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Louise Jør­ring

Postdoc

Subjects
Decision-making Public management Automatisation Digitalisation Qualitative methods Public sector

Primary research areas

Frontline work and public encounters

This research area explores how frontline workers—such as social workers, teachers, and police officers—interact with citizens in the delivery of public services. It focuses on themes such as professional discretion, decision-making, organizational routines, documentation practices, and the power dynamics embedded in everyday encounters. The research spans fields such as public administration and sociology to understand how policies are interpreted and enacted in practice.

Digitalization of work

This research area investigates how digital technologies—such as decision-support systems, self-service platforms, and AI—transform contemporary work practices. With a particular focus on frontline work in the public sector, it examines how digitalization reshapes professional discretion, citizen encounters, and the organizational routines that structure service delivery. Drawing on various social science disciplines, the research seeks to understand how digital infrastructures both enable and constrain professional judgment, and how employees adapt to, resist, or reshape technologies.

Qualitative methods

This research area focuses on qualitative methods for studying work, organizations, and public service delivery. It includes ethnographic fieldwork, interviews and document analysis, with an emphasis on capturing meaning-making, practices, and power dynamics in context. The research is particularly interested in how qualitative methods can be used to explore the experiences and everyday practices of frontline workers and citizens, as well as to trace organizational processes and sociotechnical change over time.

Studying frontline practices in public services

My research sheds light on how public sector organizations are changing — especially in the spaces where citizens meet the state. I study how frontline workers navigate competing demands, digital technologies, and shifting values in their everyday work, with a focus on meaning-making and professional judgment. 

Through the projects Valuing Invisible Work and RECORD, I explore how digitalization and recordkeeping shape roles, relationships, and decision-making in frontline settings. My work shows how public sector reforms and digital tools affect not just efficiency, but also the human side of service provision. 

I use qualitative methods — including interviews, observations, document analysis and time studies — to understand how change unfolds in practice. I also teach organizational theory and qualitative methods, with a focus on helping students engage critically with real-world organizational dynamics — something I truly enjoy. My research supports more thoughtful policy design and greater recognition of frontline workers’ care, knowledge, and discretion. 

Recent research projects

Recordkeeping in Frontline Work: Balancing Bureaucratic, Professional and Relational Concerns (RECORD)

The project is funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark and runs from 2024 to 2027. It examines the crucial role of written case records in public service delivery. Beyond serving legal and administrative functions, case records are key tools for knowledge sharing, coordination, and increasingly, for relational work in citizen encounters. Despite their multiple purposes and growing complexity, we know little about how and why case records are produced and used in practice — and what this means for citizens and their experience of public services. The project explores the following questions: How do frontline workers prioritize different purposes of recordkeeping in everyday practice? How is this reflected in actual case records, and what are the implications for citizens and stakeholders?

Valuing Invisible Work: efficiency ambitions and digitalization projects in practice

The project was funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark and ran from 2020 to 2025. It followed digitalization projects in a range of public organizations, focusing on the crafting and circulation of promissory documents such as digitalization strategies and business plans, as well as the new tasks that arise with digitalization. The aim was to investigate and theorize the ‘invisible work’ involved in digitalization projects, including how this work is ascribed meaning and valued.
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Outside activities

2025

No outside activities to report