New article (in German): What German public administrations can learn from the Estonian digital transformation

Robert Krimmer and I brainstormed about the differences between Germany and Estonia and summarized our ideas in an article for practitioners that was published in “Innovative Verwaltung” earlier this years. Here is the link to the original text and the fulltext on ResearchGate: Was Deutschland von Estlands Transformation lernen kann I translated most of what

Launching ‘Teaching Public Service in the Digital Age’

Repost via “Teaching Public Service in the Digital Age“ Digital has changed the way that billions of people live their lives. It has transformed the way that couples meet and friendship groups evolve. It has allowed millions to shift their place of employment during the pandemic. It has given nations new ways of going to

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:

New article: Defining digital transformation

As part of the EU Co-VAL project, we interviewed 40 experts to understand what the next wave of digital government looks like. The paper was recently published in open access format in Government Information Quarterly. Here is the abstract: Digital transformation approaches outside the public sector are changing citizens’ expectations of governments’ ability to deliver

My teaching concept for digital transformation seminars at the University of Konstanz

Transfer Lehre_DigitalTransformation_Mergel

Estonia’s digital transformation – a first attempt to explain its success: “Is Estonia the Silicon Valley of digital government?”

Rainer Kattel and I have written a paper that will be contributed to an edited book sometime next year about policy success stories. We have decided to publish a pre-print version to get the word out early. Our paper titled “Estonia’s digital transformation: Mission mystique and the hiding hand”. The original blog post about the…

Big data and digitization talk script

In March 2018 I participated in a conversation on “(K)ein Traum von der digitalen Demokratie: Big Data als Chance oder Risiko?” as part of the Grenzgänger Wissenschaft talk series together with Professor Neuschwander of the HTWG Konstanz . We have talked about a number of questions and here are the answers I prepared: What kind of

New seminar: ‘Digital Transformation in the Public Sector’ at the University of Konstanz

This semester I am teaching a new seminar that focuses on a relatively new topic: The challenges that public administrations are facing when they are aiming to digitize their analog services. Under the catchy term “digital transformation”, many are looking to not only move from analog to digital, also redesigning, automating, or abandoning outdated administrative acts

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