NAV staff and young, vulnerable users.	2021	How to help vulnerable young users towards employment, education or training	Research circle extended over 14 months, encompassing 12 half-day sessions and 3 full-day seminars	Young adults who have comprehensive problems, not participating inactivation programmes, and long-standing contact with NAV.	N	European Journal of Social Work
Wik, S	Unge med funksjonsnedsettelser i lange forløp på NAV	2019	How is time used in the activation system and what consequences does this have for the young people’s belief in getting into work?	Two semi-structured interviews with each informant, one year appart.	12 young adults with functional impairments who have been users of activation services for more than three years	N	Søkelys på arbeidslivet
Åsheim, H	Den institusjonelle utholdenheten	2018	How is it experienced to be in the clarification process for young people with mental disorders? What significance does Nav’s clarification process have for the young people’s experience of coping?	Semi-structured interviews	Six young adult with mental illness, three woman and three men. In addition were twelve activation workers not knowing the users interviewed.	N	Tidsskrift for velferdsforskning,
Åsheim, H	«Du vil ha behov for ytterligere arbeidstrening». En studie av begrunnelser i arbeidsavklarings prosess	2019	How can use of activation programs and transitions between benefits be justified in work clarification processes?	Two interviews, ten phone calls, the informants files, observation of follow up meetings, interview with activation worker	One of the users in the research project above	N	Norsk sosiologisk tidsskrift

The identified articles were systemized through thematic analysis, which is a useful method for examining different perspectives and generating new insights. Furthermore, sections of text can be coded within several themes (Braun and Clarke 2021; Nowell et al. 2017). As a first step in the thematic analysis, users’ experiences, as presented in the primary studies, were extracted and divided into the smallest meaning-carrying units. These were first sorted into the three central categories in the definition of ‘service’: kind of service offered, individual process, and goals. Within each of these categories, subthemes were identified. This analysis moved from fine-grained to broader themes. For example, the counselling provided at jobcentres and in activation programmes was initially split. Giving priority to content over context, all counselling was subsumed under the same theme. Themes without sufficient information to make robust reinterpretations, such as job search, were omitted.

The process resulted in five subthemes of kind of service offered: generic information offered to everyone on for instance web sites, counselling as a person centred, dynamic interaction between activation workers and users, activation programmes as full-time interventions aiming to increasing users’ competency and giving work experience, knowledge sharing helping the user to understand the activation system, and eligibility for long-term support. Within each of these five subthemes, meaning-carrying units were categorized based on whether they described the kind of service offered as helpful or hindering their process regarding individual goals, thus indicating whether the services contributed to creating or destroying individual value. The kind of service offered was transformed into services by beneficiaries contributing resources during co-creation. What constituted resources depended on what was to be done; thus, the resources used varied between services. A separate analysis was undertaken to identify the resources that the beneficiaries contributed towards the co-creation of the five services.

Results

This section begins by analysing the informants’ goals as important premisses regarding the direction of users’ processes and the services they may utilize. The five deductively identified services were then described through a presentation of the creation and destruction of individual value and users’ resource contributions towards co-creating the service. The overall experience of activation services will be explored in the final section on users’ processes.

Users mostly aim towards work

A large majority of the of the service users that are included in the selected studies identified full- or part-time work as their aim. There were various reasons for this: longing and enthusiasm for work (Wik 2019), fulfilling the role of breadwinner and being a good example for their children (Gubrium and Leirvik 2022), increased earnings and taking part in social life (Ohls 2020) or escaping the activation system (Danneris and Nielsen 2018).

Among the few who did not report work as their goal, a large proportion did not find work a realistic goal or had other problems that they perceived as more pressing than obtaining work, such as health issues and taking care of relatives (Åsheim 2018; Danneris and Nielsen 2018; H. C. Hansen and Gubrium 2021). Among those who do not view work as a realistic goal, receiving a long-term benefit was a common goal. For those who had other more pressing problems, work was seen as a possible future goal.

Services both create and destroy individual value

Generic information often leaves the jobseeker in doubt

Generic information about activation services not tailored to the specific user’s need was offered through multiple channels, including via phone, web, letters and over the counter. It was the main resource in helping users to know their rights and obligations. Users generally express knowledge of the benefits regulations, indicating the generic information was of some value. Even so, many seemed to remain in doubt, unsure of their rights, obligations, and possibilities. The article informants found it difficult to navigate the websites and obtain relevant information that they were sure applied to their personal situations. The answers they received via one channel sometimes led to further questions via another (H. T. Hansen, Lundberg, and Syltevik 2018). Successful navigation depended more heavily on bureaucratic understanding than digital competence (Fugletveit and Lofthus 2021; H. T. Hansen, Lundberg, and Syltevik 2018; Lundberg 2018). The web provided little comfort (Solheim et al. 2021), and with the stress of uncertainty regarding finances, it became difficult to focus on work (Natland, Bjerke, and Torstensen 2019).

Generic information is first transformed into a service when the jobseeker can apply the information to their own situations and, thus, use their rights and fulfil their duties. In attempts to utilize information, jobseekers used their personal resources, such as time, digital and bureaucratic skills, and stress management (Fugletveit and Lofthus 2021; Lundberg 2018).

Counselling is often a service that creates value

Counselling is a person-centred, dynamic interaction between activation workers and users primarily focusing on the users and their situation. The aim is to support users in managing their own affairs when possible and assisting them in finding solutions. Counselling is offered by activation workers at the jobcentre and in activation programmes.

There was strong agreement across the studies regarding what users experienced as good counselling. The central points were that activation workers were interested in users and their needs, expressed trust in users, built on their existing resources and acted on their ambitions to help make changes in the users’ situations (Danneris and Nielsen 2018; H. C. Hansen and Gubrium 2021; Natland, Bjerke, and Torstensen 2019; Solheim et al. 2021). In retrospect, the users highly value that the activation workers pushed just enough at the right time to help them move forward in demanding situations (Natland, Bjerke, and Torstensen 2019; Solheim et al. 2021).

Not all counselling contributed to value creation. Key factors that potentially hindered value creation included users experiencing a lack of recognition, uncertainty about the framework and content and an overly strong focus on formal documents (Natland, Bjerke, and Torstensen 2019; Solheim et al. 2021). A change of activation workers interrupted the counselling relationship and often led to increased waiting times and changes in plans. The jobseeker would then have to retell their story and re-establish trust, thereby hindering progress (Danneris 2018; Lundberg 2018; Natland, Bjerke, and Torstensen 2019; Wik 2019).

When co-creating value through the counselling service, users contribute in the form of their personal information, trust, time, showing their vulnerability, willingness to go through processes of change and, thus, their willingness to risk failure (Danneris and Nielsen 2018; H. C. Hansen and Gubrium 2021; Lundberg 2018; Solheim et al. 2021). At their best, services are transformed into building self-esteem and self-efficacy, seeing new paths ahead, building skills and improving social coping (Danneris 2018; Lundberg 2018; Wik 2019), capacities that may be applied to obtain work.

Activation programmes on repeat destroy value

Activation programmes such as job placement and educational courses offer users the chance to acquire practical, formal, and social skills and gain a better understanding of their possibilities in the labour market. In the included articles, work placement was the predominant activation programme, with few participating in training, education, or wage subsidies.

Work placement programme participants experienced an increased likelihood of obtaining work when they mastered job-specific tasks, coped with work, showed up on time, cooperated and socialized with fellow workers and generally fit into the workplace culture. The experience of coping in activation programmes can strengthen users’ identity development and self-esteem (Gubrium 2013; H. C. Hansen 2018; H. C. Hansen and Gubrium 2021; L. S. Hansen and Nielsen 2021; Solheim et al. 2021). Furthermore, the skills acquired through work experience may lead to continued work (Danneris 2018; Ohls 2020). Users experiencing idleness may appreciate activation to kill time (Danneris 2018). Some participants realized that a given type of work was not for them, for example, if it was incompatible with their health issues. Thus, learning which kinds of work they could or could not pursue may have been a step towards employment (Natland, Bjerke, and Torstensen 2019; Wik 2019).

Participating in several work placements and not being employed devaluated prior positive experiences (Gubrium and Leirvik 2022; Wik 2019). Completing one programme after another without progression or job offers was often experienced as a loop or exploitation. Jobseekers may internalize a lack of progress as their own failure, asking why their efforts are not appreciated and what is wrong with them (Gubrium and Leirvik 2022; H. C. Hansen 2018; H. C. Hansen and Gubrium 2021; Ohls 2020). Participating in programmes because of benefit conditionality often resulted in user frustration and disengagement (Gubrium 2013; Ohls 2020; Wik 2019). Such perceived loops could be caused by the activation worker insisting that the jobseeker not give up. Jobseekers could also experience this institutional endurance as tiring, meaningless and aimless (Åsheim 2018).

It is important to note that different users may create substantially different types of value from the same service offering. Gubrium and Leirvik (2022) examined outcomes pertaining to three users participating in the same type of activation programme, with all participants expressing their motivation to enter work. The activation programme had not led to work for any of the users. One participant felt frustrated but was still young and waiting for another opportunity to obtain a certificate that would enable more stable work. Another jobseeker experienced the programme as a waste of time. Being older and not keeping up with the labour market’s competence requirements, he felt further removed from the labour market than before and on the verge of giving up. The third participant had used her time in the programme to recover from personal difficulties, reconnect with her daughter and move beyond her past, which left her feeling more optimistic about the future.

The experiences relating to the activation programmes differed substantially among users, potentially reflecting the diverse content of the various programmes as well as the diversity among the users. Programmes were perceived as valuable when work experience was understood as increasing possibilities for future work, where informants could build on their own competence or increase their coping in areas of importance to them. Repetitive work placements and programmes with no clear path forward, which a large proportion of the informants experienced, tended to destroy individual value.

Co-creating an activation programme requires users to contribute their time and prioritize participation over other tasks, as programmes are often full time and last months. In a work placement, the jobseeker must contribute their work capacity and social skills to show that they are able workers (Åsheim 2018; Wik 2019). For users in vulnerable situations, this may be demanding but also satisfying when they experience increased skills. When partaking in mandatory activation programmes in which they do not find ways to create individual value, stoicism or perseverance may be necessary. Further, contributing resources to numerous programmes without results leads to value destruction (Gubrium and Leirvik 2022; H. C. Hansen and Gubrium 2021).

Knowledge sharing helps users in their processes

Knowledge sharing is defined as the activation worker providing information suited to their individual situation by explaining what is happening, who might be involved and what is to be expected. This is usually not seen as a service in activation policy. In the analyses, knowledge sharing differed from generic information sharing, which is not user-centric, and from counselling, which does not contain information about the activation system.

When activation workers share their knowledge of the activation and welfare system, providing information about what happens and why things happens in the process, who is involved and what to expect, there is an increased likelihood of users acting (Danneris and Caswell 2019; Natland, Bjerke, and Torstensen 2019; Wik 2019).

A lack of knowledge sharing may lead to users finding it difficult to understand how the system functions and experiencing the entire jobcentre institution as fragmented, which is a barrier to progress. Users may attempt to coordinate various organizational bodies within and across service systems (Åsheim 2019; Danneris 2018; Danneris and Nielsen 2018; Lundberg 2018; Olesen and Eskelinen 2011). In knowledge sharing, users contribute through their need to know, questions and curiosity and by showing their vulnerable situation in a system that they do not understand (Danneris and Caswell 2019; Natland, Bjerke, and Torstensen 2019). Like counselling, knowledge sharing is dialogic and, thus, co-created. It seems to mostly contribute to value creation.

Clarifying eligibility for benefits drains users’ resources

For some of the of the service users that are included in the selected studies, long-term benefits, often in combination with work, were the goal of their process. Obtaining long-term benefits depends on a process of eligibility assessment, which is very much a process of assessing and documenting health issues and work capacity. Being granted benefits contributes to their goal and, thus, create value.

As part of the documentation process, activation programmes may be used by the jobcentre to document reduced health and limited possibilities for employment in the labour market. Sufficient documentation may require completing a series of programmes. Work placements confirming users’ prior knowledge of not being able to perform a given kind of work were experienced as both mistrust and a step further from employment (Åsheim 2019; Danneris 2018; Wik 2019).

A lack of documentation, or documentation that was no longer valid because it had expired or needed to be reassessed, was a frequently mentioned obstacle (Danneris 2018; Solheim et al. 2021). Though users may value the effects of a document because of renewed movement in their case, they ‘hope not to be sent from here to there to find out even more about things that we already know’ (Wik 2019, 241). Most discouraging to many users was the feeling that documentation was based on the past, that it was impersonal and that it did not reflect their own understanding of reality, which made them feel objectified during their own process (Åsheim 2019; Natland, Bjerke, and Torstensen 2019).

While assessing eligibility was the responsibility of the jobcentre, this cannot be done without the jobseeker co-creating the necessary documentation. In this way, users contribute their time and effort by participating in additional programmes, waiting, their willingness to show what they cannot manage and accepting the feeling of being objectified (Åsheim 2019). Even if this service contributes to their goal of long-term benefits, it does not do so in a way that feels valuable to them.

Processes seldom lead directly to goals

The process regarding work or long-term benefits often stretches over several years and consists of various phases that move between optimism and bleakness. In most of the articles, the informants were still in the activation process; thus, few knew whether they would reach their goals.

The chance to create value often changes over time. Jobseekers who experience services that provide valuable help in their process may, in a later period, experience value destruction and move away from the labour market. A change in activation workers, activation programmes not being relevant, deteriorating health and other changes in life circumstances may all contribute to such changes. The process of entering work is interwoven with other processes and circumstances in jobseekers’ lives, which may help or hinder them (Åsheim 2018; Danneris and Nielsen 2018; H. C. Hansen and Gubrium 2022; Natland, Bjerke, and Torstensen 2019).

These processes take time, with some users experiencing that they were not given sufficient time in their process and the jobcentre expecting results at a faster rate than they themselves were able to achieve (Wik 2019). Other users experienced the time they offered to the jobcentre as waiting time, which was described as difficult, increasing feelings of uncertainty and being a wasted year (Åsheim 2018; Danneris 2018; Gubrium 2013; Nielsen, Danneris, and Monrad 2021; Wik 2019). Jobseekers who had processes in other areas of life that were not reliant on activation services did not experience such waiting times. For them, time without activation service may be considered a positive service offering. What they needed was time to go through their other processes (H. C. Hansen and Gubrium 2022; Nielsen, Danneris, and Monrad 2021; Wik 2019).

Those who had reached their goals and entered employment assigned the activation system a limited role in their success, describing themselves as the main characters and emphasizing their own drive, motivation, and belief in their own abilities. For some, escaping the system was more important than obtaining a job (Danneris and Caswell 2019; Danneris and Nielsen 2018; Gubrium 2013; H. C. Hansen and Gubrium 2021). Some users returning to work were reluctant to interpret their trajectory as a story of success because of the overly demanding nature of the process (Nielsen, Danneris, and Monrad 2021).

Discussion

The service perspective of public service logic moves ‘service’ from an everyday word, as in ‘to do someone a service’, and from its administrative context, as in a social, health or activation service, to a concept. As a theoretical concept, it adds to our understanding of activation policies in several ways. The empirical analysis of activation as a service also contributes to the development of the theory of public service logic.

Much research on co-creation in activation services understands co-creation as an option to improve services (Fledderus, Brandsen, and Honingh 2015; Lindsay et al. 2018; Nederhand and Meerkerk 2018). By applying a public service logic, the analysis show that co-creation is not optional; without it, there is no activation service. If the jobseeker does not attend a follow-up meeting, there is an offer of activation service, but the service is not created. If one part contributes with minimal resources, such as if the activation counsellor does not pay attention or respond to the jobseeker in a follow-up meeting, the service differs from one where both parties engage in understanding needs and finding solutions. If the service offering is completely predefined by the jobcentre, without openings for engagement, interpretation, or for the user to somehow relate it to their own situation, it will either not become a service or will be a service with little value for the user. This is the case, for instance, with generic information services, experienced as not responding adequately to jobseekers’ requests.

Research on enabling activation services has analysed the effects of investing in social and human capital on individuals’ employment (Bakker and Van Vliet 2022; Vooren et al. 2019); however, there is less attention on the resources that users contribute to the creation of services. What constitutes resources depends on what is to be done. The findings show that users contribute resources such as ambition to return to work, being vulnerable by sharing personal information, a willingness to try again, acceptance of being objectified and their own time. Some of these resources may be scarce. By co-creating services that are not suited to their needs, users may become worse off, with fewer resources. Efficient use of public resources may result in the inefficient use of users’ resources, as in the case of generic information and the process of clarifying benefit eligibility. Enabling services, which are aimed at building users’ resources, may instead lead to resource drainage, as in the case of institutional endurance. The ethical and purposeful disposition of users’ resources becomes just as important as the efficient use of the jobcentre’s resources in designing and offering services.

The individualization of activation services adapting services to users’ needs and circumstances help more people into work, especially the long-term unemployed and other people in vulnerable situations (Fuertes and McQuaid 2016; Rice 2017; R. van Berkel and Valkenburg 2007; Vooren et al. 2019). The analysis shows how the same service, such as activation programmes and waiting time, may lead to both value creation and destruction, depending on users and their situations. Individual value creation contributes to strengthen the users’ resources, but also to killing time and reconnecting with relatives. Services that are not aligned with users’ processes contribute to a lesser degree or not at all to individual value. This is in line with service logic, which argues that the individual is the sole creator of value.

To offer valuable help to the users, the resources, processes and competences provided by the service organization must be aligned with the resources and needs of the users (Grönroos 2019). To increase the value creation of activation services, public service logic posits that one should have the possibilities and limitations of users’ value creation as a starting point when designing the policy, governance and delivery process of services (Osborne, Nasi, and Powell 2021). Service offerings that intentionally rely on co-creation, such as knowledge sharing, seem to increase the individual value of the service. The growing interest in adjusting activation services for co-creation may therefore contribute to more valuable services. To make co-creation a defining trait of service interactions rather than something added on to improve the service process, more thorough changes may be needed. Activation policy, performance, processes and knowledge management in service organizations and the discretion of front-line activation workers all affect which services are offered and how (Nothdurfter and Hermans 2018; R. van Berkel 2020; van Gerven et al. 2024).

Activation policy often frames users as passive welfare recipients to be activated through demanding policy conditionality, enabling policy activation programmes or a mix of the two (R. van Berkel et al. 2017; Wright and Patrick 2019). Service logic understands users as agents with projects on their way towards somewhere. It is through having a project that users can take on service offers and use them to reach their goals. Understanding users as active value creators is in line with how users who have entered work understand their own roles, describing themselves as the main characters and emphasizing their own drive, motivation and belief in their own abilities. Activation workers are reported to have the same view (Danneris and Caswell 2019). This is also in line with research identifying welfare subjects as ‘becomers’ rather than ‘beings’ (Larsen and Caswell 2022; Wright 2016).

Being the creator of individual value does not mean that the user is exclusively responsible for their outcome. The users in the reviewed studies were, to a large degree, limited by issues such as physical and mental health, competency, social coping, and drugs, which affected their capacity to utilize activation services to co-create individual value. Furthermore, they were in disadvantaged situations within unevenly distributed cultural, material, and social capital structures and power relationships that were not of their own choosing (Houston, 2019). The jobseekers’ individual processes may not have be able to alter these situations, in which case a wider spectre of services will be needed, for instance, in relation to employers or the structural problems must be addressed (Wright and Patrick 2019).

In activation services, value destruction seems to be rather frequent. The service perspective is based on private sector services where users are free to choose which services to utilize and value destruction is seldom thematized (Engen et al. 2020). Poor service quality, such as counselling not responsive to users’ needs, may account for some of the observed value destruction. Still, the question arises as to whether structural differences between private sector and public services increase the risk of value destruction in public services. From a service perspective, the main difference is the dual function of creating both individual and public value through the same service (Alford 2016).

Misalignment between individual and public value may affect the outcome of the service. Jobseekers receiving a benefit may be obliged to participate in institutionalized counselling to prevent freeriding and/or increase employment. If the counselling is offered in ways that are valuable to users, services can contribute to both individual and public value without its obligatory status being an issue. At other times, services may be mandatory to ensure that users take part in co-creating services that create public value but that they themselves do not deem helpful. In the process of determining eligibility for long-term benefits, the jobcentre shall fulfil public values, such as fairness, prevent freeriding, the efficient use of public funds and regulative compliance. Thorough documentation is deemed necessary and often requires the jobseeker to participate in additional activation services. By attending more activation services and providing more information, users use their resources to help the jobcentre in the process of determining eligibility. The findings show that users experience this as a drainage of resources and unhelpful to their process. In this service, users contribute with resources, while the one benefitting from of the service is the jobcentre, which creates public value. Value destruction in public services may be frequent if users contribute to the production of public value without reaping the benefits in terms of individual value.

Creating public value is the reason for services being public and play an important role in forming the governance and operation of public service organizations (Alford 2016). The public service organization is the actor most responsible for reducing the cause of value destruction (Engen et al. 2020). The public value of welfare conditionality is argued to be a necessary part of the welfare state (Larsen and Caswell 2022). However, public values do not form a consistent value hierarchy. The values deemed most fundamental and the weight given to them are situation-dependent (Bozeman 2019). The priorities of different public values and how they are operationalized can be altered (Chung, Taylor-Gooby, and Leruth 2018; Zimmermann, Heuer, and Mau 2018). Enhancing public values, such as social inclusion and full employment, will increase the jobcentre’s chance of offering services creating value for users, which in turn contribute to more efficient use of public funds and a higher employment rate than the operationalization of these values as obligatory services for individual users.

Conclusion

The public service logic perspective offers a theoretical framework for the growing interest in users’ experience and use of activation services. Co-creation is understood as a necessary part of services, which explains why services consciously designed for co-creation may lead to better results and challenge policy development where co-creation is understood as an add-on. Through applying the service logic perspective, this analysis has shown that the resource users in vulnerable situations contribute to service co-creation may be scarce. The efficient use of users’ resources must be factored in when planning service delivery and offerings. The same service may be experienced as both helpful and draining, depending on the user’s situation and process. As it is the user who turns a service into individual value, the individualization of activation services becomes vital. Inside the wider activation service process, which is aimed at helping the user, there are sub-processes primarily aimed at creating public value that is not aligned with individual needs. A political realignment between individual and public value creation and a change to public service logics in the activation service organization may help more people into work and, thereby, create public value. Seen from a public service logic perspective, activation policy and the public service organization is recommended to be redesigned, starting with the maximization of individual rather than public value creation.

The article contributes to the development of public service logic through the empirical application of the theory and by refining the understanding of value destruction.

Future research is needed for a more thorough understanding of how services are co-created through interaction between the jobcentre and how the processes of individual value creation and destruction vary between users in different situations. Research is also needed to understand how public service organizations can improve service offerings by using the public service logic understanding of service co-creation as a starting point.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).