Collective Institutional Entrepreneurship in Initiating Public-Sector Shared Service Centers

Abstract

The last decade has witnessed an increasing emergence of shared service centers (SSCs) in the public sector. While the motives for an SSC and its implementation challenges have received sufficient scholarly attention, little is known about the processes that lead to the introduction of the SSC model in the public sector. The aim of this research is to explain the initiating stage of public-sector SSCs within one organizational field (public-sector financial accounting). The research is guided by institutional entrepreneurship and designed as a multiple-case study. The findings of this research indicate that the public-sector SSCs are initiated by a small group of change agents who only collectively have the necessary skills, knowledge and position to change the organizational field. Rather than using a collaborative strategy suggested by the SSC literature, the public-sector SSCs are initiated as centralizations.