COVID-19-Induced Service and Governance Innovation in the Public Sector
A special issue of Administrative Sciences (ISSN 2076-3387).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2022) | Viewed by 3160
Special Issue Editors
Interests: collaborative governance; co-creation; hybrid governance and the role of public leadership and management
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Everybody knows how difficult it is to transform the public sector. Even the most well-intended reforms fail in the face of the structural inertia, engrained habits and institutionalized practices that make up the stable paths of public governance and administration. Occasionally, institutional deadlocks and path-dependencies are unraveled by new disruptive events and emerging crises that question the status quo and call for innovative solutions. Against a tragic background of despair and economic recession, the COVID-19 pandemic serves as a magnifying glass for studying how crisis can induce transformation and innovation in public governance and public services. It was soon clear that the turbulent events associated with the global health crisis could not be dealt with in the usual way and that public sector actors as well as private stakeholders had to develop a new set of practices to cope with the crisis. This special issue aims to draw lessons from the pandemic and advance research on crisis-induced public sector transformation. As such, it welcomes single or comparative case studies that show whether, how and to what extent the COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to transforming and innovating public governance and public service provision around the world. Papers are encouraged to reflect on the triggers and drivers of change, the content of public sector transformations, the impact of new practices, the lessons that can be drawn from crisis-induced change, the prospect for learning retention, and/or the lasting positive or negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on how public governance is organized and performed and how public services are produced and delivered. Papers are expected to answer a clearly formulated research question, provide adequate theoretical framing and methodological accounts, and present well-documented findings in ways that lead to plausible conclusions.
Prof. Jacob Torfing
Dr. Tina Øllgaard Bentzen
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Administrative Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- Covid-19
- Public sector
- Service innovation
- Governance innovation
