The paper connects the literature on equity in public management with smart cities and explores the effects on the equity of digital projects in multicultural smart cities. We studied four ongoing ...

This article examines the underlying mechanism by which both internal and external drivers affect public managers’ innovative behaviour within digital service organisations.Twenty-three semi-struct...

ABSTRACT We present an inductive, citizen-driven appraoch to identify stereotypes of public sector worekrs across the United States, Canada, the Netherlands and South Korea (Study 1: n=918; Study 2: n=3,042). Contrary to common negative portrayals, we idetify two positive stereotypes across countries — having job security and serving society; and one neutral/negative stereotype — going home on time

ABSTRACT Drawing on signalling theory, this study explores the daily cues provided by leaders to promote ethical voice, specifically examining the impact of ethical vision communication as the primary cue. We also investigate the moderating effect of LMX ambivalence as a secondary cue, and how this effect can be diminished by daily interpersonal justice. Our seven-day daily diary study, which involved

ABSTRACT Scholarly attention in innovation in the public sector is growing rapidly, provoking analytical complexity. We developed a systematic literature review about Public Sector Innovation (PSI), analysing 169 articles published between 2001 and 2021, using PRISMA. We present a comprehensive approach to PSI testing and empirically develop an analytical framework based on the most common combinations

ABSTRACT This article explores scaling deep through transformative learning in Public Sector Innovation Labs (PSI labs) as a pathway to increase the impacts of their work. Using literature review and participatory action research with two PSI labs in Vancouver and Auckland, we provide descriptions of how they enact transformative learning and scaling deep. A shared ambition for transformative innovation

ABSTRACT This study examines annual changes in U.S. federal employee perceptions of their organization’s performance appraisal process to assess whether improvements in the fairness of the process and the quality of feedback received increase the motivational effects of these employee performance management systems. Analysing ten years of the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey data, we find that employee

ABSTRACT As local governments increasingly use data to improve sustainability outcomes, this research explores how institutional conditions may assist such efforts. To that end, it tests several hypotheses based on two prominent organizational theories: rational choice and sociological institutionalism. Using the original data that surveys how U.S. cities collect and use performance data when managing

ABSTRACT Our goal was to analyse the effects of performance funding in the specific conditions of Czech and Slovak institutions of higher education, based on the assumption that the key motive for introducing performance funding is to increase accountability. The article confirms that NPM tools still co-exist with other reform trajectories and framings and provides a detailed explanation of how performance

ABSTRACT Governments are greatly concerned about cybersecurity, yet most public managers perceive their organization as technologically vulnerable and have little knowledge of past cyber-incidents. Both vulnerability perceptions and knowledge of past exposure are known to affect innovativeness but evidence is mixed and context-dependent. Using a three-year nationally representative pooled dataset of

ABSTRACT Public service motivation (PSM) is a resource that energizes individuals to do good for others and society. However, it is unclear when and how PSM is associated with performance: Does PSM work as a booster to amplify the positive role of job resources for work engagement and performance? Or does PSM help sustain high performance by buffering against experienced cynicism resulting from job

ABSTRACT Some scholars argue that equity cannot be a separate pillar of public management; it must intersect with its core theories and elements. By using mixed-methods in studying racial equity in homelessness, we forge connections between public management – leadership, planning, collaboration, budgeting, implementation, and evaluation – and social equity – representation, procedural fairness, access

ABSTRACT Public participation in government remains far from ubiquitous despite calls for a modern administrative state defined by co-production. This research offers a new perspective on public participation by considering the relationship between organizational identity orientation (OIO) managerial views of the process and the frequency of engagement between local governments, citizens, and non-profits

ABSTRACT This article examines the relationship between citizen expectations, citizen satisfaction, agency reputation and agency behaviour in public management. We expand upon the assumptions of the expectancy disconfirmation model (EDM) and present a game-theoretic model that explores the interplay between agency reputation, citizen expectations, citizen satisfaction and agency behaviour by integrating

ABSTRACT While non-profit hospitals strive to promote health equity through the provision of community benefits, there is limited research on the factors that influence the allocation of this spending. Using IRS Form 990, American Community Survey, and Medicare data sets with hierarchical linear modelling, this study incorporates the demand and supply perspectives into research on non-profit hospitals’

ABSTRACT Drawing on extreme work and transactional stress literature streams; this paper investigates the mechanisms used by public sector nurses to cope with their extreme work conditions in the fragile state context of Egypt. Our findings, which are based on 24 qualitative interviews, show that, to cope with their extreme job duties, nurses engage in the following four strategies – reassertion of

ABSTRACT This article poses the question, how can a design-led approach help managers and professionals in public-service systems recognize and reduce barriers to social equity? It introduces a service integration design (SID) model, a co-creative process for public-service managers and professionals in complex service system settings. The study shows how a structured and designed process can benefit

ABSTRACT Does pay-for-performance – a hotly debated compensation scheme for incentivizing public service efficiency – induce inadvertent heterogeneity in job attraction that is counteracting the prospects of bureaucratic diversity and representation? Using data from a pre-registered conjoint experiment among US residents (n = 1,501), we examine whether pay-for-performance (compared to fixed pay) affects

ABSTRACT Outcome-based contracting (OBC) seeks to improve public services by paying for service outcomes rather than service activities. This article explores the link between how outcomes are contractually specified and how much is paid for their achievement. Using fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis, we test a framework for assessing the strength of outcome specifications in 34 UK-based social

ABSTRACT Local public administrations are typically the first responders during disruptive crisis events. Building on literature on fast-response organizations, this study theorizes on their ability to transition effectively from routine bureaucracy to crisis mode. Empirically, we study early responses to COVID-19 in Germany with agency-level survey data. The findings suggest that an effective switch

ABSTRACT Albeit the importance of workplace spirituality, public management research paid little attention to investigating its outcomes. Therefore, our study aims to examine the relationships between workplace spirituality and public employee service-oriented in-role performance and service-oriented organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) through the mediation of work engagement. Data were collected

ABSTRACT Effective organizational performance measurement supports the long-term viability of third sector organizations. According to extant literature, it has been driven by accountability, legitimacy and improvement. While some aspects of these are outward-facing, their focus seems to be intra-organizational. Our study shows evidence of a different approach to third sector organizational performance:

ABSTRACT Innovative forms of collaborative governance have evolved to address a diversity of wicked problems. Collaboration processes involved in these forms of governance appear to have a paradoxical nature, where the necessary inclusiveness and diversity of actors may also be important obstacles for a successful collaboration. We apply theories of collaborative and network governance, and fuzzy-set

ABSTRACT This study addresses the scantly examined work done by individuals to develop reciprocal relationships and maintain momentum throughout public-private innovation partnerships. We combine insights from the public-private innovation partnership literature with the notion of relational work from economic-sociology to analyse cases of public procurement for innovation (PPI) and pre-commercial

ABSTRACT What makes public service jobs attractive to citizens? We address this question by studying several attributes simultaneously, categorizing the signals sent by each attribute as instrumental or symbolic, and clarifying the role of PSM. Using a conjoint experiment on a sample of citizens in Catalonia (Spain), the results show that citizens prefer stable, well-paid and public sector jobs in

ABSTRACT Despite extensive studies on change leadership, there is a lack of research on its multilevel nature especially in the hierarchical context of local governance. We situate our research in the context of change during COVID-19 to examine whether mayors’ change leadership has a trickle-down effect on employees’ change-supportive behaviour via the change leadership role of chief administrative

ABSTRACT Digital transformation has become a buzzword that is permeating multiple fields, including public administration and management. However, it is unclear what is transformational and how incremental and transformational change processes are linked. Using the PRISMA method, we conduct a systematic literature review to structure this growing body of evidence. We identified 164 studies on digitally-induced

ABSTRACT The study of policing offers rich opportunities to test and refine the boundaries of key concepts and theories of public management, yet it is neglected in public management discourse. In this essay, we strike up a conversation between public management and policing studies, arguing that, through this dialectical inquiry, concepts and theories in both fields can be reviewed and improved. We

ABSTRACT Collaborative public innovation literature suggests that collaboration with multiple partners may provide the necessary learning to respond to the complex problems facing city governments. However, scarce research has been developed to (1) scrutinize the nature of the new knowledge needed by city governments, and (2) understand how the different types of partners contribute to government’s

ABSTRACT Public management research contains little analysis on procurement cancellations – i.e. when contracts fail to make it through procurement, resulting in termination during the pre-award tender phase. Combining theoretical perspectives on administrative capacity and transaction costs, we investigate both the propensity and reasons for public procurement cancellations. Drawing on a unique dataset

ABSTRACT Artificial Intelligence (AI) has advanced as one of the most prominent technological innovations to push the conversation about the digital transformation of the public sector forward. This special issue focuses on actual implementation approaches or challenges that public managers are facing while they fulfil new policy that asks for the implementation of AI in public administrations. In

ABSTRACT Community policing (CP) is a proactive approach to policing that relies on the involvement of community members. In this paper, we address relevant managerial issues pertaining to CP by resorting to the performance measurement construct, exploring the logics at play in CP and how they affect the design of CP performance measures. A longitudinal case study was conducted in a local police department

ABSTRACT Public employees are stereotyped as lazy, inefficient, and slow. When made aware of such stereotypes, they may experience stereotype threat that impairs their task-performance. Across two pre-registered, large-scale between-subjects experiments (n1 = 1,543; n2 = 1,147), we found that performance in terms of task correctness, processing time, and effort was unaffected by information of negative

ABSTRACT What happens when governments wield the capacity but lack the will to deliver public services that can mean the difference between life and death? During the COVID-19 Pandemic, federal governments in Brazil and the United States suppressed epidemiological data and spread medical misinformation. Undertaking a paired qualitative analysis, we show how ‘compensatory collaborative governance’ initiatives

ABSTRACT This paper argues that the theoretical foundation for studying the ecosystemic nature of value creation is lacking within the public service logic (PSL). To address this limitation, the paper uses a theory synthesis to clarify service-related key concepts and develop four premises that position PSL as an ecosystemic framework. These premises 1) position PSL as a mid-range theoretical framework

ABSTRACT This paper addresses a research gap in showing how the complexity of change leadership in the hospital sector can be understood in the dialectics between local leadership and its near and wider context. Specifically, leadership is connected to the history and temporality of the field as core constituents of leaders’ change agency, and politics and policy are foregrounded as temporal elements

ABSTRACT This paper discusses the Public Service Logic (PSL) concept, which suggests that public services should be viewed as ‘services’ with a focus on participation and value. Citizen engagement is essential to achieving a citizen strategic orientation in public service organizations (PSOs), but challenges are associated with it. We argue that the design theory can help overcome these challenges

ABSTRACT This article examines whether, why and how inter-departmental networking behaviour enhances employees’ voice behaviour. Current literature suggests that employees’ willingness to voice ideas for improvement is contingent on managers creating an empowering and safe environment, yet external networking can also play a role by broadening employees’ horizons, alerting them to overlooked problems

ABSTRACT At the heart of Public Service Logic (PSL) is an explicit focus on ‘value’ in the context of public services. However, the concept of value remains undertheorized. This paper integrates insights from the fields of Service Management and Marketing (SMM) and Public Administration and Management (PAM), and develops a novel conceptual framework to explicate the elements of value. This framework

ABSTRACT In this article we identify design principles for digital co-production and analyse how they can enhance inclusion. We focus on digital co-production in a community development project by studying the accessibility and interaction of the digital co-production events during the Covid−19 pandemic which increased the need for digital co-production methods and created a need for new designs of

ABSTRACT Digital technology offers an opportunity for increased productivity in public organizations, but organizations struggle to gain revenue from their investments, known as the productivity paradox. This study examines the role and relations of digital adoption (DA), deliberate learning (DL), and managerial dynamic capability (MDC) on improving productivity in a digital transformation (DT) process

Published in Public Management Review (Vol. 25, No. 4, 2023)

ABSTRACT While prior studies note that interlocal collaborations sometimes change their member composition, the relationship between membership changes and the community-level performance of interlocal collaborations is unclear. This study attempts to provide evidence by exploring the impact of entrants on the performance of Illinois enterprise zones. We conducted event study analyses to estimate the

ABSTRACT Through the introduction of algorithmic systems into police organizations, a new employee emerged: the data professional. Contrary to street-level officers, little is known of the discretionary power of these system-level bureaucrats. Our qualitative research into the Netherlands Police provides a first empirical and theoretical understanding. The study shows that data professionals exert

ABSTRACT While post-employment conflicts of interest (PECoI) carry important risks of integrity violations, empirical research is scarce. This paper provides insight into the meaning and the perceptions of PECoI in the Dutch (military) police compared to those in other public and private organizations, to draw lessons for the public management of ethics. The study combines document analysis with interviews

ABSTRACT Public management reforms worldwide have triggered processes of re-stratification in professions leading to the emergence of ‘administrative elites’ and potential changes in the nature of social status hierarchies. We investigate the nature of these adjustments and their supporting conditions in the context of English publicly owned hospitals. Applying fsQCA, our analysis shows a form of adaptation

ABSTRACT This study explores how government organizations integrate audit recommendations and justify decoupling auditees’ commitments from organizational realities. Moreover, it examines the analysis of recommendations from 31 sustainability performance audits conducted in 20 Canadian public organizations over 12 years. The longitudinal approach adopted in this study revealed decoupling strategies

ABSTRACT Organizational reforms often involve substantial staff reallocations, creating both winners and losers within the same organization. We argue that allocating less (more) staff to a department signals a decrease (increase) in organizational support towards that department and its employees. We hypothesize that staff members respond to this signal by adjusting their support for key organizational

ABSTRACT This study analyses the continuity of operations and the building of organizational resilience efforts in nine city governments from the Northeast region in the US during the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that city governments were able to keep internal operations and the delivery of public services, but only to some extent. Information technology was a key enabler for the implementation of teleworking

ABSTRACT One of the classic questions in publicness literature is whether public and private organizations operate differently, and what implications they have for organizational outcomes. This study seeks to identify mechanisms through which publicness influences organizational outcomes that have a public value. Focusing on US acute care hospitals, we userealized publicness framework and investigate

ABSTRACT Contemporary societies are affected by profound and often disruptive changes leading to socio-economic turbulence. The COVID-19 pandemic has been one of such changes. Gaining a deeper understanding of how society-based responses – such as social innovation – work during turbulent times is of increased significance. This paper carries out a systematically conducted literature review on the

ABSTRACT Disruptive technologies, such as blockchain (BCT), uphold relevant implications to design more transparent, efficient, and effective coproduction. However, evidence on how disruptive technologies affect the design choices and process of coproduction remains limited. Drawing on the unique case of Barcelona, this study analyses how BCT can shape coproduction and how BCT-based coproduction can

ABSTRACT Despite the importance of social equity as an ideal and goal, much work remains in understanding how public services may help foster greater equity – or create and sustain social inequities. Leveraging the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition method, we examine the extent to which administrative centralization and privatization contribute to outcome disparities between Black and White children in

ABSTRACT Using a between-subject online survey experiment conducted in Italy, this article investigates the impact of monetary and symbolic rewards on the willingness of citizens to co-deliver and co-commission public services, and the extent to which service salience moderates this relationship. The results show that both monetary and symbolic rewards have a positive impact on co-commissioning, but

ABSTRACT The Government Performance and Results Modernization Act (GPRAMA) of 2010 established new requirements to encourage performance measure development in US government agencies. This study empirically tests if the implementation of the requirements resulted in the development of performance indicators on customer service, efficiency, output, quality and outcome. By examining this neglected research

ABSTRACT Smart working is a timely solution to enable public services’ continuity and it is increasingly embedded within work arrangements in the public sector. However, little is known about the public servants’ willingness to embrace smart working arrangements. The article examines the relationship between digital readiness and smart working acceptance of municipal public servants. Digital readiness

ABSTRACT Administrative burdens limit access to government services and threaten social equity due to their disproportionate impact on disadvantaged groups. Third sector organizations can reduce administrative burdens and help individuals to overcome them. Both theoretically and empirically we know little about the different ways in which third-sector organizations do so. Through a longitudinal case

ABSTRACT Evaluations of public service collaborations tend to ignore time and timing as potential explanatory variables. Drawing on theories of environmental dynamism, organizational inertia, accountability ‘drift’, and isomorphism, we test whether the timing of inter-municipal cooperation, and its duration, affect financial performance for solid waste collection inter-municipal partnerships in the

ABSTRACT Service performance is a main concern in public administration. This study uses the staggered adoption of participatory budgeting in New York City to test the hypothesis that participatory budgeting improves service performance, indicated by fewer 311 complaint rates. It applies the difference-in-differences estimator that is robust to heterogeneous treatment effects across groups and over

ABSTRACT This study explores co-production between practitioners and service users through a longitudinal analysis of two programmes, identifying the factors that facilitate or prevent co-production from being sustainable over the longer term. There is no one ‘best practice’ for sustainable co-production; rather, it is contingent upon the nature of the service and the environment in which it operates