Prosocial motivation of IT professionals joining government (new article)

Together with Nicola Bellé and Greta Nasi, I analyzed the motivation of IT professionals joining government. At times, when IT workers have a large amount of choices and are more likely to get higher paying jobs outside government, how can government align incentives to attract talent to the workforce? To answer this questions, we analyzed

New article analyzing the context in which digital service teams emerge

I just published a new article in Government Information Quarterly on digital service teams. In this article, I apply an existing framework of context to explain how digital service teams emerged in nine different countries. The paper is available in open access format online: Suggested citation: Mergel, I. (2019): Digital service teams in government, in:

A timeline of national digital service team start-ups

National governments are creating digital service teams at an accelerated speed. I have written about their approaches, team compositions, and outcomes in a report published by IBM’s Center for the Business of Government last year and expanded on it in this interview. My report mostly focused on the U.S. Digital Service Team and 18F, and

Interview on global digital service teams in HuffingtonPost

I gave an interview to Marquis Cabrera which is now online on HuffingtonPost: – Dr. Mergel: You’ve had a most interesting academic career; the convergence of academia and industry (and tech!) in your published works is incredible! What made you decide to commission a report on global digital services? We currently see all kinds of

New report on Digital Service Teams

IBM – The Center for the Business of Government has published my report titled “Digital Service Teams – Challenges and Recommendations for Government“. The report is part of a larger research project in which I work on understand how different countries are using start-up teams inside of government to move their public administrations toward digital

Award: Research stipend from IBM’s The Center for the Business of Government

  IBM – The Center for the Business of Government has announced a new round of winners of their research stipends. I won an award to write about my research on digital service transformation in the U.S. federal government. Here is the announcement text: The Center for The Business of Government continues to support research by

Congressional hearing about @18 and @usds operations and @gao report

I just watched the Congressional hearing of the 18F and U.S. Digital Service Oversight committee. The hearing was initiated by a GAO report titled: “DIGITAL SERVICE PROGRAMS: Assessing Results and Coordinating with Chief Information Officers Can Improve Delivery of Federal Projects” published on June 10, 2016. The report showed that most agencies were fully satisfied

Ready to Govern: Planning the transition into public management (fast)

Last week, my colleagues Tina Nabatchi, Sean O’Keefe, David Van Slyke and I participated in the initial “Ready to Govern” event organized by the Partnership for Public Service and IBM’s Center for the Business of Government. Among the participants were colleagues from other Public Management departments around the country, practitioners from technology and consulting companies, as