Balancing Independence and Positive Engagement: How Inspectors General Work with Agencies and Congress

Submitted by on Mon, 04/20/2015 - 09:58

In the U.S. government, Inspectors General (IGs) are tasked by statute with important roles to promote government efficiency and effectiveness, including assessing and investigating fraud or waste, providing independent advice on agency performance and compliance, reporting to their host agency and Congress on their findings, and doing so in a way that maintains independence.

Using Innovation and Technology to Improve City Services

Submitted by on Thu, 04/09/2015 - 12:27

In this report, Professor Greenberg examines a dozen cities across the United States that have award-winning reputations for using innovation and technology to improve the services they provide to their residents. She explores a variety of success factors associated with effective service delivery at the local level, including:

New Jerseys Manage By Data Program: Changing Culture and Capacity to Improve Outcomes

Submitted by on Thu, 04/09/2015 - 12:09

Over the last decade, a major trend in government management has involved the increased use of data by government executives. The “data” movement has many names. In Robert Behn’new book, The PerformanceStat Potential, “PerformanceStat” refers to the many “Stat” programs initiated after the New York City Police Department successfully launched CompStat in the 1990s. Others use the term “analytics” to capture the use of data.

How Will Government Adapt?

Submitted by on Sun, 03/01/2015 - 11:32

The National Academy of Public Administration’s November 2014 annual meeting raised a number of key issues facing public administrators in coming years. The IBM Center for The Business of Government collaborated with the Academy to highlight some key findings and takeaways from that meeting.

Defining a Framework for Decision Making in Cyberspace

Submitted by on Wed, 02/04/2015 - 10:33

This report is the product of a group of experts, which was convened by the Department of Computer Science at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP). IUP brought together an interdisciplinary panel of experts in national security, international relations, foreign policy, information system network and security, public policy, and computer science. These experts participated in two collaborative roundtable meetings during the first six months of 2014.

A Guide for Making Innovation Offices Work

Submitted by on Wed, 10/22/2014 - 07:54

In this report, Burstein and Black examine the recent trend toward the creation of innovation offices across the nation at all levels of government to understand the structural models now being used to stimulate innovation—both internally within an agency, and externally for the agency’s partners and communities. Based on research into a broad range of federal, state, and local innovation offices, the authors identify six different models for how an innovation office can operate:

Inter-Organizational Networks: A Review of the Literature to Inform Practice

Submitted by on Mon, 09/22/2014 - 13:48

This report examines the literature on interorganizational networks that has evolved over the past decade, which has been written from the perspective of a wide range of academic disciplines, such as sociology, business management, public administration, and political science. 

Participatory Budgeting: Ten Actions to Engage Citizens via Social Media

Submitted by on Thu, 09/04/2014 - 13:35

It has since spread to 1,000 other cities worldwide and is gaining interest in U.S. cities as well.

Dr. Gordon’s report offers an overview of the state of participatory budgeting, and the potential value of integrating the use of social media into the participatory process design. Her report details three case studies of U.S. communities that have undertaken participatory budgeting initiatives.  While these cases are relatively small in scope, they provide insights into what potential users need to consider if they wanted to develop their own initiatives.

Call for Research Report Proposals

Submitted by on Tue, 08/19/2014 - 10:51

Since the creation of the IBM Center for The Business of Government over 16 years ago, it has been our goal to help public sector leaders and managers address real-world problems by sponsoring independent, third-party research from top minds in academe and the nonprofit sector. We aim to produce research and analysis that helps government leaders respond more effectively to their mission and management challenges.

Strategies to Manage Well Given Scarce Resources

Submitted by on Thu, 07/24/2014 - 10:02

The Center has published a variety of reports and related materials that provide ways for government to succeed in the face of constraints. Accordingly, we have brought key findings on this topic together in this compilation, found in the upper left-hand portion of the page, or as individual articles:

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