The Virtual World of the Public Servant: An Introduction

The last one to two decades are regarded as the era of e-government, smart technology and rapid evolutions in big data, artificial intelligence, and robotics (Desouza and Jacob 2017; Dickinson 2018). Rapid technological advancement poses opportunities, challenges, and risks to governments and public servants around the world as governments seek to maximize the benefits of new technologies. While of technological investments are often positioned as beneficial to both governments and citizens – creating efficiencies and making services easier to navigate – they are not without their challenges. Some of these challenges are unique to specific technological innovations, while others are perennial public service tensions brought into new contexts. The contributions in this part explore a wide range of issues pertaining to current and emerging challenges concerning technology and the public service. Together, they show us that while much is new in terms of the technology itself, our existing base of public administration evidence and theory offers plenty of tools for understanding and informing how we respond to technological change and work to harness its potential while minimizing risks