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Street‐level bureaucrats, rule‐following and tenure: How assessment tools are used at the front line of the public sector
Author(s) -
Assadi Anahita,
Lundin Martin
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
public administration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.313
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1467-9299
pISSN - 0033-3298
DOI - 10.1111/padm.12386
Subject(s) - front line , bureaucracy , face (sociological concept) , qualitative research , public sector , qualitative property , qualitative analysis , public economics , public relations , empirical evidence , business , labour economics , demographic economics , economics , sociology , political science , law , social science , philosophy , epistemology , machine learning , politics , computer science
Studies on street‐level bureaucracy examine actions of frontline workers within the public sector. In this literature, there is a lack of evidence on how job tenure affects how frontline workers respond to formal steering. We contribute to prior research by studying the nationwide introduction of an assessment support tool to be used by caseworkers to assess clients’ needs under the Swedish active labour market policy. We examine the potential effects of tenure on how caseworkers use this tool. The empirical analysis is based on quantitative and qualitative data. We show that as tenure increases, street‐level bureaucrats, especially male caseworkers, tend to act in accordance with policy signals to a lesser extent. The qualitative analysis shows that this pattern can partly be explained by the fact that increasing experience with meeting clients face to face increases caseworkers’ perceived confidence and skills.