Ambulating, digital and isolated: The case of Swedish labour inspectors

Abstract The focus of this paper is the impact digitalisation on a public sector organisation: Swedish Work Environment Agency. Building internal documents and interviews with labour inspectors managers, it shows that ICT‐enabled temporal spatial flexibility increased social isolation among standardising technology negatively affected their work practice discretion. interviewed considered these problems managerial responsibility to solve. Management, in contrast, passing phenomenon judged standardisation replicability through ICT more important than inspectors’ This study illustrates how new an organisation, although necessary, raises questions about maintain communities avoid negative effects discretion street‐level agents. It contributes theory by introducing concepts Communities Practice bureaucracy into discussion digitalisation.