COVID-19 and organizational changes in public administration – preliminary findings from Czechia
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| Year of publication | 2023 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | In this paper we present our overall findings on changes in the public authorities on national and subnational levels (i.e., on ministries, agencies existing on the central level, ‘deconcentrates’) based on data obtained from 1177 partially or fully completed questionnaires (in the data analysis we included data from questionnaires that were completed from 50 to 100 %). We focus on overall findings and differences in answers across different organizations and job positions. In the present structural equitation modelling (SEM) analysis are being conducted of which the findings will provide us with more insight (including the multigroup analysis that will check the differences on modelling regarding the type of service organisation). The findings indicate especially the following: (1) especially people (employees) were impacted by the very first changes made due to the COVID19 pandemic; (2) the possibility to switch to online tools was determined by the preparedness of public authorities and, also, by the speed in which changes could be made; (3) particularly ministries were the authorities that struggled with the level of digitalization of their internal processes and the use of technologies (due to cultural reasons, preferred working methods, available equipment etc.); (4) the COVID-19 crisis has contributed to greater formalization and top-down decision-making, this could be seen in data obtained from agencies; (5) differences in perceptions reported by employees on different levels of organizational hierarchies have been identified (top managers, middle and lower-level managers) and the perceived level of digitalization of public authorities may be lower in the case of top-level managers. |
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