“We are going to be a little bit crisper”: Amplification and standardization of first-line managers’ roles in Swedish social services.
This article examines how senior managers in Swedish social services construct and stabilize the role of first-line managers under New Public Management. Adopting an interpretative, social-constructionist stance through an institutional-logics lens, the study employs semi-structured interviews with...
| Publicado en: | British Journal of Social Work pp. 1 - 24 |
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| Autores principales: | , , |
| Formato: | Journal Article |
| Publicado: |
Oxford University Press / USA
Jul2026
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ccm&AN=197170854&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ccm uiTerm: 197170854 longDbName: CINAHL Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: dissinfo: jinfo: jid: 00453102 BHO jtl: British Journal of Social Work issn: 00453102 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Jul2026 pid: 622 pub: Oxford University Press / USA artinfo: ui: 197170854 10.1093/bjsw/bcag115 197170854 ppf: 1 ppct: 23 formats: tig: atl: “We are going to be a little bit crisper”: Amplification and standardization of first-line managers’ roles in Swedish social services. aug: au: Churilina, Mariia Allgurin, Monika Uman, Timur sug: ab: This article examines how senior managers in Swedish social services construct and stabilize the role of first-line managers under New Public Management. Adopting an interpretative, social-constructionist stance through an institutional-logics lens, the study employs semi-structured interviews with senior managers and internal documents from a large municipal social-care organization. Reflexive thematic analysis identifies two interrelated processes through which the role is constructed. Amplification refers to framing and justifying the salience of first-line management in terms of operational reliability and client-facing quality, while standardization captures how expectations are codified in role descriptions, induction materials, and follow-up routines. Across accounts, amplification and standardization were tightly interwoven as role meanings were articulated and stabilized. The study clarifies how managerial and professional prescriptions are reconciled by specifying the mechanisms through which role meanings travel and becomes durable. Theoretically, it links leadership-as-meaning-making with institutional-logics research by showing how justificatory narratives translate into artefacts that stabilize expectations. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Journal Article ougenre: Article language: English refInfo: holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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