Vibeke Lehmann Nielsen

Artificial Intelligence applications (AI) transform public sector decision-making. However, most research conceptualizes AI as a form of specialized decision support tool. In contrast, this study presents a different form of human-AI collaboration, the concept of human-AI ensembles, where public managers and AI tackle the same decision tasks, rather than specializing in certain subtasks. This is particularly relevant for many public sector decisions, where neither human nor AI predictions have a clear advantage over the other. We illustrate this within the context of public hiring, focusing on two key areas: (a) the potential of ensembling human and AI to reduce biases and (b) the willingness of public managers to implement ensembling. Study 1 uses data from the assessment of profiles of real-life job candidates (n = 695) at the intersection of gender and ethnicity by public managers compared to AI. The exploratory linear regression results illustrate how ensembled decision-making may alleviate ethnic biases. The linear regression results of study 2, a pre-registered survey experiment, show that public managers (n = 538 with 4 observations each) put equal weight on AI advice and human advice, and, when reminded of the unlawfulness of hiring discrimination, may even prioritize AI over human advice.

Much research has shown that implementation behavior of frontline workers and the outcomes of public policies depend on encounters between frontline workers and citizens. However, relatively little is known about the agency of citizens in these encounters. This paper focuses on administrative burdens and psychological responses to stress as possible determinants of citizens' encounter behavior—defined as “behavioral efforts citizens employ during and in preparing for interaction with public authorities in order to master the demands of the public encounter.” Combining a framework categorizing citizens' state‐encounter behavior and theory about administrative burdens, we ask whether citizens' behavior reflects their perceptions of administrative burdens, and whether learning, psychological and compliance burdens prompt different encounter behaviors? We use data from surveys among a representative sample of 1460 Danish citizens regarding encounters with tax and home care authorities. We find that perceived administrative burdens affect citizens' behavior, but contrary to expectations, we do not find that burdens discourage citizens from engaging with authorities. Higher perceived burdens tend to prompt activist behavior. Moreover, different types of burdens affect behaviors differently.

This study brings the literature on tokenism together with multiple theoretical lenses on the formation and social construction of men’s and women’s career aspirations. The study builds on comprehensive survey data from the Danish public sector. Results show that, after controlling for alternative explanations with respect to both personal life situation and differences between occupations, token status has a significantly negative effect on women’s management aspirations, while it has no effect on men’s aspirations to management. Furthermore, these findings are generalizable across occupational contexts. At the same time, however, analysis across occupations show that token women are mainly to be found in occupations where women have relatively high managerial aspirations. Token women are therefore characterized by aspirations to management positions, but their status as tokens minimizes these aspirations.

Public management research has identified a dizzying array of management variables that affect organizational performance. While scholars have learned much by analyzing one or a few specific behavioral dimensions of public management at a time, we argue for the value of a more holistic and inductive approach that uses data on several aspects of public management for identifying manager types. Such an approach accounts for both the cognitive processes of people affected by management and the reality that managers’ individual behavioral decisions are interrelated. We examine the overlap of 21 aspects of public school management behavior using cluster analysis. We identify four different manager types (“firefighters,” “laissez-faire managers,” “administrators,” and “proactive floor managers”), each reflecting a distinct constellation of managerial behaviors. The manager types we call “administrators” and “proactive floor managers” are associated with relatively better outcomes, while “firefighters” are associated with relatively worse outcomes.

The policy ideals of responsive regulation have been developed on the basis of substantial empirical evidence. The overall formulation of responsive regulation theory itself, however, has rarely been empirically tested. This article sets out the theoretical concept of responsive regulation in the context of business regulation enforcement and discusses how we might operationalize and empirically measure it. We develop two alternative theoretical interpretations of responsive regulatory enforcement: “tit for tat” responsive regulation and “restorative justice” responsive regulation. We then measure business firms' perceptions of the reactions and counter‐reactions of a regulatory enforcement agency throughout the investigation and enforcement process. We find little evidence of tit for tat responsiveness actually occurring in practice. To the extent that tit for tat responsiveness does exist, we find a small amount of evidence that it has the hypothesized effects on behavior but not on attitudes. We find clearer evidence of restorative justice responsiveness having the hypothesized effects on attitudes but not on behavior.

Regulatory studies have traditionally focused on external political and administrative factors when explaining the behavior of regulatory inspectors. This is, however, only one part of the story about regulatory behavior. To understand the behavior of street‐level bureaucrats such as regulatory inspectors, it is essential to look not only at external political and administrative factors but also at the very interaction between the bureaucrat and the client. By focusing on differential treatment of regulated firms by inspectors and the explanatory power of the interaction between inspector and firm, the article shows that variation in the level of communication between inspector and regulatee helps to explain variation in regulatory leniency. The higher the level of communication, the more lenient is the inspector.

For decades there has been a trend in regulatory studies to advocate a responsive, tit‐for‐tat, regulatory strategy. However, most of the prominent arguments for this strategy are theoretical and few have tested its effectiveness. Even less tested has been whether or not regulatory inspectors manage to react responsively to the “conduct” of regulatees. By distinguishing between five different kinds of responsiveness, the present article tests these different kinds of responsiveness in four different regulatory areas, using data about more than 2,500 legal breaches. The empirical analyses show that regulatory inspectors manage to act responsively, but only to a small degree and not necessarily in the way that the theories of responsive and tit‐for‐tat regulation recommend. Furthermore, the analyses show large differences between the four regulatory areas suggesting that future studies should focus on the role of formal and informal institutional settings in creating responsiveness. If we want to design regulatory agencies that are able to regulate responsively we need to know what kind of institutional settings promote responsiveness.