Serving a greater purpose: public servants’ views on meaningful digitalization and automation in street-level bureaucracies

Abstract

Against the background of digitalized service delivery and the rise of automated decision-making and artificial intelligence, this paper analyses public servants' perceptions. It examines meaningfulness, the perceived added value for employees, citizen-clients, and society. Based on a survey of 1,753 public servants in German vehicle registration, building permit, and tax authorities and a Fuzzy-Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis, results show that digital tools are viewed as meaningful, particularly when providing information and automating common tasks for both (non-)programmed decisions, without taking over final decision-making. Additionally, public servants’ influence during the implementation plays a pivotal role for the perceived meaningfulness.