Irene Bernhard and Kerstin Grundén
3. The case studies
Research methods
The research methods used in the case studies were mainly qualitative. In case A 16 and in case B 17, semistructured recorded interviews were made. The interviewed personnel categories in both cases were employees from CCs and from the back office of the municipalities as well as from the top management of the municipalities. Employed representatives from the unions were also interviewed. The main interviews in municipality A were made in 2010. The interviews in municipality B were made in 2010 and spring 2011. Each interview took about an hour and was tape‐recorded and transcribed. Content analysis was used for the analysis of the interviews.
Some characteristics of the cases
Municipality A ranks among Sweden ´ s ten largest municipalities and is organized in nine operative administrations. Most of these organizational units are led by boards or committees of political representatives. The departments and administrations carry out a wide range of operations such as child and youth care, education, social issues, culture and recreation, building and environment.
Municipality B is a medium‐sized municipality by Swedish standards, and is rapidly expanding. The municipality is organized in five operative administrations and like in case A they carry out a wide range of operations. Also similar to case A, most of these organizational units are led by boards of political representatives.
The start of the CC in case A was in December 2009. At that time the CC was not yet open for personal visits, but it was planned to open for physical visits after the move to the centre of the city in late 2010. The start of CC in case B took place in three stages from spring to December 2010. A main difference between the cases was the fact that the work at the CC was organized in response groups in case B, while there were no response groups in case A. In case B, the different response groups were: building and environment, education, and child care. In late 2010 a response group for social services was established. Each response group has contact persons at their authority( or authorities) and usually hold regular meetings together. An employee responsible for the coaching and training of the employees at the CC was recruited externally, and generated work descriptions and competence profiles that were used as a basis for the competence development programs. There were efforts to develop e‐learning education for this training, using video and a learning management system. In case A there were also efforts to develop e‐learning education.
Table 1: Some characteristics of the cases
Characteristics |
A |
B |
Start of CC |
Late 2009 |
Spring 2010 |
CC open for personal visits |
Not initially but was opened in 2011 |
Not initially but was opened in late 2010 |
Name of the CC |
Contact centre |
Customer centre |
Name of the employees at the CC |
Municipality Guides |
Service administrators |
Number of employees at the CC |
Initially: 9 municipality guides and 6 |
25( stage 3) |
|
switchboard operators |
|
Work organization of the CC |
No response groups |
Response groups |
Main competence pro‐files of the employees at the CC
Generalists( combination of formal and informal competence strategies)
Specialists( combination of formal and informal competence strategies)
Implementation strategy of the CC |
Top‐down( slow process) |
Top‐down( rapid initial |
|
|
implementation) |
4. Analysis and discussion of the implementation of the contact centre from the management perspective
The implementation strategies
In both cases the strategies were mainly top‐down, but the ambition to implement the CC very quickly in municipality B seems to have contributed to a lack of anchoring among the employees in the municipal departments, affecting their understanding of and attitudes towards the new CC. The implementation process
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