The objective of the dissertation is to identify the main features of Western personal social services in institutional and organizational structure of post-communist Lithuania. The first part of the dissertation is devoted to get analytical frame of personal social services. Part two presents the research strategy used to analyze the institutional and organizations structure of personal social services in post-communist Lithuania: object of research, data sources and data gathering techniques, data analysis process and techniques. The analysis of institutional and organizational structure of personal social services in post-communist Lithuania is conducted in the third part of dissertation. Findings: the institutional and organizational structure of personal social services in post-communist Lithuania corresponds to Western structures, but the development was influenced by the legacy of communist period. / Disertacijoje tyrinėjama asmeninių socialinių paslaugų institucinė ir organizacinė struktūra Lietuvoje. Pagrindinis darbo tikslas – ištirti Vakarų šalių asmeninių socialinių paslaugų institucinės ir organizacinės struktūros pagrindinių bruožų raišką Lietuvoje. Disertacijos struktūrą lėmė išsikeltas tyrimo tikslas. Pirmoje darbo dalyje siekiama pateikti asmeninių socialinių paslaugų sampratą, išskiriant ją sudarančius elementus, kurių transformacijos analizuojamos kitose darbo dalyse. Antroje darbo dalyje pristatomi tyrimo objektai, duomenų šaltiniai ir duomenų rinkimo metodai, duomenų analizės metodai ir procesas. Trečiojoje darbo dalyje analizuojama Lietuvos asmeninių socialinių paslaugų institucinė ir organizacinė struktūra, siekiant identifikuoti Vakarų šalių asmeninių socialinių paslaugų institucinės ir organizacinės struktūros bruožus, bei atskleisti atitinkamo bruožo raišką sąlygojančius mechanizmus. Disertacijoje konstatuojama, kad Lietuvos asmeninių socialinių paslaugų institucinėje ir organizacinėje struktūroje galima identifikuoti tam tikrus Vakarų šalių bruožus, tačiau jų raiška yra veikiama iki nepriklausomybės atkūrimo buvusios institucinės ir organizacinės struktūros.

Disertacijoje tyrinėjama asmeninių socialinių paslaugų institucinė ir organizacinė struktūra Lietuvoje. Pagrindinis darbo tikslas – ištirti Vakarų šalių asmeninių socialinių paslaugų institucinės ir organizacinės struktūros pagrindinių bruožų raišką Lietuvoje. Disertacijos struktūrą lėmė išsikeltas tyrimo tikslas. Pirmoje darbo dalyje siekiama pateikti asmeninių socialinių paslaugų sampratą, išskiriant ją sudarančius elementus, kurių transformacijos analizuojamos kitose darbo dalyse. Antroje darbo dalyje pristatomi tyrimo objektai, duomenų šaltiniai ir duomenų rinkimo metodai, duomenų analizės metodai ir procesas. Trečiojoje darbo dalyje analizuojama Lietuvos asmeninių socialinių paslaugų institucinė ir organizacinė struktūra, siekiant identifikuoti Vakarų šalių asmeninių socialinių paslaugų institucinės ir organizacinės struktūros bruožus, bei atskleisti atitinkamo bruožo raišką sąlygojančius mechanizmus. Disertacijoje konstatuojama, kad Lietuvos asmeninių socialinių paslaugų institucinėje ir organizacinėje struktūroje galima identifikuoti tam tikrus Vakarų šalių bruožus, tačiau jų raiška yra veikiama iki nepriklausomybės atkūrimo buvusios institucinės ir organizacinės struktūros. / He objective of the dissertation is to identify the main features of Western personal social services in institutional and organizational structure of post-communist Lithuania. The first part of the dissertation is devoted to get analytical frame of personal social services. Part two presents the research strategy used to analyze the institutional and organizations structure of personal social services in post-communist Lithuania: object of research, data sources and data gathering techniques, data analysis process and techniques. The analysis of institutional and organizational structure of personal social services in post-communist Lithuania is conducted in the third part of dissertation. Findings: the institutional and organizational structure of personal social services in post-communist Lithuania corresponds to Western structures, but the development was influenced by the legacy of communist period.

Socialtjänsten i Sverige har blivit alltmer specialiserad, vilket har lett till att klienter med komplexa behov är aktuella på olika organisatoriska enheter och har kontakt med flera socialsekreterare samtidigt. Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka förekomsten av parallella kontakter inom socialtjänsten och hur det hade förändrats över tid. Undersökningen antog en kvantitativ ansats och utgick från statistiskt material hämtat från en IFO-organisation i en större svensk stad. Materialet visade att andelen klienter med parallella kontakter hade ökat med en tredjedel på de fyra undersökta enheterna mellan 2014 och 2018 och att vissa klientgrupper uppvisade parallella kontakter i större utsträckning än andra grupper. Diskussionen behandlade klienters komplexa behov, fragmentisering och socialarbetares överlappande arbete för klienter med parallella kontakter. / Swedish social services have become increasingly specialized, with the result that clients with complex needs are in contact with several organizational units and social workers simultaneously. The purpose of the present study was to examine the degree to which such parallel contacts occur within social services and how their incidence has changed over time. We have employed a quantitative method and drawn on statistical material collected from a personal social services organization in a large Swedish town. The material revealed that the extent to which parallel contacts occurred had increased by a third between 2014 and 2018 among clients at the four units that were chosen for the study, while certain client groups had a greater incidence of parallel contacts than other groups. In a concluding section of the study we discussed clients’ complex needs, fragmentation and the overlapping responsibilities of social workers with regard to clients with parallel contacts.

Since the end of the 1980s, the introduction of market mechanisms in the public sector has been a dominant feature in Sweden. The same is true for the social services in several municipalities, where business style behaviour and organisation, and competition have become salient features of market-oriented social services. The aim of the study is to describe and analyse: the structural conditions for market oriented personal social services; how social workers pursue client centred work in market oriented personal social services; the consequences of this market orientation on the personal social services. The empirical study is a case study of the personal social services in the municipality of Linköping. The purchaser-provider model in Linköping is one of the most advanced and discussed in Sweden. The research comprises a quantitative pilot study and a qualitative main study. The main study is based on twenty semi-structured interviews with experienced social workers and their immediate superiors. The analysis of the interviews reveals that the personal social services are only achieving to a lesser extent the ends that a quasi-market, theoretically, should achieve. The conditions that have to be satisfied to achieve the ends of the quasi-market are only partly met. Bureaucratic control is one important reason why the personal social services are imperfect as a quasi- market. The re-organisation has resulted in a number of, to some extent, positive consequences. The re-organisation has, however, also resulted in some negative consequences. In the thesis these are categorised in terms of fragmentation, antagonism and obscurity. A linguistic change, in market oriented personal social services, appears to have influenced social workers to think and act differently in relation to their work. The most important conclusion drawn from the study is that the market oriented personal social services partly function as a responsive quasi-market for strong, rational and well- informed clients. However, in relation to the most vulnerable, it is failing in many respects. / digitalisering@umu

The general objective of this dissertation is to describe and analyse how specialised respective integrated forms of organisation in the Swedish Personal Social Services (PSS) condition social workers’ interventions and client effects (outcomes). The three specific questions are: 1) How are structural conditions for social work with clients created in specialised versus integrated (generic) forms of organising PSS? 2) How do social workers carry out their work with clients in specialised versus integrated (generic) PSS-organisations? 3) How do different organisational models of PSS  influence the results for clients? The research was conducted in three Swedish municipalities with different organisational models within the personal social services: 1) specialised organisation, 2) integrated organisation, and 3) a “combined” organisation with a mix between integration and specialisation. The research had a complex design. It was carried on as comparative case study. Data was collected in several different ways: 1) by means of survey among social workers, 2) by interviewing politicians, mangers and social workers, 3) focus groups consisting of social workers, 4) by collecting official documents, guidelines etc. 5) by mapping of the organisation of social services in the municipalities by means of analyse of their homepages and additional interviews by telephone.  The data were analysed using both qualitative and quantitative methods. The main results in this dissertation are: 1) In the majority of Swedish municipalities the PSS are nowadays specialized. 2) The formal organizational structure of PSS is always challenged by the employees’ spontaneous organising process that goes in an opposite direction. 3) Only the integrated (generic) organisation emphasizes social workers professional competence and knowledge. 4) Social workers, as a professional group, have the collective power to (to a certain degree) influence political decisions on what kind of PSS organisation is chosen in their municipality. 5) Regardless of organisation model, social workers’ method use is more unspecific than specific. 6) Social workers, in general, place significantly more weight on working with clients’ relationships and aspects of trust than on (specific or unspecific) working methods. 7) A holistic (generic) view of a client can only exist in a direct relationship between social worker and the individual and a unique client. It seems difficult to build in holism into primarily specialised organisations. 8) One may question whether a specialised organisation leads to specialisation of its employees in a way that they become experts on specific problems. The three organisational models are not equally good. Neither the specialised organisation nor the combined organisation is able to create economic or organisational conditions for working with clients that are clearly experienced as good. This also holds true for assessment of need, possibilities to make relevant interventions, such as building relationships. Those two organisations show several deficits regarding work with clients. / Specialisering eller integration av socialtjänstens individ- och familjeomsorg. Effekter på insatser och resultat.

IL LAVORO MANAGERIALE NEI SERVIZI ALLA PERSONA “Cosa fanno i manager che lavorano nei Servizi alla Persona?” Lo scopo del lavoro di ricerca è quello di rispondere a questa domanda attraverso la descrizione delle attività quotidiane di sei manager italiani che lavorano in Servizi alla Persona. La ricerca ha combinato due approcci teorici, uno relativo alle attività manageriali (Mintzberg, 1980, 2010) e l’altro che concerne il lavoro sociale, “il lavoro sociale relazionale” (Folgheraiter, 1998, 2011). La scelta metodologica di integrare differenti approcci teorici si fonda sull’idea di arricchire la discussione riguardo a “cosa fanno i manager nei Servizi alla Persona?”, oggetto che coinvolge diverse discipline. I due strumenti utilizzati nella ricerca qualitativa sono: shadowing (in cui il ricercatore osserva i soggetti prendendo nota di tutto ciò che essi fanno o dicono) e interviste semi-strutturate (in cui l’intervistatore ha una traccia che indica gli argomenti da esplorare). L’integrazione teorica e il campo specifico di indagine hanno permesso di identificare ruoli manageriali peculiari dei Servizi alla Persona e di far emergere il punto di vista di manager assistenti sociali in merito al loro lavoro. / MANAGERIAL WORK IN PERSONAL SOCIAL SERVICES "What do managers that work in personal social services do?" The purpose of research project is to answer this question by describing the daily activities of six Italian managers that work in personal social services. The research has combined two theoretical approaches, one related to describing the daily practices of management (Mintzberg, 1980, 2010) and the other to social work, “the relational social work” (Folgheraiter, 1998, 2011). The methodological choice to integrate different theoretical approaches was based on the idea of enriching the discussion of “what do managers in personal social services do?” which spans different disciplines. The two techniques used in this qualitative research are: “shadowing” (in which the researcher observes the subjects, taking notes of everything they say or do) and semi-structured interviews (in which the interviewer has a framework of themes to be explored). The integration of different theoretical approaches and the specific field of investigation allowed the identification of some of the specific managerial roles in personal social services and the points of view of social work managers about their job.