Making sense of the digital co-production of welfare services: using digital technology to simplify or tailor the co-production of services

ABSTRACT

This paper offers a theoretical framework for digital co-production in public services and considers the benefits and limitations such services can have for citizens. Based on examples from the Norwegian Labour and Welfare administration, we argue that digital services are being developed in primarily four directions, depending on a choice of goal and strategy. The four types of services create value for citizens in different ways, but also have different limitations. The proposed framework, along with the examples given, provides important insight into the multiplicity and limitations of public sector digital services.

KEYWORDS:

• Digitalization
• co-production
• citizen empowerment
• automation
• digital tailoring

Disclosure statement

The research underlying this paper was co-financed by the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration (NAV) and the Research Council of Norway [grant number 289,920] as part of the Public Sector Ph.D. scheme.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Norges Forskningsråd [289920]; NAV [289920].

Notes on contributors

Karl Kristian Larsson

Karl Kristian Larsson is a political scientist, currently writing his PhD-thesis on the effects of public digitalization on welfare services. Before returning to academia, he spent a decade in the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration, where he worked as a senior analyst, business architect, and team leader on several major IT development projects. In his research, he explores the consequences of digitization, and how it can alleviate or contribute to social exclusion and inequality. In addition to typical quantitative methods, he also uses machine learning methods such process mining and topic modelling to make large datasets more available to analysis.

Tale Skjølsvik

Tale Skjølsvik is a professor in technology management at the Department of Computer Science and OsloMet. During the period August 2019 - 2023 she will act at Vice Dean for Research at the Faculty of Technology, Art & Design. She holds a Ph.D. in Strategic Management from BI Norwegian Business School and has experience as a management consultant from Bain & Company and Gemini Consulting. Tale works as a lecturer and public speaker in the areas of digitalization and strategy. Her research concentrates on the co-creation, strategic management and digitalization of knowledge intensive services across public and private sectors. She has published papers in a number of leading international journals such as California Management Review, Journal of Public Adminstration and Theory and Journal of Business Research.