An emerging area of trust research considers trust in multiple trustees, largely examining how trust in multiple trustee aggregates additively. Few studies have considered potential non-additive ways an individual trustor might weigh trust in each of the multiple trustees, depending on the situation-context, specifically what is needed from the trustees to address the risk. We conducted an experimental vignette study to test aspects of the Perceived Influence Model of Trust. This model predicts different trust effects depending on how a trustor weighs trust in each trustee, described as additive, compensatory, and compulsory trust effects. The vignette focused on workplace conflict because of its ubiquity and the importance of trust for resolution. Participants imagined themselves as an employee (trustor) deciding whether to risk disclosure of a conflict with a co-worker to two supervisors (trustees) before the supervisors conduct a performance evaluation of the employee to determine if they receive a promotion. The study contained a manipulation of the task requirements - what is needed from the trustees to achieve the trustor's desired end. The trustworthiness cues of the two trustees were also manipulated to indicate high or low trustworthiness. ANCOVA analyses supported a three-way interaction effect, demonstrating the importance of the trustees' task requirements in determining how trust in one trustee changes the effects of trust in another trustee on the trusting outcome. These results provide initial support for the Perceived Influence Model of Trust and provide a foundation for researchers seeking an enhanced understanding of multi-trustee trust in situations involving conflict.

This study examines the relationship between technology-enabled business innovations (e.g. Uber) and government regulations by conducting a comparative analysis of three cases in Korea using Wilson's regulatory politics model. Despite advancements in novel digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, not all technology-enabled business innovations successfully penetrate the market and society. This study examines three case studies in South Korea that demonstrated digital technology-enabled business innovations: ride-hailing, FinTech, and food delivery service platforms. Wilson's politics of regulation model explains regulation creation or relaxation through political-economic interactions, emphasizing the distribution of costs and benefits of government regulations as perceived by the regulated. Using Wilson's four political-economic types, this research comparatively analyzes three cases of technology-enabled business innovations, with a particular focus on changes in regulatory types over time. The study found that (1) deregulation processes around digital innovations are better explained by political-economic factors than technological superiority factors; (2) market entry of new technologies is challenging when existing industries bear the cost burden; (3) regulatory policies significantly impact new business market entries, especially in situations with sharp profit conflicts between old and new businesses; and (4) the political-economic process around digital innovation is dynamic, influenced by events, policy environment changes, and shifts in actors' positions.

This study aimed to empirically analyze the relationship between socio-demographics (such as gender, age, education, income, and employment status) and the use of web-based and mobile e-government services in Korea by utilizing a repeated cross-sectional survey data from 2015 to 2020. It focused on both general and domain specific e-government services, namely, Gov24, Hometax, and E-people, representing information, financial transaction, and e-participation services, respectively. The research revealed that, with the exception of gender, a divide still exists in terms of most socio-demographics for the utilization of any e-government services. However, when examining the relationship between socio-demographics and domain specific e-government services, patterns were found to be sharply different from the utilization of any e-government services. The digital divide in the use of domain specific e-government services was not noticeable, as most socio-demographics in the use of any e-government services became insignificant, weaker, or even demonstrated opposite directions in the case of citizens' use of the web-based and mobile information, transaction, and e-participation services. Furthermore, it was found that domain specific mobile e-government services are more inclusive, in general, than their web-based counterparts when it comes to most socio-demographics examined.

This Special Issue examines how the rapid development of data science and artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming social behavior and creating urgent demands for regulation, thereby reshaping comparative policy analysis in both theory and methodology. The introduction first sketches AI's evolution from speculative idea to pervasive infrastructure, highlighting opportunities for more informed, efficient, and responsive public policy alongside risks of bias, opacity, surveillance, and capacity gaps. It then proposes a policy process framework - covering agenda setting, formulation, decision-making, implementation, and evaluation - to analyze how AI reshapes each stage. Finally, it situates the six contributions and their advances in comparative AI-enabled governance.

Previous research on demand-side e-government has not adequately examined the utilization of specific egovernment services by different citizen groups, particularly digitally vulnerable ones, via both websites and mobile platforms. This lack of understanding has generated to a limited knowledge base regarding the usage of these services. Furthermore, there is a dearth of longitudinal research in this area, further impeding our understanding of the topic. This study aims to analyze the diffusion and the divide in citizens' use of e-government services over time. Using the repeated cross-sectional survey data (2012-2021) of the Korean citizens' use of the web-based and mobile e-government services, we found that citizens' use of e-government services has generally increased over the past 10 years, with information transaction services (e.g. Gov24) being the most widely used, followed by financial transaction services (e.g. Hometax). However, the speed of e-participation services (e.g. Epeople) diffusion and its usage rate over time is much slower and lower than other types of e-government services. Web-based and mobile e-government services have been showing similar trends of change. The usage rate of web-based e-government services, however, has been slightly higher than that of mobile e-government services. The divide in the usage of e-government services for digitally vulnerable groups has been generally decreasing. However, the usage gap of e-participation services is very sensitive to the yearly changes due to its low usage rate, making the pattern of the usage gap change irregularly. Lastly, the divide caused by intersectionality factors such as the elderly with low incomes is far more serious than those caused by single factors. The study's findings emphasize the importance for digital government leaders and managers to focus on citizens' use of e-government services, considering factors such as service type, user group, and platform. This attention is crucial in promoting digital inclusion and equity, ultimately addressing the issue of the divide in the use of egovernment services.

This study examines the role of learning and evaluation data utilization in nonprofit accountability practices. Survey data of 243 nonprofit managers were used to assess the pathway between learning environments and practices to evaluation data utilization and the subsequent sharing of evaluation information. Results from partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) indicate that supportive learning environments, where nonprofit managers and staff engage in learning practices, can facilitate data utilization for internal decision-making, thereby resulting in stronger linkages to sharing evaluation information. Our research suggests the need for intentional strategies around learning and data cultures in nonprofits, as nonprofit managers serve as the linchpin to internal accountability through using evaluation results to inform decisions, assess progress, improve programs, and train staff. Our research contributes to the nonprofit literature by showing how the combination of learning environments and practices serve as drivers for data-driven decision-making, which in turn improves nonprofit accountability practices.

Increasing numbers of local governments have adopted crowdsourcing platforms to engage citizens in public service provisions. As citizen engagement plays a critical role in the success of government crowdsourcing, we focus on incentive strategies to facilitate it. While studies have considered monetary incentives the primary motivator traditionally, recent research has examined the potency of nonmonetary strategies that stimulate citizens' territorial or civic motivation. Linking the coproduction framework of incentives to expectancy theories as a theoretical framework, we compare the effects of those incentives with vignette experiments that include Omahahotline-a 311-type of government crowdsourcing platform run by the City of Omaha. The results show that not just a material incentive but also a solidary incentive increases residents' willingness to participate in the platform effectively. By conducting experiments with Omaha residents, we offer implications for local governments to use effective incentive strategies to engage citizens in the government crowdsourcing platform.

Prior research investigating situations involving one trustor and multiple trustees often examines how a trustor's trust in one party affects their amount of trust in another party. This paper fills a gap by predicting the effects of trust. The Perceived Influence (PI) Model of Trust is an individual-level model focused on the perceptions of a trustor. It builds upon the Mayer et al. (1995) model by integrating insights from literature on task interdependence and expanding to two trustees. The PI model describes and explains three possibilities for how a trustor's trust in two trustees may combine to form a sense of aggregate multi-trustee trust via: (1) additive effects, such that the trustor's trust in each of the trustees has independent effects on the aggregate; (2) compulsory effects, such that increasing the amount of trust in one trustee increases the effect of trust in the other trustee; and (3) compensatory effects, such that increasing trust in one trustee decreases the effect of trust in the other trustee. We propose that the theoretical mechanism explaining which of these three possibilities takes place is the trustor's perceived influence of the trustees, which is tightly linked to perceptions of task requirements necessary to attenuate the trustor's risk. The PI model begins to fill an important gap in the literature pertaining to pervasive, but rarely considered, multi-trustee situations, and proposes the importance of trustor perceptions of trustee influence and task requirements for future models of trust.

This study explores the utilisation of e-government services by digitally vulnerable individuals in South Korea. The research questions focus on understanding the current status of e-government use among digitally vulnerable populations, including the elderly, low-income, the disabled, and multi-cultural families, the level of inclusivity of e-government services for them, and the policy implications for improving access to these services. Using data from the 2021 National E-government Survey (NES) in South Korea, the study found that only a small percentage of digitally vulnerable populations are aware of e-government services and that most web-based and app-based information transaction, financial transaction, e-participation, and social welfare services are not inclusive for age and income level. However, the study also revealed that most web-based and app-based e-government services examined, except e-business services, provide inclusive services to the disabled and multi-cultural families. The study concludes with recommendations for policy makers to improve inclusivity and access to e-government services for digitally vulnerable populations.

Since participatory budgeting (PB) has been advocated by both theorists and practitioners of public administration, its adoption has become a global phenomenon. As of 2017, all local governments in South Korea are legally mandated to operate a PB system as a policy for inviting citizen participation in local budget decision‐making. Using an impact assessment tool completed by PB managers in local governments, this research tested two sets of independent variables—citizens' participatory capacity and the diversification of communication in the PB process—that could be associated with the dependent variables “citizens' trust in government (CTG)” and “government officials' trust in citizens (GTC).” The paper presents the three major findings on the common drivers behind CTG and GTC: (1) citizen participants' knowledge on budget and budgeting process; (2) local government's efforts in gathering citizens' inputs for PB; and (3) the mutual efforts to understand the needs and limitations of both citizens and the local government. The paper concludes by exploring the implications for the design and delivery of effective PB implementation.

The OECD Journal on Budgeting is published three times per year. It draws on the best of the recent work of the OECD Working Party of Senior Budget Officials (SBO), as well as special contributions from finance ministries, academics and experts in the field and makes it available to a wider community in an accessible format. The journal provides insight on leading-edge institutional arrangements, systems and instruments for the allocation and management of resources in the public sector.

Over the past decades, government agencies have been under increasing institutional pressures to improve performance while engaging the public in decision-making processes. This study aims to explore how agency managers perceive institutional pressures and how these pressures shape their network behaviors for interagency collaboration. Specifically, this research focuses on structural holes, which refer to network positions that connect otherwise-disconnected agencies. Drawing on the literature of public management, citizen participation, and social networks, this research develops a theoretical model of an agency’s network position and proposes hypotheses. This research tested two hypotheses using network and survey data collected from agency managers in the Seoul Metropolitan Government in 2009. The results of the study showed that agencies under greater performance pressure tended to locate themselves in interagency networks with structural holes, while agencies facing greater citizen participation demands tended to embed themselves in interagency networks with fewer structural holes. This implies that performance pressure drives city agencies to seek competitive structural positions in interagency networks, while citizen participation demands lead agencies to locate in dense interagency networks.

We are living in turbulent times, with the threats of COVID-19 and related social conflicts. Digital transformation is not an option but a necessity for governments to respond to these crises. It has become imperative for governments worldwide to enhance their capacity to strategically use emerging digital technologies and develop innovative digital public services to confront and overcome the pandemic. With the rapid development of digital technologies, digital government transformation (DGT) has been legitimated in response to the pandemic, contributing to innovative efficacy, but it also has created a set of challenges, dilemmas, paradoxes, and ambiguities. This special issue's primary motive is to comprehensively discuss the promises and challenges DGT presents. It focuses on the nature of the problems and the dilemmatic situation in which to use the technologies. Furthermore, it covers government capacity and policy implications for managerial and institutional reforms to respond to the threats and the uncertainty caused by disruptive digitalization in many countries. To stimulate discussion of the theme of this special issue, this editorial note provides an overview of previous literature on DGT as a controlling measure of the pandemic and the future direction of research and practice on DGT.

Since its inception, participatory budgeting (PB) has been advocated for by both scholars and practitioners of public administration. In South Korea, PB has been widely adopted across local governments since 2004. Based on in-depth assessments of PB implementation that were collected from 229 local governments in South Korea, this study explores the competing public values of PB and analyzes how the capacity and commitment of local governments and citizens are associated with the public values that are achieved through PB. Results indicate that (1) there are several pairs of competing values pursued through PB, and (2) local governments’ communication channels and citizen participation are required to resolve and balance the tradeoffs of the PB public values; most notably, local government’s efforts to gather citizens’ inputs and educate them and PB participants’ budget literacy. We also offer several implications for how to improve PB implementation at the local government level.

In Chapter 20, Jooho Lee and M. Jae Moon survey the evolution of South Korean e-government, which has been recognized as a showcase for the effective application of ICT in the public sector. Lee and Moon provide a brief history of Korea's e-government journey that includes its visions, strategies, and major milestones. In order to systematically understand and assess the practices of Korean e-government, the discussion of Korean e-government research is organized around e-government adoption and its impacts. The drivers of Korean e-government adoption are discussed in terms of the roles of environmental, organizational, and individual factors. Lee and Moon also analyze administrative, economic, political, and social impacts of e-government in South Korea. The future of Korean e-government is discussed by focusing on insights gained from smart e-governance and open e-governance initiatives.

This panel is designed to respond to recent calls for research on the deeper understanding about the antecedents of citizens’ adoption of e-government and e-participation services and consequences of e-participation, and citizens’ digital engagement behaviors. Specifically, Kim and Lee raise a question of what e-government promotion and marketing strategies and tools for increasing e-government awareness actually leads to citizen's use of e-government. To answer this question, they focus on widely-used e-government awareness promotion strategies and tools such as advertisements on Internet banner, outdoor banner, mass media, brochure/booklets, and social media and their associations with three representative e-government services – weather services, tax filing services, and online petition and discussion services. Using a National Survey of E-government Usage in 2017, they report preliminary findings, discuss the theoretical and policy implications of the findings, and offer future research. Song and Lee's research primarily address a question of how and why e-participation shapes the relationships among citizens’ community engagement behaviors and their perception of public values such as transparency and citizen trust in government. To address the question, they collected survey data of Seoul residents in 2019 and employ structural equation modeling to test the relationships among citizens’ use of e-participation, community engagement behaviors, and perceived trust and transparency in government. The preliminary findings will be reported and discussed to draw their implications for policy makers and public managers as well as for e-government literature. Shi and her colleagues’ research shifts its focus to ongoing issues around citizens’ willingness to share data. In their study, Shi and her colleagues ask a question of whether citizens are more willing to share their data with government agencies or corporations in China. Using Motorbike sharing APP as a case, they use a vignette survey and design a 2 by 2 factorial experiment to investigate the research question. The effects of sector difference on citizens’ willingness to share data is studied by manipulating two factors at once: sector difference (sharing data with government agency versus with corporation), and price for using the APP (high price versus low price). Shi and her colleagues report preliminary findings and discuss their implications.

This panel highlights digital government practices that exemplify the dg.o 2021 conference theme: Digital Innovations for Public Values: Inclusive Collaboration and Community. Public values serve as the guiding principles for the development and implementation of digital innovations for public service. Inclusivity is a salient public value to bridge the digital divide in the development, access, and use of information and communication technology. Cases presented in this panel illustrate civic engagement via digital technologies for inclusive collaboration; collaboration between government and residents as well as government, university, and community organizations; and utilization of digital technology to strengthen community at local and national levels. These cases feature projects of the Digital Governance and Analytics Lab at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, the hosting university of dg.o 2021 as well as similar projects done by research collaborators at Florida International University and University of Massachusetts Boston.

Drawing on motivation theories and social network literature, this research analyzes the relationship between each gender's perceived intrinsic and instrumental value of participation and the strength of offline social ties and active e-participation in a local governance setting. Based on E-Participation Survey data collected from the members of an e-participation program run by local government in South Korea, the study finds that male participants who perceive greater instrumental value of e-participation are more likely to use e-participation actively. On the other hand, women who perceive a greater intrinsic value of e-participation are more likely to be active users. Female respondents were also more likely to use e-participation when they were connected to offline social groups through weak rather than strong ties, presumably because they use e-participation as a supplementary channel to their social networks. There was no significant relationship between male respondents' social ties and their active e-participation.