‘Damned if you do and damned if you don’t’: a framework for examining double binds in public service organizations

ABSTRACT

A key challenge for contemporary public service organizations is the requirement to incorporate different, at times conflicting, demands into their operations. Such demands and the organizational challenges they impose have been described in theories of institutional complexity, organizational paradox(es) and conflicting public values. In this paper, we complement these existing theories by developing an analytical framework based on the ‘double bind’ theory. The framework enables understandings of conflicting demands stemming from double communication and elusive mixed messages. We demonstrate the usefulness of the double bind framework by examining the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration.

KEYWORDS:

• Double binds
• organizational paradoxes
• institutional complexity
• public value conflicts
• labour and welfare services

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1. NAV Interim was a temporary organization (formally a directorate) set up in 2005 with the mandate of planning and implementing the new state agency based on the merger between the national insurance agency and the employment agency.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Maria Taivalsaari Røhnebæk

Maria Taivalsaari Røhnebæk is a postdoctoral fellow at Inland School of Business and Social Sciences at the Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences. She holds a master in Social Anthropology and PhD in Technology, Innovation and Culture from the University of Oslo. Her research focuses on innovation and digitalization in public services, with emphasis on welfare, care and social services. She has conducted extensive fieldwork in India and Norway, and she is presently working with research projects focusing on innovation, service design and co-creation in public services.

Eric Breit

Eric Breit is a research professor at the Work Research Institute at OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway. His current research focuses on the implementation of welfare-to-work policies, where he works with theories around institutional and organizational change, innovation and service design, professionalism, and sociology of knowledge. He is and has recently been involved in several research projects on this topic, such as on coordinated services to promote work integration, frontline service innovation, and on the implementation of the ‘NAV reform’ in Norway.