Information technology in social security offices: Changing relations between caseworkers and clients

Ad Scheepers

International Social Security Review, 1993, vol. 46, issue 1, 97-110

Abstract: In this article possible implications of introducing information technology (IT) in social security administrations for their relationship with clients are discussed on the basis of a study on its effects in Netherlands municipal social services departments on clients’bureaucratic competence and caseworkers’discretion the accessibility and susceptibility of the administrations to the influence of clients, and the congruence in the definition of the bureaucratic situation by caseworkers and clients. Results show an increase in hierarchical authority and programming of work processes, a decrease in caseworkers’discretion and information monopoly, a growing discrepancy between caseworkers’and clients’definition of the bureaucratic situation, and an emphasis on verbal communicative aspects in the concrete interaction between the two. It is concluded that IT has paradoxical effects on the relationship between administrations and clients. On one hand the distance between them seems to diminish through an emphasis on direct, physical contacts with street‐level officials. On the other, the accessibility and susceptibility of administrations to clients’influence seems to decrease because street‐level workers become more embedded in the organization. It becomes more difficult for clients to bring their individual situation to the fore.

Date: 1993
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-246X.1993.tb00362.x

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:intssr:v:46:y:1993:i:1:p:97-110

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Social Security Review from John Wiley & Sons
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().