SOCIOTECHNICAL IMAGINARIES OF THE AUTOMATED MUNICIPALITY

Abstract: In the last few years, Swedish municipalities have striven to adopt automation to increase their internal efficiency by automating administrative processes. This E-Government initiative is taking place as part of the ongoing digitalization efforts by Swedish municipalities. To be able to automate processes, municipalities are introducing new types of software, such as Robotic Process Automation (RPA). This allows the need for human involvement to be reduced, by letting a software robot perform processes instead. In adopting automation, several different stakeholders are involved, ranging from the original suppliers of the software to the case workers performing processes that might be automated. The aim of this thesis is to explore and understand different stakeholder perspectives on automation. This is done by identifying sociotechnical imaginaries of automation amongst involved stakeholders by conducting a qualitative and interpretive analysis of the contents of the five papers that are part of this thesis. Sociotechnical imaginaries of automation are visions of the future that stakeholders imagine automation as able to bring. Three sociotechnical imaginaries of automation are identified: Automation is a new era of digitalization, Automation is a powerful tool, and Automation is just another software. These imaginaries are held and performed by six stake-holder groups: Suppliers, Developers, Policymakers, Strategists, Civil serv-ants, and IT Department. Underlying interests, closeness to real-life-practice, experience with automation and how stakeholders influence each other are discussed as possible reasons for there being different sociotechnical imaginaries. From this, it is concluded that different stakeholders have different ideas of what automation entails and thus what “the automated municipality” looks like. Contradictions between different sociotechnical imaginaries are potential obstacles of communication and co-operation as different stakeholders may plan and approach automation differently. This thesis contributes a novel way of how the adoption of automation in Swedish municipalities can be understood.