The Transformation of Work in Welfare State Organizations
How has New Public Management influenced social policy reform in different developed welfare states? New managerialism is conceptualized as a paradigm, which not only shapes the decision-making process in bureaucratic organizations but also affects the practice of individuals (citizens).
Public administrations have been expected to transform from traditional bureaucratic organizations into modern managerial service providers by adopting a business model that requires the efficient and effective use of resources. The introduction of managerial practices, controlling and accounting systems, management by objectives, computerization, service orientation, increased outsourcing, competitive structures and decentralized responsibility are typical of efforts to increase efficiency. These developments have been accompanied by the abolition of civil service systems and fewer secure jobs in public administrations.
This book provides a sociological understanding of how public administrations deal with this transformation, how peoples role as public servants is affected, and what kind of strategies emerge either to meet these new organizational requirements or to circumvent them. It shows how hybrid arrangements of public services are created between the public and the private sphere that lead to conflicts of interest between private strategies and public tasks as well as to increasingly homogeneous social welfare provision across Europe.
Frank Sowa is a Professor of sociology at University of Applied Sciences Georg Simon Ohm in Nuremberg, Germany. He received his PhD degree from the University Erlangen-Nuremberg and worked as senior researcher at the Institute for Employment Research (IAB). He is a sociologist specialized in qualitative and ethnographic methods. His past experiences have drawn his interest in organizational ethnography of public employment services, trends of globalisation of social policy, New Public Management as well as identity politics of the Greenlandic Inuit.
Ronald Staples is a post-doctoral researcher at the Institute of Sociology at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany. Before taking up his studies of Sociology and Theatre- and Mediastudies he was a professional theatre actor. Main research focus is on Organizations, Bureaucracy, Innovation and Digitization. He published recently a book on the relationship of Innovation and Organisations: Doing Innovation (2017), Springer VS and coedited a volume dealing with interaction and digitization: Leib und Netz (2018), Springer VS.
Stefan Zapfel studied sociology and political sciences at the University of Vienna. He is a researcher and assistant managing director at the Institute for Empirical Sociology at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. His work especially focuses on labour market research, social security systems, vocational rehabilitation, and inclusion of people with disabilities.
First published 2018
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ISBN: 978-1-138-08456-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-11174-2 (ebk)
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Anna Ryan Bengtsson is a PhD candidate at the Department of Social Work, Gothenburg University, Sweden. With a background in public policy and administration, her interest lies on welfare political changes and effects of New Public Management. Her current research is focused on collective mobilisation among welfare professional groups involved with care work in Sweden.
Micol Bronzini is Assistant Professor of economic sociology at the Department of Economics and Social Sciences, Universit Politecnica delle Marche, Italy. She received her PhD degree from the University of Brescia (Italy) and worked as a post-doc researcher at the Universit Politecnica delle Marche. She is an economic sociologist specialized in qualitative methods. Her main interests are: welfare policies, in particular healthcare and housing policies, the sociology of organizations.
Diego Coletto is Associate Professor of economic sociology at the Department of Sociology and Social Research, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy. He received his PhD degree from the University of Brescia, Italy, and worked as a post-doc researcher at the University of Milano and as an assistant professor at the University of Milano-Bicocca. He is an economic sociologist specialised in qualitative and ethnographic methods. His main interests are: the informal economy, street-level bureaucracy, urban ethnography and employment relations.
Menno Fenger is endowed Professor Governance of modern welfare states at Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands. He obtained his PhD at Twente University. His research focuses on processes of long-term policy change in the welfare state. He is also co-dean at the Netherlands School of Public Administration (NSOB).
Whyeda Gill-McLure is Senior Lecturer in Employment Relations at the University of Wolverhampton, UK. Her research focuses on the political economy of public service and public administration reform and its impact on employment relations (UK, Europe, US). She is on the editorial board of Capital & Class.
Bernie Grummell is a Senior Lecturer in the Departments of Education and Adult & Community Education, Maynooth University, Ireland, in the areas of education and social justice, research methods, and transformative community development. She previously worked with the School of Sociology and the Equality Studies Centre in University College Dublin. She is currently a member of the Social Science research Subcommittee in Maynooth University, as well as actively engaging in education, community and civil society groups. Her research explores the complex landscape, processes and experiences of equality and transformation across different sectors of education and society.
Friedericke Hardering is a post-doctoral researcher at the Institute of Sociology at Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany. She received her doctorate at the RWTH Aachen. Since 2014, she leads the research project Societal conceptions about what makes work meaningful and individuals experiences of meaningfulness at work that is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). Her fields of research are Sociology of Work, Economic Sociology and Sociology of Organisations. Her work especially focuses on meaningful work, identity work, the future of work, entrepreneurship and qualitative analysis.
