Managing the development of shared service centers: stakeholder considerations

Politicians and public managers continue to debate over whether to centralize or to decentralize departments, information systems and services. Shared service centers (SSCs) are gaining importance in public administration as a means to innovate, to reduce costs and to increase service levels. The discussions about the decision whether to use SSCs seem to be predominantly focused on efficiency and effectiveness aspects, which are rational arguments.In this paper we describe and analyze the introduction of a SSC within a municipality from a stakeholder perspective and centralization/decentralization strategy. Our analysis suggests that that implementation of SSCs should pay careful attention to the management of the implementation process. In our case study we found that most of the stakeholders considered the SSC as a complete centralization strategy in the initiating stage. During the implementation stage of the SSC they became aware that it would not be a completely centralized; a mixed decentralization/ centralization strategy was taken. An active stakeholder management strategy can help to set the right expectations, creating a sense of urgency and avoid misconceptions.