Scandinavian Journal of Public Administration (SJPA)

Recently published - Multiplicities of Knowledge and Learning: Exploring the Codes of Knowing in Healthcare Governance, by Helena Lagerlöf This paper examines healthcare governance in Sweden, focusing on two key trends: "Knowledge-based management" and "Trust-based management" (in Swedish, “kunskapsstyrning” and “tillitsbaserad styrning”). These trends are analysed through three dimensions of governance, rooted in theories of knowledge and learning, each represented on a continuum. The first dimension assesses the extent to which governance prioritizes tacit versus explicit knowledge. The second considers the locus of knowledge, distinguishing whether it resides within individuals or social groups, thereby influencing whether learning is oriented toward individual or collective processes. The third dimension contrasts learning that reproduces established knowledge with learning that generates innovation and new knowledge. Through detailed document analysis, the paper highlights disparities between Knowledge-based management and Trust-based management at the policy level, particularly in their discursive constructions of knowledge and learning across these three dimensions. The analysis suggests that these governance approaches sometimes conflict, requiring a choice between pursuing the ideals of Knowledge-based management or Trust-based management, while at other times, they can coexist side by side. This paper contributes to the discourse on healthcare governance by providing an analytical framework for understanding how governance approaches embody distinct “codes of knowing” and support varying modes of knowledge and learning processes. Link to fulltext: https://lnkd.in/gDRVtRUR

🚨 New Issue Alert! 🚨 📖 Volume 28, Issue 3 (2024) is now live! Check out the latest in public administration, political relations, and more! 🌍 https://lnkd.in/dsWji7KH Featured articles: 1️⃣ Knowledge, Influence, and Accountability A Study of Political‒Administrative Relations and Civil Servant Influence on Two Rural Swedish Citizen Dialogues By: Pontus Lund 2️⃣ Not So Logical, After All Public Managers’ Understandings of Media By: Magnus Fredriksson & Josef Pallas 3️⃣ Great Expectations Change and Continuity in Academic Roles and Tasks By: Aleksandar Avramović 4️⃣ Bureaucracies’ Extended Arm in Co-creation A Study of Institutional Complexity in the Context of Public Services By: Marie Rønshaugen, Mette Sønderskov & Siv Fladsrud Magnussen

We are looking forward to welcoming your contributions to the special issue on Public Sector Management! Please have a look at the link below for the aims and scope of the special issue ⤵️ Special issue editors: Tom S. Karlsson, Kirsi-Mari Kallio, Sara Brorström, Kari Nyland

Recently published - Great Expectations: Change and Continuity in Academic Roles and Tasks, by Aleksandar Avramović This study explores the changing expectations towards the work of senior academics in Norway. By utilizing role theory concepts, as well as literature on university branding and academic recruitment, it examines how academic roles and tasks have changed, as well as the “ideal academic” depicted by universities themselves at the hiring stage. Data for this paper was collected from ten public universities in Norway over a period of 20 years and includes job advertisements (N = 1,744) for professor and associate professor positions. The study found that higher education institutions (HEIs) have become more specific when describing their expectations of academics, increasingly using job advertisements as marketing and branding artifacts. The analysis also demonstrated that universities in Norway behave strategically and have organizational goals in mind during the hiring process of new academics. The results related to role change are less conclusive but indicate that there is a general trend towards focusing on research quality and metrics, as well as acquiring research funding from external sources as part of a researcher role. Teaching expectations also increased, but more in the light of meeting organizational teaching needs, than being an integral part of academic life. Finally, there are increasing expectations towards third mission activities, while the administrative role is strategically unadvertised, as it is a less attractive part of academic job. Link to fulltext: https://lnkd.in/d7CeWAQy

Recently published - Not So Logical, After All – Public Managers’ Understandings of Media, by Magnus Fredriksson and Josef Pallas In this paper, the authors investigate how public organizations, through their senior managers, perceive media-related activities and to what extent these perceptions support the existence of a ‘media logic.’ The authors interviewed 64 managers from 40 Swedish government agencies and compared their perceptions related to media with their perceptions related to the corporate logic, which has become vital in public sector contexts. The findings reveal that media and media-oriented activities are understood as contextual, contingent, and driven by individual events. In contrast to the understandings of management and strategy (i.e., corporate logic), which was much more coherent, universal, and aligned to sectoral conditions. Accordingly, media are generally more open for interpretations, local adaptations, and contextualization, making it difficult to provide clear-cut answers to what media means for public organizations. The authors’ study suggests that public managers understand media in a manner that challenges the media logic rationale. They also challenge an institutional logic argument that institutional structures surrounding public organizations are, in general, to be seen as open for strategic responses. The authors’ results point in another direction. The way managers understand different institutional structures, such as those associated with media, are, to a much greater extent, characterized by uncertainty linked to a lack of necessary knowledge about what constitutes the underlying qualities of the structures at hand; and by ambiguity about what meanings to mobilize and follow when institutional structures are to be introduced into specific organizational contexts. Fulltext is avaliable: https://lnkd.in/d87gtErj

New publication - Knowledge, Influence and Accountability: A Study of Political‒Administrative Relations and Civil Servant Influence on Two Rural Swedish Citizen Dialogues, by Pontus Lund, Mid Sweden University. This paper examines the influence of civil servants in complex governance processes, focusing on citizen dialogues in two rural Swedish municipalities. It finds that the complexity of these processes increases civil servant influence, though their respect for politically legitimate processes mitigates this impact. The study underscores the need for further research on local politician-civil servant relations in rural areas. Fulltext is available: https://lnkd.in/dia9CPAC

The latest issue (Vol 28, No 2) is out! Please follow the link to get access to the articles: https://lnkd.in/dtcQFb3x Information Resilience in Networks: An Analysis of a National Security Legislation Evidence Base Aino Rantamäki, Petri Uusikyla, Harri Jalonen How Meetings Affect the Accomplishment of Broad Responsibility in a Municipally Owned Corporation Karin Ahlström The Sustainability Walk – Combining Nudging and Pragmatism to Facilitate Collective Action and Reflection Martin Westin, Sofie Joosse, Fanny Möckel, Joakim Lindmarker, Robert Österbergh Ethical Tensions in Municipality Management Stefan Tengblad, Margareta Oudhuis Book Review: The Politics of the Public Encounter. What Happens When Citizens Meet the State, by Peter Hupe (Ed.) Patrik Renberg We wish you all a great summer!

🎉 Exciting News! 🎉 We gladly announce that it has been one year since SJPA was indexed in Scopus, and now we have received our first metrics. SJPA has proudly made its entry at the Q3 level in the SCImago Journal Rank! A heartfelt thank you to our dedicated editors, authors, reviewers, and readers for your invaluable contributions. Together, we've achieved this milestone and look forward to even greater success ahead! #AcademicPublishing #Research #Scopus #SCImago #JournalRank #Gratitude #Milestone #TeamWork

New publication - The Sustainability Walk – Combining Nudging and Pragmatism to Facilitate Collective Action and Reflection, by Martin Westin, Sofie Joosse, Fanny Möckel, Joakim Lindmarker, and Robert Österbergh Nudging is increasingly used in the design and planning of houses, neighbourhoods and districts with the intention to promote sustainable behaviour. Nudging, when used well, can serve as a tool for changing individuals’ behaviour, but it cannot, nor has it been designed to, facilitate the critical thinking and collective action needed to address urgent sustainability challenges. The purpose of this study is to investigate how pragmatism’s interest in social interactions can complement nudging’s focus on individual behaviour. To test these ideas in practice, we develop an approach for planning that combines the two modes of thinking - The Sustainability Walk - to be used in the planning of places that are to promote sustainable everyday practices. We draw lessons from developing The Sustainability Walk by using the learning history method and participant observation.  We find that pragmatism offers possibilities to amend nudging’s focus on individual behaviour by providing tools for forming a community of inquiry consisting of experts as well as citizens. However, we also learn that planning cultures of conflict avoidance, hinder the practical application of the idea of such pragmatist inquiry across different ways of knowing. Link to fulltext: https://lnkd.in/gmYPAuky

New publication - Ethical Tensions in Municipality Management, by Stefan Tengblad and Margareta Oudhuis This study investigates ethical tension situations that municipal managers face in their everyday working life by identifying the occurrence and nature of such situations, their contextual and organizational dependence and what resources are available to handle and/or solve them. The study is based on in-depth qualitative interviews with 21 municipal managers from various sectors. In total, 222 ethical tension situations were revealed. The main finding of the study is the identification of the importance of contextual and organizational dependencies, regarding not only managers’ experience of ethical tensions but also the resolution of such tensions. In the paper a contextual model of managerial tensions is presented that gives account to the different logics, value systems, norms, regulations, and ethics, that make up the complex world in which municipal managers find themselves and need to handle. Fulltext is avaliable on this link: https://lnkd.in/dtjsR7uA