Navigating tricky waters: inter-agency collaboration and competing logics in Swedish welfare provision

Navigating the context of the Swedish welfare system when unemployed, sick, or disabled is complex and multifaceted as it involves agencies governed by national, regional and municipal decision-making bodies, as well as different legal frameworks. Despite significant structural and organisational barriers, these agencies must collaborate around individual cases. The aim of this article is to gain an understanding of how welfare professionals make sense of the role of inter-agency collaboration when trying to address the support needs of long-term unemployed individuals with disabilities and/or ill-health. Focusing on sensemaking, as a form of knowledge claim, of those who work in frontline or coordinating roles on a local level draws attention to tensions between different institutional logics that are crucial for policy implementation. The analysis presented is based on data from 16 semi-structured interviews with welfare professionals from different agencies working in the same region of southern Sweden. Two key competing logics are highlighted: a work-first logic and a welfare logic. The findings show how welfare professionals seek to navigate through the competing logics by identifying alternative ways of working. By harmonising these logics, trying to fit them together in a hybrid logic, they attempt to find ways of meeting the needs of vulnerable individuals, but without challenging the structure and principles of Sweden’s overarching ‘work-first’ approach to social security.