Fostering immigrant job seekers’ transformative agency in public service ecosystems: Insights from the redesign of a Finnish employment service

Abstract

Drawing on the pressing need for systemic change towards equity and economic sustainability in immigrant employment, this thesis explores immigrant job seekers’ capability to contribute to structural transformation in Finnish public service ecosystems. Leveraging the theoretical frameworks of transformative agency and service ecosystem design, this study aims to comprehend and conceptualize the transformative agency of immigrant job seekers as an integral element of designing and managing public service ecosystems.

The thesis addresses the research objectives using semi-structured interviews with immigrant job seekers and immigrant employment professionals gathered during the redesign of a Finnish immigrant employment service. Through employing thematic analysis, the thesis unravels four emerging main themes, 1) agency emerging from informal events, 2) the psychological, temporal, and financial weight of the immigrant employment process, 3) information flows hindering the job seeking process, and 4) paradox views on immigrant jobseekers, as well as twelve sub-themes.

The findings bring to the fore the usefulness and necessity of immigrant job seekers’ trans-formative agency, as well as urgent and vulnerable circumstances lowering the priority of transformative agency. Building on identified facilitators and hindrances to the realization of immigrant job seekers’ transformative agency in public service ecosystems, the thesis introduces seven practical implications for public service design and management, following the process 1) building the capacity for transformative agency, and 2) supporting the emergence of transformative agency.

This research contributes to public service design and management practice, as well as theory by investigating the role of immigrant job seekers’ transformative agency in the context of Finnish public services and providing practical implications to foster transformative agency in public service ecosystems. By combining transformative agency and service ecosystem design in a specific context, the thesis also provides grounds for future research on the intersections of the two frameworks on a theoretical level.