Public Policy and Administration

This study explores what kinds of (and how) organizational capabilities (benchmarking, modeling, forecasting, and backcasting), respectively and collectively, help an organization to have a more proactive policy orientation. An analysis of the public agencies in South Korea in 2021 shows several significant findings. First, all four of the organizational capabilities are conducive to a proactive policy orientation, which may be intuitively acceptable. Second, however, in contrast to expectation, the relative impact of forecasting capability on proactive policy orientation turned out to be the weakest among the four capabilities. An interpretation of these findings indicates that, proactive policies might be better produced in the organizational environment where forecasting can be supported by empirical evidence (benchmarking), methodical reasoning (modeling), and tangible planning (backcasting).

This study investigates the impact of authorship on the convincingness and willingness to read government foresight reports. Using a preregistered online-based experimental design with 307 participants, this research examines how perceived and actual authorship (human experts vs. generative AI) influence these factors. Our findings show a significant interaction between perceived and actual authorship. Reports perceived as written by AI but actually authored by experts were less convincing, while those perceived as written by experts were more convincing. Higher perceived convincingness correlated with greater willingness to read the full text. Hence, the present research highlights biases and trust issues in AI-generated content, emphasizing the importance of aligning perceived and actual authorship to enhance government communications and public policy.

A strong and prevailing innovation imperative is sweeping across the public sector and despite a growing literature on public sector innovation (PSI), the actors driving these processes tend to end up in the background of analysis. Based in an analytical framework of narrative theory and organization studies, and the efforts to introduce Social Impact Bonds (SIB) in Sweden as empirical case, the aim of this article is to unpack and analyze the neglected initial stages of PSI. Building on a 4-year qualitative study, the analysis shows that actors promoting PSI narrate the public sector as in need to “open up” for (1) new actors; (2) new services and solutions; and (3) new forms of knowledge. Our findings suggests that the initial stages of PSI are substantially more formative than previously indicated. We show how the innovation at hand function as a discursive node towards which the actors’ storylines gravitate. Despite differences, the actors involved narrate their world similarly constituting discourse coalitions that connects and aligns their interests and objectives. We argue that the early stages of PSI are to be understood as cognitive and narrative struggles, or negotiations. The potentially good news here is that change continuously takes place in processes of PSI, despite narratives of inertia. The potentially bad news is that the same change is difficult to predict, control and govern.

The service model approach, like business models in the private sector, is gaining increasing attention in public management literature. In line with this evolving discourse, our study analyzes service models in government export promotion. By exploring the use of service models and discussing key developments, we shed light on the diverse application of service models in the context of officially supported export credits – an under-researched field in which a lot of innovation is happening. We observe a limited number of traditional service models with significant relevance. In addition, our findings suggest a rising diversity that signifies innovation and the broadening scope of activities. We also uncover the underlying motivations and practical experiences associated with their implementation and provide valuable insights into the benefits they offer.