Conflicting situations

The analysis revealed a number of thematically described tensions and conflicting situations expressed by the interviewees. In cultural-historical activity theory, and thus in this study, tensions, conflicts, and disturbances are understood as manifestations of contradictions which trigger learning and development. Conflicts identified in empirical data can be interpreted with the help of the theoretical concept of contradiction (Il’enkov, 1977).

The interviews in the City of Espoo revealed a number of descriptions of conflicting situations regarding either service encounters or relations between customers and their relatives. Such situations were initiated by the greater opportunity of customers and/or their

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relatives to exercise influence, as well as by the growing number of customers with multiple illnesses that are challenging for personnel working with insufficient resources. Similar findings regarding influential customers were reported, for instance by Newman and Vidler (2006). They identified, in the British health and social care context, tensions and conflicts occurring on a regular basis between customers and personnel regarding needs, wants, choice, and equity.

In the City of Tampere the conflicting situations concerned service encounters with parents and their better possibilities of influencing recruitment processes and the organisation of work. Considering the character of education professionals’ work, constant interaction, negotiation, and dialogue between personnel and customers is required. New ideologies and concepts such as the New Public Management and educational partnership may challenge the dialogue and roles of care givers and parents; thus a balance between care participants is needed. In the Finnish context Helinko (2012, p. 15) and Kiesiläinen, (2004, p. 92) identified tensions rising easily when customers’ wishes and demands contradicted day care professionals’ viewpoints. From the perspective of citizenship, however, also opposing conflicts were identified. Citizens’ possibilities of influencing decision-making the way it was presented in policies was not necessarily realised. Further, rigid organisational structures were described as challenging for satisfactory customer service and initiating tensions in work practices.

With the study design and method of analysis used, only a few conflicting situations were identified in the Finnish Road Administration. They concerned diminishing resources and profit-making of service providers, which is not an unusual finding in the context of contemporary public sector service provision.

In the Helsinki University Library conflicting situations were identified in regard to described service encounters with customers. Tensions between the professional identity of librarians and service orientation/customers were identified as well as customers’ increased expectations of services that the librarians could not provide. A number of researchers have reported on changes in library work and the object of work. Firstly, librarians have increasingly become service providers and learning practitioners with the objective of serving customers (Brophy, 2007, p. 518; Lossau, 2007, p. 11; Simpson, 2007, p. 90).

Secondly, moving from book-centric to customer-centric work has been identified (Scupola

& Nicolajsen, 2010, p. 304), as well as the need to move from a mass production style of working towards more co-configuration service provision with customers (Engeström et al., 2012).

The findings in all the studied organisations suggested two lines of conflicting situations:

one in regard to employees’ encounters with customers, and the other concerning organisational structures, resources, tools, and division of labour. The source of the former can be traced to the fundamental contradiction between the private sector customer approach emphasising individual interests and choices and the public sector service user or citizen with collective aims. This contradiction between business logic and the public sector ethos and principles of democracy clash in the concept of public sector customer, confusing employees in service encounters. The latter lines of conflict reveal rigid organisational procedures in which old hierarchical or vertical structures and division of labour are dominant. It appeared that all organisations were undergoing a large change toward customer-orientation, yet struggling with their aims.

It can be argued that both lines of conflicting situations refer to a rapidly implemented and abstract customer approach that has been introduced to the organisations as a top-down process. The direction or movement of such change appeared to be ‘from outside’, but

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something that could not be ignored by employees (see Pirkkalainen, 2004, p. 200). Further, introduction of the concept of customer and customer approach in the public sector has been adopted from the business sector, which has different philosophies guiding its activities.

Several researchers have raised concern over such development in the public sector. The New Public Management has introduced fragmented and idealised models and practices from the private sector to the public sector, and generalised the enterprise form to public organisations despite the differences in their guiding philosophies (Aberbach &

Christensen, 2005; du Gay 1996; Fountain, 2001). Such findings thus refer to an abstract generalised concept of customer which has been introduced to the organisations with no or minimal connection to the ‘real’ world (Il’enkov, 1977). In this study the generalised concept of customer has been enriched by elaborating its conveyance as expressed by employees and tracing the source of identified conflicts. The guiding principle has been ascending from the abstract to the concrete in conceptualising public sector customers.

The findings of the study and identified conflicting situations can be further explored with an activity system within the framework of developmental work research (Engeström (1987). Notable here is that since the objective of this study was to explore the concept of customer, and the analysis focused on the question of ‘what a public sector customers is’, conflicts and tensions were not analysed in this study as such (see, for example, Engeström

& Sannino, 2011, Pereira-Querol, 2011, and Vainio, 2012). Instead, conflicting situations were identified when analysing the concept of customer and changes in the concept with a variety of analytical tools.

In developmental work research, methodology conflicts can be located within an element or between elements in an activity system, between old and new activity, and between the central and neighbouring activity systems. Contextual and organisation-specific conflicts and tensions are indications of secondary contradictions between different elements of an activity system (Engeström, 1987, p. 90).

In this study the identified conflicts and tensions are located between subject and object, subject and tools, subject and division of labour, as well as object and tools and object and division of labour. The subject here is employees and the object customers. Tools refer to methods of evaluation, principles guiding day-to-day practices, and strategies. Division of labour concerns how work and responsibilities are organised between participants in the service provision. Conflicts between employees and customers appeared as situations in which customers had the possibility of influencing the organisation of work practices and in which employees could not respond to customers’ needs. Conflicts between employees and tools were identified as unsatisfactory tools to respond to customers’ needs and wants, as well as the impractical evaluation tools implemented. Conflicts between employees and division of labour were realised as inflexible or blurred organisational structures preventing a satisfactory customer focus. Conflicts between customers and tools were conveyed as impractical evaluation tools. Further, the blurred division of labour created conflicts between customers and division of labour.

The analysis suggested that all organisations struggled to some extent with the new service and customer approach initiated by the New Public Management, which was an indication of conflicts (or tertiary contradiction; Engeström, 1987, p. 90) between the old activity and emerging new activity. The core of the contradiction, as has been identified earlier, can be found in the inherently contradictory concept of customer, which carries within itself both business logic and the public sector ethos with its democratic ideology.

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Changes in the concept of customers and in the object of work affected the other parts of the activity systems.

The activity system as a unit of analysis is especially useful when comparing different organisations and changes encountered in organisations. In my study, major differences were not identified when analysing the organisations and their history. Thus, the findings were not discussed and presented visually by using an activity system of each organisation.