This study aims to elaborate on the meanings of policy entrepreneursand through the conceptualisation analysing implementation of local municipalcontact centres – a Swedish local e-governmental initiative. The paper buildson qualitative case studies including interviews, observations and documentanalysis, all analysed through the perspective of policy entrepreneurs. Localpolicies are implemented in relation to local cultures, norms and economicstructures. The networked governance structure demands entrepreneurial actorsto combine resources and interests into a change. Here we identified boththeoretically and practical, two types of such entrepreneurial actors. The issueentrepreneur focuses on the issue as such and focuses on the solution to a singleproblem. The political entrepreneur, on the other hand, focuses on core valuesand long term structural changes. The emerging networked governancestructure asks for improved knowledge on policy entrepreneurship both foranalytical and practical improvements. The findings may provide usefulinformation for municipal e-government planning specifically when planningfor implementing contact centres. The study enriches the existing literature onpolicy entrepreneurs in networks expanding the roles to include also local e-government contexts.

The emerging information society challenges relations between public agencies and citizens in many ways. Such relations taking place on the Internet or in other specific systems are called public e-services, which is a basic component of e-government.  E-services as such are innovations – even if the service as such has been there before – it is a new way producing and organizing the service. For successful implementation of innovations in public contexts the innovations has to be considered as legitimate by all involved actors.

   On a European and national level there are some policies and emerging standardization regarding public e-services. Thus policies are translated both to other levels of governments in the multi-level governance chain and secondly from technical to administrative settings. Since the Swedish public administration rely on a double steering approach, with strong constitutional regional and local autonomy, such policies cannot be forced out into regional local public agencies. Instead European and national policy statements become soft policy instruments in the local context and the implications from them rely on the local uptake in the specific setting and the competences of the professionals in the local public administration. 

   Since this is a new emerging field of innovative practice our analysis will build on an inductive methodological approach. The theoretical framework of policy and technology translation opens for inclusion of this broad process of changes. Our focus here on the translation process is to highlight both translations over levels in multi-level settings and constructions of meanings of safety. The conclusion is that the translation over levels from policies to praxis appears to be more critical than the technological translation. In short: the organizational settings of multi-level governance are greater constraints than new technology for implementation of public e-services.   

Public e-services are technical innovations which enable organizational changes. The basic pre-conditions for e-services in the public sector differ in several respects from e-commerce in the private sector. When the “customers” are citizens, the distribution of, access to and use of the services are not based on an open market distribution. Public e-services bring about innovative organizational changes for the new e-society and bridge formerly unseen digital divides. However, such changes demand an innovative behaviour among people in professional roles which are usually strictly and formally defined. 

    The conceptual model developed in this paper will discuss the differences of e-services, e-administration and e-democracy. Following this model, an illustrative case of a public e-service on the Internet will be presented and analyzed. The e-service extending the geographical reach of public organizations is the Common application system for upper secondary school in the regions of West Sweden and Östergötland in Sweden. The professionals in public administration acted as entrepreneurs and improved the intended benefits of the e-service. We therefore see a demand for developing general models to analyze as well as for promoting public e-services.

The aim of the article is to analyze the implementation of municipal contact centers (CCs) - an e-government initiative on the local level - from the perspectives of citizens and public administrators. This article is based on case studies from four Swedish municipalities. The results indicate that the CCs: contribute to increased access to municipal service, localize public services and combine different services into a one-stop practice striving to provide a "holistic" approach to the individual citizen in her local context. However, the quality of the service also depends on the organizations of the work within the back-office of the municipality. All issues from the citizens were registered which contribute to increased knowledge about the citizens needs and perceptions regarding municipality services and planning in urban issues.