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 people's 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 professor of sociology at University of Applied Sciences Georg Simon Ohm in Nuremberg, Germany. He received his Ph.D. 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 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.

List of figures; List of tables; List of contributors; Acknowledgements; Introduction: The Transformation of Work in Welfare State Organisations (Frank Sowa, Ronald Staples & Stefan Zapfel); Chapter 1. Managerial Control of Public Sector IT Professionals via IT Systems (Clive Tresson); Chapter 2. Performance Targets as Negotiation Devices - Accounting Management in French Job Centres (Jean-Marie Pillon); Chapter 3. Labour Market Experts and Their Professional Practices Technologies of Self-Control of Job Placement Professionals (Frank Sowa and Ronald Staples); Chapter 4. Managerial Doctors: Professionalism, Managerialism and Health Reforms in Portugal (Helena Serra); Chapter 5. Accountability requirements for social work professionals: Ensuring the quality of discretionary practice(Jorunn Theresia Jessen); Chapter 6. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, Audit and Accountability in Public Services: A Study of Performance Management in UK Local Museums (Whyeda Gill-McLure); Chapter 7. Doing meaning in work under conditions of new public management? Find-ings from the medical care sector and social work (Friedericke Hardering & Mascha Will-Zocholl); Chapter 8. Marketing without moralising. Service orientation and employer relations in the Swiss disability insurance (Eva Nadai); Chapter 9. Collective mobilization among welfare professionals in Sweden - the politicisation of caring (Anna Ryan Bengtsson); Chapter 10. Street Level Bureaucracy Under Pressure: Job Insecurity, Business Logic and Challenging Users(Micol Bronzini and Diego Coletto); Chapter 11. New Managerialism as an Organizational Form of Neoliberalism (Kathleen Lynch and Bernie Grummell); Chapter 12. Framing Work Injury/Sickness in a Changing Welfare State - Naming and Blaming (Antoinette Hetzler); Chapter 13. Comply or defy? Managing the inclusion of disabled people in the Netherlands (Lieske van der Torre and Menno Fenger); Index