Untangling Agile Government: On the Dual Necessities of Structure and Agility

McBride, Keegan; Kupi, Maximilian; Bryson, Joanna J.

doi:10.1142/9789811239700_0002

Cited by 5 publications

(12 citation statements)

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“…Or one that is rejected altogether. This is in line with Mergel (2023, p. 13) This finding that agile and digital are inherently linked does not seem surprising given that agile, in its most famous approach, is a software development method (McBride et al, 2022). Also, in the early literature on its application in the public sector, it is framed as addressing "the need to innovate digital service delivery in government" (Mergel, 2016, p. 1).…”

Section: Modern Talking and Narratives Of Agilementioning

confidence: 59%

“…To be recognised as an idea and reform, new trends must incorporate and build on certain taken-for-granted ideas to take hold in administrations (Polzer et al, 2016). Moreover, our analysis shows how the practitioners' narratives resemble the scattered picture of what agile is in government in particular, and how it manifests as depicted in the literature (McBride et al, 2022;Mergel et al, 2018;Soe & Drechsler, 2018). In doing so, we contribute to the literature on agile government with a more structured picture of the diversity of how agile is narrated in practice within the context of bureaucracy.…”

Section: Modern Talking and Narratives Of Agilementioning

confidence: 85%

“…At its core, however, all narratives employ a kind of 'modern talking', using agile vocabulary to legitimise the shift towards modern and digital public sector organisations. Overall, therefore, this article contributes to the discussion of the characteristics of agile as a management fashion (McBride et al, 2022;Roper et al, 2022).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…Finally, it is beyond the scope of this paper to draw conclusions about the potential advantages or disadvantages of agile for public sector organisations. Following previous research in this area (Mergel et al, 2021), scholars could explore how organisational performance or public value delivery changes following the introduction of agile measures (McBride et al, 2022), also incorporating the perspective of citizens. However, researchers should be cautious about the individual nature of what agile is or is presented as in the examined case.…”

Section: Limitations and Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…First, it provides linguistic and rhetoric cues to what government practitioners might consider relevant components of agile (Loewenstein et al, 2012;Vaara & Fritsch, 2022). Second, revealing how actors construct the intertwining of government structure and stability with features of organisational agile in their narratives enables a better understanding of the complex relationships between these concepts in practice (Bartel & Garud, 2009;McBride et al, 2022). Therefore, narrative analysis can be considered central to the study of (agile) change initiatives, as it forms the basis for understanding this concept and its further implementation, diffusion or, conversely, the resistance to it (Waldorff & Madsen, 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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‘Modern talking’: Narratives of agile by German public sector employees

Kühler,

Drathschmidt,

Großmann

2024

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Despite growing interest, we lack a clear understanding of how the arguably ambiguous phenomenon of agile is perceived in government practice. This study aims to alleviate this puzzle by investigating how managers and employees in German public sector organisations make sense of agile as a spreading management fashion in the form of narratives. This is important because narratives function as innovation carriers that ultimately influence the manifestations of the concept in organisations. Based on a multi-case study of 31 interviews and 24 responses to a qualitative online survey conducted in 2021 and 2022, we provide insights into what public sector managers, employees and consultants understand (and, more importantly, do not understand) as agile and how they weave it into their existing reality of bureaucratic organisations. We uncover three meta-narratives of agile government, which we label ‘renew’, ‘complement’ and ‘integrate’. In particular, the meta-narratives differ in their positioning of how agile interacts with the characteristics of bureaucratic organisations. Importantly, we also show that agile as a management fad serves as a projection surface for what actors want from a modern and digital organisation. Thus, the vocabulary of agile government within the narratives is inherently linked to other diffusing phenomena such as new work or digitalisation.

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Section: Modern Talking and Narratives Of Agilementioning

confidence: 59%

Section: Modern Talking and Narratives Of Agilementioning

confidence: 85%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Section: Limitations and Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

‘Modern talking’: Narratives of agile by German public sector employees

Kühler,

Drathschmidt,

Großmann

2024

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Organizational structure, agility, and public value-driven innovation performance in the UAE public services

Almazrouei,

Elias Sarker,

Zervopoulos

et al. 2024

Heliyon

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What drives the adoption of agile government? Insights from Austria, Germany, and Switzerland

Hegele,

Stoll

2024

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Agile approaches are increasingly being used in the public sector. What is driving the adoption of agile ways of working, however, remains unclear. In this paper we ask the following two questions: Which agile approaches are being used in public sector organizations? Under which circumstances do public sector organizations use which agile practices? To analyze these questions, we conducted a standardized survey among over 450 civil servants in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. Results from the logistic regression analyses indicate that various forms of agile practices are used in the public sector in all three countries. PSOs operating in constantly changing, uncertain environments are more likely to adopt agile. Political and managerial leadership is vital if the aim is to become more agile as a government. Finally, the results show that tasks that require constant internal and external stakeholder involvement and those that require radically new ideas and ways of working lead PSOs to introduce more comprehensive forms of agile working. This work advances the state of literature by providing the first quantitative analysis of the state of agile in the three countries, developing an analytical framework and measurement of agile government, and analyzing the external circumstances under which agile is being used in the public sector.

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Untangling Agile Government: On the Dual Necessities of Structure and Agility

Cited by 5 publications

References 0 publications

‘Modern talking’: Narratives of agile by German public sector employees

‘Modern talking’: Narratives of agile by German public sector employees

Organizational structure, agility, and public value-driven innovation performance in the UAE public services

What drives the adoption of agile government? Insights from Austria, Germany, and Switzerland

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