Digital transformation has become a key driver of change in public administration, reshaping institutional processes, service delivery, and interactions with citizens. This paper explores how public servants involved in the implementation of digital transformation perceive it within Romanian local public administration. Adopting a qualitative research design, the study addresses seven research questions aimed at identifying perceptions related to implementation challenges, technological adoption, organizational change, and anticipated outcomes. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews and analyzed using NVivo (version 14) qualitative data analysis software. The findings indicate that a set of interrelated factors shapes digital transformation in local public administration. While the adoption of digital technologies contributes to improved efficiency, enhanced transparency, reduced bureaucracy, faster document processing, and better citizen engagement, it also presents significant challenges. These challenges include budgetary constraints, resistance to change, and difficulties related to the adaptation and training of public servants. Overall, the results underscore the need for coherent digital strategies that integrate technological innovation with human resource development and institutional capacity-building in the public sector.
Performance measurement systems (PMS) have become central governance instruments in contemporary public sector organizations, including universities. In higher education, these systems shape how academic performance is evaluated and how institutional priorities are implemented. Using survey data from 557 faculty members at public and private universities in Lebanon and Kuwait, the analysis identifies six dimensions that influence faculty perceptions: institutional engagement and values, rewards and recognition systems, HRM practices and faculty development, technological readiness and system effectiveness, research productivity and collaboration, and perceived organizational barriers. Hierarchical and K-Means clustering reveal three faculty profiles: engaged and productive faculty, satisfied but cautious faculty oriented toward stability, and autonomous researchers facing institutional constraints despite strong interest in professional development. Although similar cluster structures appear across countries, sectoral differences emerge between public and private institutions. The findings show that performance measurement systems operate as governance arrangements whose effects depend on institutional design and administrative structures, contributing to debates in public administration on performance regimes and professional motivation in hybrid public organizations.
This study examines how perceived organisational performance influences innovation capacity within local self-government units (LSGUs) and their locally owned enterprises in Croatia, with a particular focus on the mediating role of external networking. Drawing on Dynamic Capabilities Theory (DCT), the research conceptualises perceived performance not only as an outcome but also as a driver of innovation. Specifically, the study builds on the notion that high performance fosters internal legitimacy and organisational confidence, in turn reducing the risks often associated with experimentation, i.e., innovation, and encouraging public managers to consider shifting scarce resources toward innovative behaviour. The study emphasizes the interaction between this internal readiness of organisations and external networks, namely political, partner, and policymaker connections. The results reveal that perceived performance has a significant and positive effect on innovation capacity. Moreover, all three dimensions of external networking partially mediate this relationship, serving as crucial intermediaries that help convert internal organisational motivating factors into tangible innovative outputs. Among these, partners’ networking demonstrating the strongest indirect effect, highlighting the importance of knowledge-sharing and joint problem-solving in public sector. Political networking followed, underscoring the necessity of securing goodwill for resource allocation, while policymaker networking provided the regulatory credibility for making long-term innovative initiatives sustainable. The findings of this research suggest that, while organisational success fosters internal readiness for innovation, translating it into tangible outcomes depends on the strength and quality of external networks. This means that local public managers need to cultivate strategic external partnerships and political relations to sustain innovation capacity and improve service delivery
This paper examines whether and how fiscal austerity shapes the extent to which public value in education translates into social well-being in a decentralized setting. We theorize fiscal austerity as a constraint that can dampen the welfare returns of public value creation by limiting policy continuity and implementation capacity. Using panel data for Brazil’s 27 federative units over 2015-2022, we estimate a hierarchical public value model in the education policy domain and test direct and mediated relationships with social wellbeing. The model is assessed via PLS-SEM, enabling the simultaneous estimation of higherorder constructs and mediation effects. Public value in education is strongly and positively associated with social well-being. Fiscal austerity operates as a countervailing mechanism that conditions how fully value creation translates into welfare outcomes, yielding a competitive mediation pattern consistent with public value under constraint. The study advances public sector management research by positioning fiscal austerity not merely as contextual background but as a mechanism affecting the conversion of public value into wellbeing. Empirically, it offers comparable evidence across subnational governments and provides actionable insights for sustaining human development–oriented policies under fiscal constraint.
This paper presents an analytical synthesis of current approaches to public property insurance in an international context. The aim is to identify the approaches of individual EU countries to the issue of protecting public property and propose a general model for the use of AI in this area. The analysis is carried out in the form of research, based on a methodology of systematic collection, sorting and evaluation of primary and secondary sources. The main sources include scientific publications and government documents. Emphasis is placed on categorising the identified approaches of countries in this area and the possibilities of using AI in the insurance industry. This article enriches the scientific and research space with a unique overview of the approaches of individual EU countries, which is currently lacking. The results of the study can serve as a starting point for further studies and a valuable resource for deepening knowledge in this area. Since the use of AI has not been confirmed in most countries and the individual approaches in EU countries show only slight differences, the proposed general model can be applied at individual national levels of public institutions in EU countries.
