To what extent can we generalise about changes in the composition of public sector workforces and the professionalisation of new occupational groups? Hitherto, empirical studies of professional groups in public sector organisations have almost exclusively been based on studies of individual jurisdictions with some references to the international public sector reform literature. Based on empirical studies comparing the public sectors in New Zealand and Sweden over time, we have been able to demonstrate how organisational professionals – university graduates with the ‘organisation’ as their main attention area – increase more than other occupational cohorts in both jurisdictions. Based on this result, we will in this think-piece present some more conceptual and theoretical thoughts around a future agenda for comparative studies of public sector workforces. What are the relevant institutional factors for cross-jurisdictional comparisons of organisational professionals in public sector organisations? The claim that managerial ambitions in a globally streamlined “NPM movement” shape organisational professionalism bears some merit but is also far too simplistic. Institutional and administrative traditions – with special emphasis on accountability relationships between politics and public administration – are also pivotal. For instance, stronger politically derived demands upon formal accountability increase the role of organisational professionals (although the processes unfold differently in the two studied jurisdictions). Finally, contextual path-dependencies may perpetuate already existing structures, while also enable radical changes in the composition of the public sector workforce. While this paper mainly is a theoretical and conceptual piece of work, it will draw some of the arguments from our previous empirical studies from Sweden and New Zealand (Löfgren, 2022a; Löfgren et al. 2022b and Hall et al. (under review).

Public organizations are facing challenges such as demographic change, rising expectations, limited resources, inherited old service models, personalization coupled to equity issues and meeting the needs of minority or smaller groups unmet in one-size-fits-all service models (Kinder & Stenvall 2022). In public sector, and especially in the health and social care services, the solutions to complex and unstructured challenges provoked by our increasingly complex societies are often being sought through service development initiatives and service systems’ reforms (Osborne et al., 2015; Trischler & Charles, 2019).

New technologies are an important part of the answer to these challenges. Technologies might, for instance, shape public services making them more sustainable and inclusive. Overall, technological transformation is ‘concerned with the changes digital technologies can, for instance, bring about in organizations’ model, products or organizational structures’ (Nadkarni & Prugl 2021; Hess et al. 2016). New technologies may thus cause disruptions in practices, which might also make previous products, services and/or processes ineffective (Millar et al. 2018).

Earlier studies have indicated that there are a lot of limitations to technology in frontline services (Kyeser et al. 2019). It is argued that successful technological implementation requires that either the technology should be designed to fit the organization's current structure and culture or that the organizational structure and culture should be reshaped to fit the demands of the new technology (Cabera et al. 2001). Instead of focusing on structural changes, processes or procedures of the service development initiatives, it becomes important to explore what happens when public service professionals are required to cope with change.

In our paper we foreground a social care services’ development initiative guided by the implementation of a new technology. We argue that public service development, in practice, is done by the public service professionals who in their everyday work constantly make decisions of which available institutional arrangements they are to follow (see, Lipsky, 1980; Rossi & Tuurnas, 2021). Empirically, we focus on the implementation process of a patient information system Apotti . The data consists of ten in-depth interviews with professionals working at the city of Vantaa’s social care services.

In the analysis, we focus on the arguments that these professionals use in justifying the use and decisions made about how they implemented and used the new patient information system in their the practices of their everyday work: what were their expectations, beliefs and attitudes towards the new information system guiding the implementation process; how their professional identities and the nature of social work affected the implementation process and the practices they decided to follow; and how they linked the impact of organizational structures to their decisions and usage of the new technology.

We contribute by increasing the understanding of the professionals’ role as policymakers in technology-driven innovative welfare services.

Today’s society is confronted with a multitude of crises. In response, social resilience has become a prominent topic in Dutch and European policy-making processes. But what does resilience mean when the opportunities to be resilient are not equally distributed, and (accumulation of) crises lead to increased inequality? To begin with, crises such as floods and pandemics do not happen to everyone equally. As a result, the meaning, and effects of applying ‘resilience’, can play out differently both in welfare policy and -practice.

These tensions between resilience and inequality are captured in seven mechanisms that we present in this paper. This study engages in a critical approach to resilience and uncovers the mechanisms between resilience and inequality in a pursuit for a just resilience.

We argue that, to promote resilience in a socially just way, ‘bouncing forward’ or reducing inequalities through policy crisis responses cannot be realized through (innovative) welfare delivery services alone. It requires comprehensive welfare state reforms that reinstate fundamental rights for every human being, such as equal access to education, healthcare, housing, and basic income. Governing resilience must be grounded in principles of equity by acknowledging existing inequalities, and fostering research and policy tailored to the specific needs of (marginalized) groups in their unique contexts.

The seven mechanisms are based on an extensive mixed-method approach, involving a literature study on the relationship between social resilience and inequality, as well as two focus groups and ten interviews with scholars, and experts from policy and welfare sectors.

This paper illustrates the practical implications of the mechanisms by examining the case of energy poverty in the Netherlands in 2022. This case study exemplifies the significance of just resilience in an era of widening global wealth disparities and the resulting unequal impact of crises. It emphasizes the urgency of addressing social justice while cultivating resilience in society.

By understanding the mechanisms between resilience and inequality, policymakers and researchers can contribute to more resilient welfare systems that prioritize inclusiveness and equitable responses to crises. They act as a guide for research, design, implementation and evaluation of ‘resilient’ welfare policies and future initiatives.

Trust is said to be “the chicken soup of social life”, reputedly bringing us all sorts of good things (Uslaner, 2000). Trust is integral for the functioning of a society, contributing to social and economic progress, community involvement, cooperation, solidarity, and compliance with regulations (e.g. Putnam, 1993; Fukuyama, 1995). At present, levels of trust – in institutions, politics, and one another – are in decline worldwide, and there is an increasing interest in the role that the welfare state may play in promoting trust. On the one hand, the ‘crowding-out’ argument hypothesises that the welfare state discourages civic engagement and undermines social cohesion (Coleman, 1982; De Swaan, 1988; Fukuyama, 2000). In contrast, the ‘crowding in’ effect argues that welfare states promote trust through income redistribution and reduction of social risks (Hall, 1999; Knack & Zak, 2003; Rothstein & Stolle, 2003). Whereas many authors have suggested that living in different welfare regimes may have quite different consequences for an individual, only a handful of studies have attempted to study the potential effects of the various policy regimes on trust, and the evidence is inconclusive and build on data that are 20-30 years old. Another weakness, noted by (Tamilina, 2018), is the lack of research directly analysing the effects of welfare state activities. We accommodated this by also investigating the role of some key indicators on welfare state. Building on data from the European Social Survey, we used panel data analysis to uncover the role of both welfare state regime and welfare state design for inter-personal and institutional trust, while controlling for relevant factors both at the individual and country level. The preliminary results suggest that the Nordic welfare states are associated with higher levels of trust, and that higher tax levels also play a positive role.