Exploring Citizens’ Channel Behavior in Benefit Application: Empirical Examples from Norwegian Welfare Services

After more than a decade of intense digitalization of public service delivery in Scandinavia, scholars and public organizations wonder why many citizens still prefer to use traditional communication channels to interact with government. In this paper, we explore citizens’ channel behavior when applying for public benefits from the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration (NAV). We break down the application process into separate actions to answer the research question: what causes citizens to use multiple channels in the benefit application process? Based on qualitative semi-structured interviews with frontline workers at NAV, we describe the process citizens undergo when they apply for benefits from NAV, the actions citizens perform, and the problems they experience, which cause them to contact NAV. Frontline workers are interviewed as these are knowledgeable experts on the application process who can give an aggregate account of the various problems citizens encounter. We contribute with empirical descriptions of how two benefit application processes play out in different ways and cause different channel behaviors. Analyses of this kind are important to supply new knowledge for the ongoing digitalization of public welfare service provision to enhance citizens’ ability to successfully co-produce the service. Further, we offer contributions to research practice by illustrating how citizens’ interaction with public organizations can be studied and analyzed holistically, using a process model for breaking the interaction down into parts.