Sarah combines perspectives from public administration and organization sciences in her research. These disciplines have much potential to enrich one another: one emphasizes zooming out to capture wider societal and steering dynamics, whereas the other highlights zooming in to the micro-practices of actors implementing policies.

Sarah studies steering processes in the healthcare sector. The sector faces complex problems, such as an ageing society and strained healthcare budgets, which tend to require collaboration between a variety of actors from different steering levels as well as organizational backgrounds. Sarah explores how social dynamics influence (or impede) how healthcare is organized and delivered.

In her dissertation, Sarah conducted an interpretive study of the dynamics of collaborative governance using a boundary work perspective. She focused on how healthcare insurers and municipal actors worked towards collaboration after a major healthcare reform. Combining the literatures on collaborative governance and boundary work allowed for tracing and analysing the connections between actions of central actors and decentral actors and shedding light on the complex dynamics of working towards collaborative governance, which often remain obscured.

 

Sarah published peer-reviewed articles on collaborative governance, boundary work, and ethnography (including publications in Policy & Politics; Administration and Society; and the Journal of Organizational Ethnography). She also wrote several blogs and reports for a public ranging from government officials, to practitioners, to students.