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Co-creating Value in the Scandinavian Welfare System: Matching Elderly Care in a Major Swedish Municipality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2025

Henrik Loodin Open the ORCID record for Henrik Loodin [Opens in a new window] ,
Lars Nordgren  and
Catharina Wigner Leifland
Henrik Loodin*
Affiliation:
Department of Service Studies, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
Lars Nordgren
Affiliation:
School of Education, Humanities and Society, Halmstad University, Halmstad, Sweden
Catharina Wigner Leifland
Affiliation:
St Tora Consulting, Lund, Sweden
*
Corresponding author: Henrik Loodin; Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

The concept of a socially sustainable society is linked to the notion of equal access to high-quality welfare services and an equitable distribution of common resources. The rationale behind the introduction of private actors to provide welfare services is that greater choice will result in higher quality of service for individuals, achieved through a co-creation process. The purpose of this study is to examine the processes through which value is co-created when elderly are admitted to retirement homes. The study answers the following questions: (1) how do individual expectations differ between the applicants? and (2) how do the employees take the applicants’ expectations into account when allocating the resources available? This study, conducted between november and december 2014, combines surveys with elderly who apply for a retirement home and interviews with employees at the municipality. Our study show that co-creation is related to intangible aspects, pragmatic alignment in resource integration, and conflicts between interests.

Keywords

Social sustainabilityhealth care matchingwelfare serviceselderly careco-creation
Type
Article
Information
Social Policy and Society , First View , pp. 1 - 20
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press

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