Work Package 4: Managers’ implementation design for technologies in care practices (CARING FUTURES)

The project aims to offer new insight in municipal managers’ and suppliers’ considerations regarding implementation of welfare technologies in municipal healthcare services. Authorities and suppliers promote such technologies as a solution to a situation characterised by scarce resources. This is a situation municipal personnel are aware of, and consequently, they implement welfare technologies. However, they still might see such technologies as a threat to service quality. The project explores tensions between care ethics and use of technologies that are claimed to improve quality and efficiency. How do such tensions appear, and how do municipalities and suppliers deal with them? 

The data consist of interviews with suppliers and municipal managers at different levels. The lower level managers are chosen as we expect them to having to balance municipal demands of efficiency on the one hand and users’ need for service quality on the other. Relevant policy and other documents are also collected. The analysis will be inductive-deductive.