Communication and governance in communal cooperation withdigitalization

The study deals with the importance of good communication and control in communal collaboration on digitalization, a new area in which more and more communes work together to meet challenges in the form of financial, human resources and digital solutions. The study aims to investigate how communication and control work in communal collaboration on digitization. To investigate this, the case was studied where the contact commune together with four other communes formed a central IT-department with the aim of collaborating on finances, human resources and digital solutions. The study is based on a qualitative study where one of the cooperating communes and the central IT-department is interviewed. A total of eight interviews have been conducted, seven with the commune administrations and one with the central IT-department. The selection was made through a convenience selection in which a total of fifteen persons were interviewed, thirteen from the commune and two from the central IT-department. The interviews were carried out with the help of semi-structured interviews, where seven interviews were conducted at the commune building and one at a distance with the central IT-department. The interviews were recorded and transcribed. The results of the interviews were analyzed and interpreted by theme analysis. The result also shows that collaboration on digitization between small communes is preferable to running the work of a small commune by its own. Collaboration as an organizational model has made it easier for communes to attract qualified skills, share knowledge, find common solutions and manage development together. There have also been areas where the communes today do not cooperate or have not come a long way in the collaborative work related to unclear governance and poor communication. The consequence of this has been that some solutions have become more expensive and that the collaboration work did not work as efficiently as the other areas. The study came to the following conclusions: - The level of communication varies depending on the area of administration - Clear control and organizational structure is needed to achieve a functioning communication in the collaboration group - Control needs to be done through an organizational structure that clarifies the roles, responsibilities and mandates of the parties - Continuous communication has a crucial role for a functioning collaboratio