Research
My research focuses broadly on public administration, policy, and human resource management in the public sector. My research has been published in various academic journals including the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Public Administration Review, Public Management Review, Behavioural Public Policy, Nature Scientific Reports, JAMA Network Open, and others. It has also been cited in policy documents (e.g., Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, OECD, World Bank, Danish Government Commission on Healthcare) and highlighted in both German and Danish media outlets including prime time TV news (e.g., ARD, ZDF) and national newspapers (e.g., Süddeutsche, Zeit, Berlingske, Jyllands-Posten).
I am particularly interested in the following topics:
- Recruiting, selecting, and retaining the public workforce
- The role of artificial intelligence (AI) in public policy and government
- The motivation of citizens to contribute to public goods
For a complete list, see my Google Scholar profile.
Peer-reviewed publications
Recruiting, selecting, and retaining the public workforce
Public employers compete for staff on terms they cannot freely set. What they can change is how they describe the job and how they run the selection. I test those changes as field experiments on live vacancies and real campaigns. Two findings recur: the wording of a job advertisement moves who applies, and what managers predict will attract recruits often differs from what recruits themselves say.
The role of artificial intelligence (AI) in public policy and government
AI is entering public sector decisions faster than the evidence. Two questions run through this work. What happens when an organization discloses that it uses AI, and do managers and algorithms decide better together than either does alone.
The motivation of citizens to contribute to public goods
Governments reach for money when they want citizens to act. This work tests whether that is the right instrument. Across vaccination campaigns and survey experiments, financial incentives perform differently from what policy makers expect, and framing that gives citizens a sense of ownership does work that payment does not.