Ministry of Finance of Finland: How to support municipalities in their strategic development?

Anthropological analysis of implementation of the public governance strategy in Finnish municipalities and the needs for support.

We conducted an ethnographic research and anthropological analysis for Ministry of Finance of Finland to support the implementation of the public governance strategy in Finnish municipalities. Research process helped Ministry of Finance to understand the hopes and aims that municipality leaders have regarding the strategic development of the municipality, and what kind of support the public governance strategy could offer them.

The ethnographic research dove deep into themes such as relationship between municipality and state, strategy and strategic development work in municipalities, and general interaction between municipality and state. The main method of this qualitative research process was semi-structured thematic interviews, conducted with municipality leaders from different-sized municipalities around Finland. After this, group interviews were conducted to deepen the findings and focus the discussion on the public governance strategy and its role in the municipality administration.

Anthropological analysis workshops guided the analysis from the gathered data to actionable insights. Some of the workshops were facilitated for the Ministry of Finance team to ensure their expertise became rooted in the analysis and findings.

This complete research and analysis process helped recognize needs for support, challenges worth resolving, as well as ways to tackle these challenges. It gave Ministry of Finance a clearer vision for implementation of the public governance strategy.