How to make sense of improvements in public sector

Improving services in the public sector is not easy. There are often many stakeholders involved, and a service can affect many more than just the person in contact with the service. In his doctoral thesis, Daniel Gyllenhammar examines what is required to successfully improve service systems within the public sector.

What challenges do you focus on in your research?

“The dissertation focuses on the challenge of ever-increasing demands on the public sector, where more needs are to be done with fewer resources.”

How do you address the problem?

“The research addresses this challenge by increasing the understanding of how improvements should be managed and by clarifying who benefits from public services and their improvements.”

What are the main findings?

“Improvements often need to cross organizational, hierarchical, and professional boarders to succeed. The value created by public services can benefit, but also be destroyed for, a range of stakeholders for whom the service is not primarily intended. For example, when sickness benefits are granted due to stress, it might be a child with problems at school who receives help from a parent to the extent that the parent cannot work, and thus, requires to go on sick leave. From another perspective, when someone receives sickness benefits who should not, it can, from a broader, society perspective, reduce trust towards our welfare system.”

What do you hope your research will lead to?

“I hope that my research will help those working to improve public services to gain a better understanding of the complexity in their context, thereby increasing the chance to succeed with their improvements.”


Read the thesis: Understanding Improvements: Value Creation in Public Service Systems

Public defence: 6 December 2024 at 13.15, see link above.

Daniel Gyllenhammar
  • Doctoral Student, Innovation and R&D Management, Technology Management and Economics
Henrik Eriksson
  • Visiting Researcher, Innovation and R&D Management, Technology Management and Economics