In Sweden there are clear signs of bureaucratisation – too many staff are directing, administering and controlling operations rather than operationally carrying out the operations. How is this happening?
A fundamental reason is that the status of advanced administrative positions in public organisations has become higher than the work within the core operations. These administrative positions are also not subject to the same mandatory financial control as the operational operations. An increasing number of politically determined rules also contribute to bureaucratisation. Finally, there is a driving force to create the “modern organization”, which leads to internal ambiguities about what the core mission actually is and how it should be carried out.
A special category of personnel of specific interest are organisational professionals – academically educated administrators with the organisation as their profession. These work organisational accountabilities both externally – towards politics and public agencies – and internally, towards their own organisation.
The strengthening of organisational accountability seems to be due to an increasingly fragmented public sector as well as the popularity of management educations.
About the lecturer
Patrik Hall is a professor in political science at the Department of Global Political Studies, Malmö University. During recent years he have been conducting research in management reforms, bureaucratization and the growth of management professions within the public sector. He has also carried out research on organisational meetings. This lecture is the outcome of a research project comparing the growth of organizational professionalism in New Zealand and Sweden.
Together with Karl Löfgren, Wellington University, in a few months he will be publishing the book “The New Public Bureaucracy: The Expansion of Organisational Professionals in the Public Sector" (e-elgar.com)”
Publications from the project
- Alamaa, Linda, Hall, Patrik& Löfgren, Karl (2025),Managers, Professionals, or Public Servants? Organizational Professionals in the Public Sector as Hybrid Professionals, Public Administration. Published Online 25 June 2025.
- Alamaa, Linda, Hall, Patrik & Löfgren, Karl (2025), Why Are Organisational Professionals Expanding in the Swedish Public Sector? The Role of Accountability, Public Policy and Administration 40(1): 50-69.
- Löfgren, Karl, Darrah-Morgan, Ben & Hall, Patrik (2022), The Growth of Organisational Professionals in Tertiary Educational Institutions in New Zealand, International Journal of Public Sector Management 35(7): 765-782.
- Löfgren, Karl, Darrah-Morgan, Ben, Hall, Patrik & Alamaa, Linda (2022), The Rise of a New Public Bureaucracy in New Zealand? (2021), Administration & Society 54(1): 57-86.
