Administrative Sciences

This study systematically reviews 53 peer-reviewed articles on public sector innovation published between 2021 and 2025 to synthesize knowledge on how innovation is conceptualized, triggered, enacted, and constrained. Findings reveal that innovation is framed across technological, organizational, governance, and social dimensions, reflecting substantial conceptual and theoretical diversity. Key triggers include digital transformation, leadership, inter-organizational collaboration, fiscal pressures, and workforce capabilities, with emphasis shifting toward technology, human capital, and collaboration in recent years. Innovation produces both positive outcomes, such as improved service quality, efficiency, and citizen engagement, and negative or unintended consequences, including implementation failures, equity concerns, and employee resistance. Persistent barriers, such as bureaucratic rigidity, risk-averse culture, accountability pressures, and political interference, operate as structural conditions rather than isolated obstacles. Theoretical foundations remain fragmented, with New Public Management, New Public Governance, institutional theory, and public value theory applied inconsistently. These findings underscore the need for integrative, context-sensitive approaches that combine institutional, human, and technological perspectives to guide innovation effectively. The review offers actionable insights for public managers and policymakers, emphasizing alignment with organizational capacity, leadership, and regulatory design, and highlights directions for future research to advance theory, practice, and policy in public sector innovation.

This qualitative study employs interpretive phenomenology and Actor–Network Theory (ANT) to examine the evolving role of AI as an agent within European marketing contexts. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 36 senior executives from the tourism, fintech, professional services, and digital media sectors, the study identifies four interconnected themes: (1) ambivalent human–AI co-agency, where AI operates as a “co-strategist” influencing budgets and decisions; (2) infrastructural and regulatory challenges arising from legacy systems and GDPR/EU AI Act constraints; (3) ethical issues concerning opacity, bias, and exclusion in hyper-personalization; and (4) the redefinition of professional identities towards hybrid socio-technical roles. The findings underscore AI’s role as a co-creator of strategy, governance, and power, highlighting the necessity of balanced co-agency, robust infrastructure, ethical safeguards, and adaptable skill sets. The AI-MARC framework (Agency, Infrastructure, Responsibility, Capability) provides a practical framework for governance of sustainable AI integration. This work addresses gaps in qualitative AI marketing research by emphasising reflexive practices amid evolving regulations, with the aim of fostering equitable networks that align innovation, fairness, and accountability.

Global employee work engagement remains critically low, with only 21% of employees engaged worldwide in 2024 and Switzerland ranking near the bottom in Europe at 8%. Existing theories and models that explain employee engagement (Reinforcement Theory, Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory, Equity Theory, Social Exchange Theory, Expectancy Theory, the Job Characteristics Model, Social Identity Theory, Self-Determination Theory, Conservation of Resource Theory, Psychological Empowerment Theory, Affective Events Theory, and the Job Demands–Resources Model) have been criticized for oversimplifying engagement processes, neglecting cultural and individual differences, and overemphasizing either intrinsic or extrinsic motivators. Addressing these gaps, this study proposes new principles for work engagement that integrate intrinsic and extrinsic motivators, cognitive and environmental variables, and dual employee–organization responsibilities. The framework emphasizes employee contributions (sincere effort, striving for excellence, ownership of meaningful tasks), organizational practices (fair treatment, participation, recognition, meaningful work), and effort–reward alignment as a central mediating mechanism. Moderating factors, including a culture of excellence and shared responsibility, ensure adaptability across diverse employee values, personalities, and motivational orientations. Ten propositions and associated measurement instruments are developed, grounded in established theories while operationalized for the Swiss organizational context, bridging theory and practice. The proposed framework offers a holistic, culturally sensitive, and actionable approach to enhancing engagement, providing both conceptual rigor and practical relevance for scholars and managers aiming to improve employee motivation and performance in complex, knowledge-based workplaces.