CERGAS Seminar "Inclusion in Public Service Logic: how to Prevent Increasing Inequalities in Multichannel Access to Welfare Services. Lessons learnt from the City of Milan"

Authors: Francesco Longo, Francesca Meda, and Claudio Buongiorno Sottoriva

Background: Digitalized and multichannel public services are nowadays demanding a greater involvement of the citizen-user, making easier for those who are more educated and digitally capable to access and use the services (Trischler and Westman Trischler 2021). This process can potentially foster inequalities in the access to services, excluding vulnerable groups. This issue is particularly relevant in the case of Welfare systems in Western countries that already tend to be regressive in income and opportunities redistributions (Esping-Andersen, 2015), causing inequalities and exclusion of vulnerable populations (Mulvale and Robert, n.d.).

Research question: In the light of the Public Service Logic model and answering to the call for an empirical testing of this theoretical approach (e.g., Osborne, Radnor, and Nasi 2013), the paper aims at evaluating the value creation process and its equity implications in the case of a multichannel access to social care services. The case study was conducted on the Welfare and Health Department of the City of Milan.

Method: The methodological approach of the study consists in a customer journey analysis (CJA), based on the framework developed by Halvorsrud, Kvale, and Følstad (2016), structured in four different methods of analysis: desk research, 14 semi-structured interviews and 5 focus groups with Welfare and Health Department top and middle managers, mystery user analysis to investigate eventual gaps among planned and actual journeys performed by users acceding to social care services.

Results: The risk of exacerbating inequalities through multichannel and digitalised services begins even before their actual utilization, since it is present even in the access phase, especially when it is not user-oriented, complex and frequently misleading, as in the case of social services of the Milan Municipality. With regard to the individual level, the paper shows that PSOs’ access phase is a key and primary mechanism of value creation or destruction. The latter happens mainly through a limitation of the users’ ability and capacity to create value, at the individual level, and through the impediment to low-skilled potential users causing inequalities, at the societal level. Inequality is fostered by multichannel and digital service format whenever citizens’ needs have still to be transformed in demand through the access phase. We confirm that the design and implementation of digital and multichannel solutions in public service is rarely framed in terms of user journey effectiveness and value creation especially when several layers of successive innovation coexist generating fragmentation, silos channel and complexity within PSOs (Sønderskov and Rønning 2021). Understanding the design gaps of digital and multichannel services and related back-office structures and procedures suggests some principles for more inclusive service design and service innovation.

Speakers:

Francesca Meda is a Junior Fellow of Welfare and Social Innovation at the Government, Health and Not For Profit Division at SDA Bocconi School of Management. Francesca has participated in several research projects concerning strategic planning of healthcare and social services with various municipal and regional administrations; research projects concerning the issues of governance and institutional structures in health systems, healthcare management and strategic management at regional and national levels; and also, research projects concerning performance management and the integration of health services and social services. Her research interests mainly concern the processes of innovation in welfare systems, the forms of management in social and social health services, service management and service design in the healthcare and social sector. Francesca contributes permanently to the OASI Report, Observatory on Local Health Authorities of the Italian Healthcare System and is a member of the Observatory on Long Term Care (OLTC) at CeRGAS – SDA Bocconi.

Claudio Buongiorno Sottoriva is a Junior Fellow within the Government, Health and Not For Profit Division at SDA Bocconi School of Management. Claudio has participated in several research projects concerning the issues of local planning of social policies, innovation in social services with various municipal administrations; research projects concerning innovation and digitalization of public services, especially in the healthcare sector; healthcare management and strategic management; finally, research projects concerning performance management and the organization and integration of health services and social and health services. His research interests mainly concern digitalization of public services, service redesign, and HR management in the public sector. Claudio contributes permanently to the OASI Report, Observatory on Local Health Authorities of the Italian Healthcare System.

Link zoom: https://unibocconi-it.zoom.us/j/99431514852?pwd=dTBJbzJUSVRxWkZlZ2VFMUZWbkI4UT09

Meeting ID: 994 3151 4852

Passcode: 240204

For those willing to participate in person, please write to erica.dugnani@sdabocconi.it before Thursday, February 23rd.