Designing City Service Ecosystems: The Case of the City of Espoo in the Capital Region of Finland

Abstract

This article discusses the evolution, scope, and impact of ecosystem thinking in public service management in the city of Espoo, Finland. Discussion starts with a brief introduction to the emergence of ecosystem thinking and the ideas on which the conceptualization of ecosystems in the given local context have been anchored. The second task is to describe, on the basis of the document analysis and two key informant interviews, how the city of Espoo started to build the conceptual tools, models, and strategies associated with ecosystem thinking. We will assess the added value of such an approach in four areas of public management, which deal with service innovation, competence issues, customer relationships, and citizen engagement. Lastly, this article will elaborate briefly three contextual ecosystem-related issues. First, to what extent the ecosystem thinking depends on the critical mass of producers, developers, and other stakeholders in terms of scalability, urbanization economies, and opportunity enhancement? Second, what is the role of digitalization in the development of ecosystem thinking? Third, how is the application of ecosystem thinking in public service management conditioned by its inherent institutional context, such as the democratic and bureaucratic aspects of local self-government? This article highlights the preconditions and forms of the real-life ecosystem thinking in the context of a progressive local government in the Nordic welfare society, and further assesses the promise of ecosystem thinking as a paradigmatic approach to public service management adjusted to the conditions of the global digital age.