Tom Karlsson

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Manager and Civil Servant

During more than 30 years, the public sector has been subjected to increased forms of economification. A general trend of imposing management techniques within public administration has shifted previous understandings of how organising and control should be undertaken. Instances of efficiency and economy have become important, overshadowing instances of effectiveness and equity. As these instances play out within public administration dilemmas emerge, which actors need to make sense of. In this dissertation, an exploration of actors’ taken-for-granted assumptions within the Swedish central government is undertaken. More specifically, actors engaged in public administration within the Swedish Social Insurance Agency (Försäkringskassan) make out the central empirical focus. This dissertation contains open-ended interviews, selfadministered surveys, as well as the use of focus groups as methods for continuous exploration. Taking a theoretical stance within institutional theory, the concept of taken-for-granted assumptions is elaborated and explored in order to challenge prior knowledge of actors’ understandings and behavioural alignment. It is argued that such taken-for-granted assumptions align with social systems, dominating certain contexts. Within public administration, these social systems are understood as Management and Civil Service. It is concluded that dilemmas inherent in public administration are made sense of in two manners. Firstly on the basis of rejecting the premises for dilemma and secondly by compartmentalising internal and external perspectives. The separation of Management from Civil Service enables actors engaged in public administration to understand beliefs and practices within contemporary public administration.