This paper aims to discuss lessons learned of policy entrepreneurs to analyze how local policy entrepreneurs are acting in setting up local municipal contact centers - a Swedish local e-governmental initiative. The increased interest in political entrepreneurship has both analytical and practical grounds and implications. The networked governance settings demand new roles of entrepreneurial actors, which are approached here in relation to their localization, how they act to expand action spaces for themselves as well as others in the local community.

…This case study is based on qualitative field studies. The main methods used were interviews with key actors, document studies and observations. The results indicate two main implications of Contact Centers; they localize public services and combine different services into a one-stop operation, striving to provide a ‘holistic’ approach to the individual citizen in her local context. However, contact center implementation also includes an organizational change within the municipalities, facilitating a reorganization of back-office procedures in order to optimize the efficiency and quality aspects. The policy entrepreneurs forming the contact centers promoted them from different perspectives and with varying ambitions. In one of the studied cases the core values of inclusion and participation grounded the design of the contact center, while in the other case the issue as such was the key – a new organizational approach. This is here explained as two illustrations of different approaches of policy networks and entrepreneurial behavior.