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This paper aims to identify and elaborate on the various interpretations and implications of e-government as a process of public policy-making and as an act of information systems (IS) project management. The paper contributes to the search for a theoretical conceptualization by bridging policy project management and policy-making in public sector organizations at a crossroad of e-government to improve sustainable e-government research.

The research design of this paper focus on a model balancing the two research fields; public policy-making and analysis, and project management in the IS field. Through this model, four critical aspects of the processes are identified: objective, incentives/motivation, input/trigger and coordinative actor. These critical aspects are illustrated through findings from four case studies that are re-analyzed here. The cases show how the conceptual model through different dimensions can balance the two perspectives to reach a more sustainable outcome of e-government.

The paper shows that the two perspectives on e-government – public policy-making and project management – can be balanced and thereby reach a more sustainable outcome at this crossroad. The case studies re-visited in this paper are compared and serves as illustrations of these perspectives and different configurations of them in search for the crossroad.

A main contribution of the paper is that e-government projects should be studied in, and taking both public policy-making and IS project management into account to be sustainable and successful. Even if the case studies have been conducted in Sweden, the conceptual results in this paper can be analytically generalized into other setting. However, there is a need for more comparative and conceptual studies in the field of e-government to shed light on the multi-faceted crossroads illustrated in this paper.

The paper offers new insights on how to integrate, bridge and even balance the two aspects of e-government policy aspects and projects management to achieve more sustainable and successful e-government.

The paper contributes to the literature by shedding light on the crossroad of policy aspects and IS project management approaches in the e-government field. The paper points at the need to further develop the understanding and design of e-government at the crossroad of information system models and political science concepts.

The “two communities” metaphor for the relationship between policy and academia is inconsistent with empirical evidence that shows that a sizeable minority of public servants use academic research in their policy-related work. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the two communities metaphor by comparing the personal and professional characteristics of Australian public servants who claim to use research in their policy work with the characteristics of those who claim not to use research.

Using data from a survey of 2,084 public servants from the state and federal levels in Australia carried out from 2011 to 2013, tests of statistical significance were conducted for the relationship between some personal and professional characteristics (e.g. gender, age, work experience) and the claim that research is used in policy-related work.

The “two communities” metaphor is not an accurate description of the relationship between policy and academia. In reality, public servants who claim to use academic research in their policy work are more likely to have much in common with academics, including having postgraduate degrees and work experience in the university sector.

Rather than existing as isolated solitudes, the findings in this paper suggest that the policy and academic communities possess links that can encourage the use of research in policy making.

The findings presented in this paper are especially important for the evidence-based policy movement, which emphasises the value of the use of research evidence in the creation of public policy.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how research on the intersection of public policy and entrepreneurship has been bounded by its static approach and how a processual analysis based on Austrian economics can advance the understanding of the subject matter.

Rooted in the Austrian school of economics, this conceptual paper adopts a processual approach in order to unveil the effects that public policy exerts upon entrepreneurship and the market process.

The authors argue that by interfering with the market process, public policy detrimentally alters what otherwise would have been the market's natural evolution reflecting acting individuals' subjective valuations. It causes progressively self-reinforcing market distortions which result in comparatively lower levels of both capital accumulation and societal wealth.

The paper urges future research to rethink public policy's effects on entrepreneurship and to explore them more comprehensively, utilizing market process analysis.

This research suggests that public policy can never be neutral but necessarily comes with distortive and often detrimental effects. That is, public policy comes at the innate expense of hampering the entrepreneurial process. Thus, new public policies and those already in place should be carefully reconsidered in light of these effects.

This paper offers a novel take on how to best understand the effects public policy has on entrepreneurship and the market process.

This study aims to identify the origins, mechanisms and outcomes of applying behavioral insight in public policy research.

The authors conducted a systematic literature review to answer three research questions. The authors identified 387 primary studies, dated from January 2000 to April 2021 and coded them through a thematic analysis. Related studies were obtained through searching in Emerald, ScienceDirect, Sage, Springer, Wiley and Routledge.

The results identified eight themes for origins, 16 themes for mechanisms/techniques and 13 outcome-related themes. Through the thematic analysis, the major mechanisms of behavioral approach were found to be social marketing, information provision, social norms, incentives, affect, regulation design, framing, salience, defaults, simplification, networking, environment design, scheduled announcements, commitments, attitude-preference-behavior manifestation and combining behavioral and nonbehavioral mechanisms.

The findings of this review help policymakers to design or redesign policy elements.

This review provides the first systematic exploration of the existing literature on behavioral public policy.

It was not until the late 1960s that housing attracted much attention from academic social scientists. Since that time the literature has expanded widely and diversified, establishing housing with a specialised status in economics, sociology, politics, and in related subjects. As we would expect, the new literature covers a technical, statistical, theoretical, ideological, and historical range. Housing studies have not been conceived and interpreted in a monolithic way, with generally accepted concepts and principles, or with uniformly fixed and precise methodological approaches. Instead, some studies have been derived selectively from diverse bases in conventional theories in economics or sociology, or politics. Others have their origins in less conventional social theory, including neo‐Marxist theory which has had a wider intellectual following in the modern democracies since the mid‐1970s. With all this diversity, and in a context where ideological positions compete, housing studies have consequently left in their wake some significant controversies and some gaps in evaluative perspective. In short, the new housing intellectuals have written from personal commitments to particular cognitive, theoretical, ideological, and national positions and experiences. This present piece of writing takes up the two main themes which have emerged in the recent literature. These themes are first, questions relating to building and developing housing theory, and, second, the issue of how we are to conceptualise housing and relate it to policy studies. We shall be arguing that the two themes are closely related: in order to create a useful housing theory we must have awareness and understanding of housing practice and the nature of housing.

Public administration as an aspect of governmental activity has existed as long as political systems have been functioning and trying to achieve program objectives set by the political decision-makers. Public administration as a field of systematic study is much more recent. Advisers to rulers and commentators on the workings of government have recorded their observations from time to time in sources as varied as Kautilya's Arthasastra in ancient India, the Bible, Aristotle's Politics, and Machiavelli's The Prince, but it was not until the eighteenth century that cameralism, concerned with the systematic management of governmental affairs, became a specialty of German scholars in Western Europe. In the United States, such a development did not take place until the latter part of the nineteenth century, with the publication in 1887 of Woodrow Wilson's famous essay, “The Study of Administration,” generally considered the starting point. Since that time, public administration has become a well-recognized area of specialized interest, either as a subfield of political science or as an academic discipline in its own right.

The authors aim to review a five‐year multi‐study research programme on the role of public dialogue in the social and cultural sustainability of biotechnology developments in New Zealand.

The authors conducted a critical review of all the published research products from a five‐year government‐funded study of the cultural and social aspects of sustainable biotechnology in New Zealand.

The review research highlights how New Zealand Government policies on biotechnology, which motivated the research programme, were fore‐grounded on economic progress and competitive positioning. Thus, debate on sustainable biotechnology issues became cast in economic and technical terms, while public dialogue became seen as diversionary and unsubstantiated. The analysis concludes that the programme was ineffective in influencing government policy and fell victim to the very problem of science governance that its purpose was designed to address.

The research develops implications regarding the ability of government‐funded sustainability research to influence policy.

The review focuses on the purpose, content, outcomes, and context of the research programme and identifies a number of key themes that arose from the programme that are useful for other sustainability policy researchers. The reviewers conclude that this case demonstrates that the marketization of the public sphere depoliticises the social and cultural construction of the nation's future.

Purpose – This chapter examines the need, and possibilities, for social science research that is grounded in the life sciences.

Design/methodology/approach – The chapter starts with the observation that the social sciences have been tied far too closely to models and concepts in the physical sciences, which has both limited and distorted research findings. The predominant models used in much of social science cannot meet the challenges we face. Examining issues in political science in particular, the author demonstrates the value of a biopolitical perspective for political science research and policy analysis relevant to the challenges we face.

Findings – Studies about human issues should be based on research that considers humans as part of the evolving biological world. Key biopolicy research areas illustrate the value and flexibility of life science models and data. Political science can and should provide important insights to our understanding of socio-political issues and options, but to succeed the discipline must abandon mechanistic models of human nature and motivation and return to an understanding based in the life sciences.

Practical implications (if applicable) – The discussion analyzes the overall strengths and weaknesses of the proposal to adopt a biopolicy approach, and concludes that obstacles, though real, can be overcome. There are opportunities for substantial contributions to social science.

Social implications (if applicable) – Failure to integrate political science with a life sciences perspective will mean a continuation of disciplinary work that is largely irrelevant or inadequate to emerging issues and problems.

Original/value of chapter – The value of this chapter is to highlight the need for a reexamination of the mechanistic models as well as the disciplinary boundaries that control most social science, and political science in particular. It examines widely recognized issues and challenges facing Western societies (and global communities) to illustrate that a life sciences perspective is essential to both analysis and policy options. It is an important consideration for academics (teachers and students) policy researchers, and policy makers as well.

“Grey”, “ephemeral”, “fugitive”, and “non‐trade” are terms used to describe the unique publications issued by American private public policy research organizations. These research organizations often publish the best and brightest analytical thinking about public problem‐solving and wield considerable influence in the process of national policymaking. Information professionals, responsible for social science collections, have for decades agonized over issues related to acquiring, cataloging, and organizing this unorthodox literature. Librarians have traditionally viewed this body of literature as too difficult and laborious to locate and inferior by library standards to sit on open shelves among the general collection.

Public policy has been an integral part of the response mechanisms used to manage the COVID-19 crisis. As a result, greater attention has been placed on policy planners in terms of how they can enact entrepreneurial ideas that help to alleviate the turmoil surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. In this article, the crisis management literature is utilised as a way of understanding future research directions regarding entrepreneurial behaviour in the COVID-19 pandemic.

A review of the existing research on crisis management is conducted with the aim of identifying future research trends. Thus, this article will enable a better understanding of potential future research tracks such as (1) the consequences of the crisis, (2) environmental context, (3) empirical advancement and methodological change, (4) entrepreneurial marketing and branding, (5) crisis management, (6) policy and governance and (7) stress and wellbeing.

There a numerous ways research on COVID-19 can make theoretical, empirical and policy advancement. Therefore, an interdisciplinary perspective is required in order to consider alternative points of view regarding the link between COVID-19, entrepreneurship and public policy.

The ways research on COVID-19, entrepreneurship and public policy can be advanced are discussed in relation to the identified research tracks but also potential theoretical implications for new research.