Context matters—different entrepreneurial approaches among street‐level bureaucrats enhancing digital inclusion

Abstract

Digital technology is frequently used in the delivery of public services. Since not everyone has the skills or digital access required to use such digital services, street‐level bureaucrats must find new ways to support citizens to be able to enhance digital inclusion. In most public settings, these new practices of digital support need to be developed in parallel with the street‐level bureaucrats' ordinary assignments. This article analyses the development of street‐level bureaucrats' entrepreneurial and innovative practices in promoting digital inclusion in two spheres: conventional welfare service provision and in a project‐based welfare service provision initiative explicitly intended to enhance digital inclusion. The article builds on qualitative case studies in municipalities in Sweden and demonstrates that there are more openings for innovative, entrepreneurial solutions among street‐level bureaucrats in the more project‐based setting than in the conventional welfare services. This implies that context matters for street‐level entrepreneurial approaches.

Why we need to study street‐level policy entrepreneurs

“…The ways in which contextual factors foster or hinder policy entrepreneurial action is underresearched in the scholarship of policy entrepreneurship in general and in particular in studies focused on street‐level bureaucrats. Wihlborg and Iacobaeus (2023, this issue) examine policy entrepreneurial action among Swedish municipal workers aimed at promoting digital inclusion among citizens. They (the public servants) do so in two contexts: conventional public service provision and as part of an initiative aimed at increasing digital inclusion in the form of a limited‐time funded project.…”