🚨 New publication alert 🚨 ✍ The journal Public Administration just published my article on how public bureaucracies are resolving agile ambidexterity between new work practices and the dominant administrative processes.
Ines Mergel
@inesmergel.bsky.social
Professor of Public Administration | University of Konstanz | Fellow National Academy of Public Administration | Supervisory Board Member eGov Academy | Founding Editor Teaching Public Service in the Digital Age
🚨 Public Management Review has just published my article "Cultural humility in agile work practices".
Cultural humility in agile work practices
Cultural humility shows when we stay open to learning and adapt to unfamiliar administrative environments. Humble people reflect on themselves accurately and value unfamiliar bureaucratic cultures....
tandfonline.com
🚨 Our paper discussing the outcomes of value co-creation and co-destruction in digital transformation processes is now officially published in the journal Digital Government Research and Practice: ✍ Find it here in open access format: dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...
Outcomes of Value Co-Creation and Co-Destruction in the Digital Transformation of Public Services | Digital Government: Research and Practice
Transforming public services from an analog to a digital delivery mode is generally assumed to have positive effects. Most recently, these transformations include the co-creation of newly designed dig...
dl.acm.org
📖 Our new book "AI innovations in public services" is available here link.springer.com/book/10.1007...
AI Innovations in Public Services
This open access book offers policymakers and library managers implementation guidance and case studies on how AI can shape the future of libraries.
link.springer.com
Book Authors: make sure to check to see if you are eligible for payment (re: Anthropic Copyright Settlement Website) One of my 2 books is (both should have been my one of my publishers failed to register my copyright) www.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com
Homepage | Bartz v Anthropic Settlement Site
anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com
The Screen That Ate Your Child’s Education www.nytimes.com/2025/11/16/o...
Opinion | The Screen That Ate Your Child’s Education
nytimes.com
🤓 Take a look at our co-authored article with lead author Juliane Schmeling on "Data collaboration in digital government research: A literature review and research agenda" published in Government Information Quarterly: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Data collaboration in digital government research: A literature review and research agenda
Sovereign data infrastructures are a central building block of the European Data Strategy, yet little is known about how public administrations share …
sciencedirect.com
Candidates’ explanatory style – how they attributed causes to bad events – predicted election outcomes.
Optimism predicted Trump’s victory: explanatory style during the 2024 presidential campaign
Candidates’ explanatory style – how they attributed causes to bad events – predicted election outcomes. We analyzed causal explanations from the 2024 presidential campaign using Content Analysis of...
tandfonline.com
A.I. Is Starting to Wear Down Democracy www.nytimes.com/2025/06/26/t...
A.I. Is Starting to Wear Down Democracy
nytimes.com
Not surprising: www.npr.org/2025/06/02/n...
Former DOGE engineer says federal waste and fraud were 'relatively nonexistent'
NPR's Juana Summers talks with Sahil Lavingia, who worked for the Department of Government Efficiency as a software engineer assigned to the Department of Veterans Affairs, about his experience.
npr.org
✨ Our new paper, co-authored with Noella Edelmann and Nathalie Haug, was just published in the journal Digital Government: Research and Practice: "Outcomes of Value Co-Creation and Co-Destruction in the Digital Transformation of Public Services." ✨ 🆓 Read it here: dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...
Outcomes of Value Co-Creation and Co-Destruction in the Digital Transformation of Public Services | Digital Government: Research and Practice
Transforming public services from an analog to a digital delivery mode is generally assumed to have positive effects. Most recently, these transformations include the co-creation of newly designed dig...
dl.acm.org
Our paper "Digitally-induced change in the public sector: a systematic review and research agenda" was the top-cited article in Public Management Review. You can read it here open access: lnkd.in/eTbE-MSj
If you worked for 18F and got fired, Group together to start a consulting company. It’s just a matter of time before DOGE needs you to fix the mess they inevitably create. They will have to hire your company as a contractor to fix it. But on your terms. I’m happy to invest and/or help
18F, the federal government’s technology shop, was just demolished by Musk’s team. It was a cost-recoverable org, charging agencies for their expertise, using a consulting model. Its cost to government was negligible, its benefits huge. My team there once saved DoD $500 million. A thread about 18F:
Waldo Jaquith@waldo.net · last yr.18F is *precisely* what Musk and team claim should exist within government. But when his team found it, they destroyed it, because it is evidence that government works well (can’t have that!), and because like Zelensky, 18F didn’t bend the knee.
18F was doing exactly the type of work that DOGE claims to want – yet we were eliminated shortly after midnight. Read our letter to the American people: 18f.org
We're not done yet | 18F
18f.org
New article alert 🤓 "Co-Production Phases in the Development and Implementation of Digital Public Services," co-authored with Noella Edelmann and Nathalie Haug Now published in Oxford University's Perspectives on Public Management and Governance journal: doi.org/10.1093/ppmg...
Not Incentivized Yet Efficient: Working From Home in the Public Sector: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
Not Incentivized Yet Efficient: Working From Home in the Public Sector
This paper studies whether working from home (WFH) affects workers' performance in public sector jobs. Studying public sector initiatives allows us to establish
papers.ssrn.com
Adam Grant@adamgrant.bsky.social · last yr.Remote work doesn't thwart productivity. It boosts focus. Government workers are 12% more productive when randomly assigned to work from home. They're more efficient where it's quiet. Most people aren't shirking from home. They're escaping distractions and long commutes.
I talked with three experts on government efficiency about DOGE taking over the Obama-era US Digital Service, including its co-founder @pahlkadot.bsky.social. They all said Elon Musk has a rare opportunity to make government work better. And they all worried he might blow it. wapo.st/4jHi3s3
Analysis | How DOGE could succeed — or fail miserably
Government efficiency experts say Elon Musk has a chance to build on what the U.S. Digital Service accomplished — or ruin it.
wapo.st
DOGE will take over the US Digital Service - effectively destabilizing its integration into the bureaucracy given that DOGE itself is only a temporary organization: www.nytimes.com/2025/01/21/u...
How Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency Will Work
The structure and goals of the cost-cutting effort have changed over the past 10 weeks. Here’s how.
nytimes.com
Sad loss to the community of public management researchers :(
Don Moynihan@donmoyn.bsky.social · 2y agoI was lucky enough to chair the Gaus award committee in the year Hood won, and we offered a decent summary of his amazing career. His first book was in 1976, and continued to produce excellent work for the next 45 years or so. politicalsciencenow.com/christopher-...
Hello editors, what can we do to make our academic content more accessible? We need to write in plain language, avoid wild abbreviations, explain better/easier than convoluted language, maybe put the research design into an appendix, and get right to the core of the findings.
Academic writing is getting harder to read—the humanities most of all
We analyse two centuries of scholarly work
economist.com
Not only keep them out of evaluations, but stop entirely. Do not use.
Katharine Hayhoe@katharinehayhoe.com · 2y agoDid you see this experiment my colleague Kristina conducted not just at my university but *in my department*? She and the male instructor assumed eachothers’ names for an online course: and the difference in feedback they received was horrifying.
Wouldn't it be nice to apply similar design principles to public service design? www.dw.com/en/how-the-f...
How the 'Frankfurt kitchen' triggered a domestic revolution – DW – 12/27/2024
Around a century ago, working in the kitchen was still cumbersome and inefficient. But then a Viennese architect had a groundbreaking idea that has endured to this day: the fitted kitchen.
dw.com
Not good: Women faculty feel ‘pushed’ from academia by poor workplace climate | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...
Women faculty feel ‘pushed’ from academia by poor workplace climate
The gender gap in faculty attrition worsens after tenure, according to a new study
science.org