Managing Administrative Reform through Language Work

Implementing Lean in Swedish Public Sector Organisations

Authors

  • Kristina Tamm Hallström Stockholm School of Economics and the Stockholm Centre for Organizational Research (Score)
  • Renita Thedvall Stockholm University and the Stockholm Centre for Organizational Research (Score)

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.58235/sjpa.v19i2.15616

Keywords:

Administrative reform, Language work, Semantic clusters, Lean, Organisation, Governance

Abstract

The paper accounts for the early implementation of Lean in two Swedish public sector organisations justifying Lean as a remedy for the negative consequences of New Public Management (NPM). But is Lean radically different, or rather yet another NPM reform? We use a social constructivist approach and focus on the role of language in influencing employees’ minds and subjective perceptions, and thereby mobilising new patterns of governance. The concept of ‘language work’, comprising three organisational levels, is suggested for analysing the meaning and consequences of the Lean efforts studied. The analysis reveals that the first level of Lean language work largely mirrors typical NPM ideals, including entrepreneurship, empowerment and customer orientation. In contrast, there are more salient differences at the second level about labels used for organisational classifications having both empowering and disempowering effects on categorised people. At the third level of analysis targeting the day-to-day practice, we see a return of NPM performance measurement–oriented practices and their (often-unintended) consequences discussed in research on NPM reforms, although they surface in somewhat new ways, including communicative symbols and other linguistic expressions. The main contribution lies in the conceptualisation of language work widening the scope of the constitutive role of language to include the levels of political programmes and technologies of government as well as organisational classifications.

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Author Biographies

Kristina Tamm Hallström, Stockholm School of Economics and the Stockholm Centre for Organizational Research (Score)

Kristina Tamm Hallström is Associate Professor of Management at the Stockholm School of Economics and Director of Research at the Stockholm Centre for Organizational Research (Score). She has conducted research on legitimacy and authority within transnational standard setting and on the emergence and legitimisation of certification and accreditation as auditing practices. She has published several international articles, chapters and books. Tamm Hallström is currently conducting research on trust in the certification of eco-labels, as well as on the power and consequences of classificatory work in management accounting and control within public organisations.

Renita Thedvall, Stockholm University and the Stockholm Centre for Organizational Research (Score)

Renita Thedvall is Associate Professor of Social Anthropology and Director of Studies at the Department of Social Anthropology and a research fellow at the Stockholm Centre for Organizational Research (Score) at Stockholm University. Her research is based in the field of policy and organisational anthropology, and she has a particular interest in how policies are developed, shaped and framed by indicators or standards. Currently, she is working on how the management model Lean operates, is negotiated, discussed and implemented in public preschools.

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Published

2015-06-15

How to Cite

Tamm Hallström, K., & Thedvall, R. (2015). Managing Administrative Reform through Language Work: Implementing Lean in Swedish Public Sector Organisations. Scandinavian Journal of Public Administration, 19(2), 89–108. https://doi.org/10.58235/sjpa.v19i2.15616

Issue

Section

Original Articles

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