Conference Agenda

Police forces globally grapple with immense and ever-evolving challenges, including the rise of cybercrime and organized crime. These threats come amidst constrained resources, with personnel and funding often stretched thin. Traditionally, efforts have focused on strengthening the police frontline. Research and practice, however, press on to a shift from a rigid division between frontline and back office towards an integrated, adaptive service delivery between them. This paper argues that optimizing service delivery within/by the police requires such an holistic approach – fostering strong connections between frontline operational units and back office support systems. Our study examined five initiatives in the Dutch police force which sought interplay between frontline and back office. We specifically explored under under which conditions interactions between them enhance or hinder internal and external service delivery. Our cases involve: 1) equipping new personal protection units, 2) introducing tasers into the police force, 3) enhancing the onboarding program for new personnel, 4) automating standard police tasks using robotic process automation and 5) building an internal website for knowledge sharing. The data draws on more than 80 documents, 28 interviews and six on-site observations.

By moving beyond the dominant paradigm of solely strengthening the frontline and analysing real-world examples of frontline–back office interplay, this paper demonstrates how a collaborative relationship can significantly enhance service delivery. We identify critical areas where strong collaboration is crucial and highlight potential pitfalls when these connections are weak, such as delays, confusion, and ultimately, operational inefficiencies. The study underscores the importance of effective communication, shared goals and a culture of equality. Moreover, three specific lessons can be learned. First, further improving the operational management of tomorrow's police requires clear choices from the police leadership, because there is not sufficient back office capacity to process all demands. This requires police professionals to sometimes say ‘no’ to politicians demanding action. Second, the desired change movement should ultimately lead to behavioural change among police employees with regard to learning, both from operations, back office and senior management teams. Learning behaviour can be facilitated by structures that stimulate and safeguard learning and that give people peace and space and reward them for good initiatives. Third, while the police are good at implementing and learning during temporary well-defined pilots, projects and programs, continuous improvement of business operations requires that temporary initiatives are embedded in the culture, structure and processes of the organization and thus that learning practices are institutionalized. This clashes with a police culture mainly driven by quick response to incidents and threats, requiring it to develop more stability and patience in order to best face a volatile world. Concluding, our study demonstrates that interplay between front and back office requires learning at the personal, organizational, and institutional level, and identifies strategies to enhance this interplay.

This paper investigates the dynamics of policy integration within contemporary bureaucracies, where specialization is essential for expertise and efficiency, yet the complexity of intersectoral issues demands a reevaluation of traditional approaches to policy development. Policy integration, aimed at harmonizing goals and instruments across sectors, has gained prominence, but gaps remain in understanding how these integrated policies are implemented at the street level by street-level bureaucrats (SLBs).

While existing literature has dealt with integration at an organizational-level, this study addresses the critical role of SLBs in translating policy in practice and the accountability challenges that arise facing the inherent ambiguity of cross-sectoral policy. Utilizing the accountability regime framework, we explore how vertical and informal, horizontal accountability mechanisms intersect to guide SLBs’ decision-making in complex policy environments.

Focusing on Norway’s work-related crime (WRC) policy program, the research examines how various integrative instruments affect the practices of inspectors within the Norwegian Labour Inspection Authority. Data from in-depth interviews with SLBs and relevant policy documents highlight the nuances of this integration process.

The findings link the relationship between accountability structures and decision-making at the street level, contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of integrated policy implementation. The study emphasizes that while SLBs exercise individual agency, their decisions are partly shaped by manipulatable factors such as organizational and structural arrangements. Ultimately, this research may contribute to inform integrated policy strategies relying on street level implementation and accountable regulatory practices in complex and novel governance arrangements.

Given the complex and interdependent nature of the societal challenges that governments face, many scholars and practitioners emphasize the need for “integrated policies” to reach goals (Aoki et al. 2023; OECD 2023). However, efforts to implement such policy integration often fall short. Policy siloes and their resulting categorizations can become overly rigid and entrenched, particularly within public sector organizations (Tett 2015, Andersen & Breidahl 2024). Moreover, translating integral policies into integrated service delivery often requires changes in the roles and practices of service providers and frontline professionals, potentially leading to conflict and resistance (Tummers et al. 2015; Klemsdal et al. 2022). The formulation of integrated policy goals is no guarantee that all specified instruments and actors automatically interact to achieve them (Cejudo & Michel 2017: 758).

Despite these concerns, there is still relatively little understanding of “what happens between the establishment of policy and its impact in the world of action” in studies of policy integration (O’Toole, 2000: 273) and, specifically, how integrated service delivery comes about (see also Pemer & Skjolsvik 2018). This paper focuses on the process by which integrated service delivery is achieved, uniquely combining a perspective on the necessary actions and changes at the institutional, organizational, and individual levels. Specifically, this study is informed by the idea that while the right institutional arrangements and organizational settings are important in facilitating integrated service delivery (see Andersson et al. 2011; Klindt et al. 2023), actual integration is crucially dependent on the everyday actions that individual policy advisors and frontline professionals undertake. Through the conceptual lens of boundary-spanning behavior (Nederhand et al. 2019; Van Meerkerk & Edelenbos 2022), this study assesses the specific strategies through which individual civil servants can drive integrated service delivery, even in challenging institutional and organizational contexts.

To develop this argument, this study examines 45 Dutch municipalities implementing integrated policies to combat illiteracy. Within the Netherlands, national and regional governments have advocated an "integrated approach" to illiteracy, for which municipalities are tasked with its implementation. However, municipalities have achieved varying degrees of success in implementing such an integrated policy. Due to their involvement in a training program, the authors were closely involved with civil servants tasked with implementing an integrated approach to illiteracy in their respective municipalities. By tracking data about the context, strategies and ultimate impact in these municipalities between October 2022 and September 2024, the authors compiled a rich dataset (n=45) of municipalities and their progress in achieving integrated service delivery. Based on this data (n=45), the study employs a Qualitative Comparative Analysis (Schneider and Wagemann, 2012) to analyze what conditions are necessary or sufficient for achieving integrated service delivery, and what different pathways to integrated service delivery exist. Supplemented by in-depth qualitative material, the findings demonstrate what specific (boundary-spanning) strategies fit with what kind of institutional and organizational conditions. The study's insights provide actionable recommendations for policymakers and practitioners seeking to improve the implementation of integrated policies

Collaborative governance is increasingly vital for addressing complex social challenges, yet sustaining service delivery partnerships under constrained conditions remains a persistent issue. This study examines how frontline actors-street-level managers and workers from both public and third-sector organizations-maintain collaborative service delivery despite power asymmetries, institutional strain, and weak accountability. Drawing on a qualitative study of five services for at-risk families in Croatia, the analysis is based on interviews, focus groups, and practitioner workshops with over 100 stakeholders. Reflexive thematic analysis traces how collaboration is enacted in everyday work, particularly within grant-based partnerships, relational contracting, and co-production. The study introduces the concept of street-level collaborative resilience: a patterned set of adaptive practices through which frontline professionals recalibrate routines, bridge organizational divides, and uphold service quality without strong institutional support. Collaboration is sustained not through formal mandates or centralized oversight, but through a dynamic mix of behind-the-scenes partnering, boundary-spanning action, and embedded learning. These dimensions blend formal and informal routines, carefully adapted to everyday conditions. Together, they show how frontline actors sustain and stabilize collaboration from the ground up, even amid systemic constraint.

Time is one of the most valuable resources individuals possess, shaping well-being and work experiences. Public administration practices significantly influence time, yet their impact on street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) remains underexplored. This paper investigates how public administration structures time and how these practices shape SLBs’ experiences across multiple dimensions, including their general perception of time, relationships with service users, organizational constraints, and spillover effects into their private lives.

While various disciplines, including organizational and sociological studies, have examined time-related dynamics, few studies have systematically explored the role of public administration practices in shaping time, particularly in the context of SLBs. To address this gap, we conducted an exploratory study, interviewing 30 SLBs from different policy sectors (teachers, social workers, and health workers) in Brazil. Our findings reveal that time plays a crucial role in their work, manifesting in five key ways: (1) creating pressure, (2) shaping their perception of autonomy, (3) affecting interactions with service users, (4) serving as a negotiation tool with managers and clients, and (5) blurring the boundaries between public and private life.

This study contributes to the theory of SLBs by providing a time-based analytical lens, enhancing empirical knowledge on SLBs’ experiences within public administration organizations. Additionally, it offers insights for improving decision-making processes within public organizations, fostering a more conscious and effective approach to time management in policy implementation.

The proposed paper addresses the question how contentious issues of natural hazard risk mitigation are typically being dealt with by division of labor based public administration embedded in local communities and a related multiple stakeholder environment. Stimulated by the author’s previous research on public management and mismanagement in general (cf. Seibel 2020, 2022, 2024) and on natural hazard risk management in particular (Seibel et al. 2025, Seibel 2025 – forthcoming), the paper focuses on contentious land use. Spatial planning and post-disaster ‘building back better’ initiatives to reduce the vulnerability of local communities in accordance with the United Nations Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 involve multiple stakeholders with divergent interests – e.g., owners, residents, civic activists, developers, insurers.

Moreover, planned land use in anticipation of wildfires or flooding requires coordinated action of various authorities competent in forestry, hydrology, biophysical conditions of forests and lowlands, socio-economic and socio-ecological conditions at the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI), housing, urban planning and built infrastructure. While effective coordination is a classic organizational problem in its own right, the coordination of highly specialized administrative entities is particularly challenging, yet indispensable. Despite the pitfalls of turf logic and silo thinking, one characteristic of the administrative state (Waldo 1948) is mobilizing expertise through executive leadership and the coordinated use of discretionary leeway for pragmat-ic purposes in the public interest (cf. Boin & Bynander 2015, referring to crisis management). To what extent that capacity is in use at the community level to address the massive challenge of intensified natural hazards under the condition of climate change is under-researched and it is here where the paper sets its focus.

The paper’s theoretical approach refers to the ambiguity of pragmatic problem solving (Seibel 2019). Pragmatism may occur as administrative Realpolitik in the sense that second best solu-tions are sought and realized instead of unattainable perfect solutions. Conversely, pragmatism may also occur as opportunism in which the actual purpose of risk mitigation is abandoned in favor of local stakeholder consent. It is stated in the paper that mobilizing the desirable und neutralizing the undesirable effects of pragmatic problem solving depends on whether or not productive stakeholder coalitions are being promoted through administrative action while counterproductive coalitions are being neutralized or contained. Land use policies that mitigate vulnerability of communities to flooding and wildfires are more likely to be achieved through a coalition of appointed officials, residents and insurers rather than through a coalition of elected officials, residents and developers. The empirical basis of the paper are case studies that cover disastrous floods and wildfires and the failure of public policy and administration in Argentina, Greece, USA, Australia and South Africa that form the main body of the volume “Natural Hazards and Public Management”, co-edited by the author (Seibel et al., forthcoming).