Sociology

Business

Public sector

Social science

Knowledge management

Operating system

Welfare

Agency (philosophy)

Economy

Political science

Management

Economics

Organizational structure

Operations management

Allowance (engineering)

Public relations

Computer science

Process (computing)

Organizational change

Market economy

Public Management Review

The paper highlights the effects of AI implementation on public sector innovation. This is explored by asking how AI-driven technologies in public decision-making in different organizational contexts impacts innovation in the role definition of bureaucrats. We focus on organizational as well as agency- and individual-level factors in two cases: The Dutch Childcare Allowance case and the US Integrated Data Automated System. We observe administrative process innovation in both cases where organizational structures and tasks of bureaucrats are transformed, and in the US case we also find conceptual innovation in that welfare fraud is addressed by replacing bureaucrats all together.

More than a digital system: how AI is changing the role of bureaucrats in different organizational contexts