Guest editorial: Managing the ‘digitalized’ public sector: building communities and creating knowledge around an evolving DNA

In a time increasingly defined by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity and digital predominance (VUCAD), the public sector finds itself at the heart of a critical transformation (Mintrom and O'Connor, 2024). As the world navigates through a poly-crisis era – characterized by overlapping challenges such as economic downturns, pandemics, geopolitical instabilities and acute energy shortages – the capacity of public sector organizations to anticipate, adapt and respond to these multifaceted crises has never been more crucial (Todisco et al., 2024).

Many recent grand challenges (digitalization, global crisis and sustainability) are putting organizations under pressure to manage complex issues under different perspectives: social, political, economic and technological. Complex issues require complex processes to be handled and solved. Managing these issues separately may leave many aspects unsolved, while a holistic approach could provide better, and more long-time oriented, solutions (Mergel et al., 2019).

We, as authors and guest editors of this special issue titled “Managing the ‘digitalized’ public sector: the struggle between internal assets and external drivers of knowledge”, have sought to encourage this kind of discussion not only in the special issue but also in our experiences as convenors and/or track chairs at conferences on public management issues over (about) the last 10 years. Therefore, in this editorial, we propose a journey in the complex issue of digital transformation in the public sector, guiding the readers through the various steps we made over the last years in different conferences and the related building of a knowing community around the theme of digital transformation in the public sector. In more detail, we trace our decade-long activity of convening academic communities through EGOS and EGPA conferences, conceptualizing these events as pracademic spaces for co-producing knowledge that bridges theory and practice. Using the metaphor of a community's evolving DNA, the editorial illustrates how conferences, dialogues and collaborative practices become potential knowing communities and collectively build a shared understanding of digital transformation in the public sector.

Knowing communities are well renowned as able to improve practice (Bellini and Canonico, 2008; Wenger, 1998), and this is even more important for academics willing to provide value added to society as well as practical and effective solutions to current complex challenges (Edelheim et al., 2018).

On these grounds, the editorial argues that sustainable digital transformation depends on cultivating communities of practice that foster reflexive, human-centred and anticipatory public sector reforms aligned with broader societal goals. Indeed, the articles included in this Special Issue highlight how digitalization is not merely technological but deeply organizational and societal, requiring holistic approaches that balance innovation, inclusion, and well-being and reshape governance, work practices and organizational culture.

In the following section, we review the literature on digital transformation in the public sector, discussing the main trends, dimensions and challenges. In Section 3, we present our methodological approach adopted in this editorial and in the conferences as well, displaying how we framed our community-building intervention. Two sub-sections in Section 3 will then discuss the metaphor of building a community and its DNA as a knowledge creation approach. In Section 4, we discuss the takeaways emerged through the last conferences we convened, providing some theoretical and practical implications useful both for colleagues doing research in the public management field and for public sector practitioners. In this section, we also show the link to the Special Issue and introduce the papers published within the Special Issue.

In the final section, we provide some concluding remarks and suggest possible avenues for future research.

Over the last years, digitalization has brought many new challenges to organizations and their organizational arrangements (e.g. workflow, teamwork, leadership styles and organizational culture) (Schuster et al., 2020; Välikangas and Lewin, 2020; Palumbo, 2020; Tomo, 2023; Van der Wal, 2020), especially considering the growing use of emerging technologies and new forms of work (Palumbo, 2020; Tursunbayeva, 2019; Todisco et al., 2023).

Indeed, digital transformation processes may have intertwined and interconnected effects on the individual (e.g. diversity management, control, leadership, motivation and well-being), organizational (e.g. technology, performance and flexibility) and societal levels (e.g. circular economy impact considering environmental and productivity challenges and benefits due to changing employees commuting and resources consumption habits) (Dabrowska et al., 2022; Iden and Bygstad, 2024; Saura et al., 2022; Tomo and Mangia, 2025).

From an internal (micro and meso) perspective, the degree of complexity characterizing digital transformation requires a profound re-evaluation of organizational structures and processes, including workflows, teamwork dynamics, leadership models, cultural paradigms and new human resources management capabilities. Indeed, the process of digital transformation involves more than just adopting technology and designing information systems within organizations. Rather, it encompasses a deep cultural shift towards innovation and citizen-centric governance (Mergel et al., 2019). According to Mergel et al. (2019), digital transformation entails a holistic rethinking of processes, structures and services to meet contemporary societal needs using digital tools.

Embracing the holistic perspective of digital transformation processes means understanding that its effectiveness depends on different dimensions, going beyond the mere adoption and use of technology: the introduction of new forms of work, the design of new workplaces, the development of new digital skills and culture and the design of new human resources management practices.

For instance, new ways of working (smart, agile, hybrid, remote and telework) represent a revolution in contemporary work environments, especially for the public sector, since they have been accompanied by the acceleration of previously overlooked or not fully implemented, processes of digitalization (Todisco et al., 2023). As a result, there is nowadays a demand and an expectation for employees not only to be flexible and adaptable but also to master such new modes of working in ways that make the organizations more productive than before. This expresses to some extent what Bauman (2000), called “liquid modernity”, aiming at releasing the brakes of deregulation, liberalization, flexibilization and fluidity, marking the erosion of organizational boundaries as well as the breaking of time and space dimensions.

Regarding the design of new workplaces, technology and new ways of working implied the re-organization of workplaces for employees working from distance (i.e. from co-working spaces or from their own places – home), but this has also produced effects on public employees' identities and sense-making of their work. In this regard, Tomo and Mangia (2025), starting from the paper by Wilhoit Larson (2021) where the author individuated five practices used by employees to recreate home at work, conceptualized six practices (Wilhoit Larson's five plus a sixth) used by public employees to rebuild a sense of working at home when they are in remote or smart working mode.

The article aimed to understand the experiences and work dynamics within an increasingly digitized public administration and how these dynamics could impact the identity of public employees and their way of giving meaning to their role (Wilhoit Larson, 2021; Tomo, 2023; Petani and Mengis, 2021) and the degree of involvement and participation within their organizations (Gnankob et al., 2022; Barbieri et al., 2024). The six practices found by Tomo and Mangia (2025), linked to as many identity strategies (inserted in parentheses) adopted by public employees, were: (1) home worklessness (identity impoverishment and instability); (2) workspace within a private space (identity overlapping, integration or hybridization); (3) home place-making (identity sense-making); (4) creating work at home (identity segmentation); (5) there's no place like work (identity reinforcement) and (6) themed home office (identity enrichment).

The use of technology, especially the most radical ones (e.g. artificial intelligence, big data analytics and blockchain), has an influence also on different types of organizational processes: decision-making and communication processes; managerial processes (management of dispersed/virtual teams, new forms of (e-)leadership and control) and operational processes (work dematerialization, enhancement and flexibility). Also, the rise of social-digital communities and new media has led to increasing online interactions and changes in communication due to instant messaging, changes in vocabulary and slang, use of abbreviations, acronyms, emojis, emoticons and avatars.

To master this radical change concerning the use of technology, the development of new processes and new modes of communication, there is the need of developing new skills. According to Van Laar et al. (2017), these skills go beyond the mere basic technical skills (IT, ICT and computer literacy). Indeed, they should support employees in higher-order thinking processes and be related to cognitive processes favouring employees' continuous learning. More in detail, according to the authors, these skills are information management, critical thinking, creativity, problem solving, collaboration, communication, technical, self-direction, lifelong learning, ethical awareness, cultural awareness and flexibility.

Finally, digital transformation also requires a rethinking of HRM practices. HRM practices are essential to improve employees' well-being (EWB), work-life balance (WLB), organizational citizenship behaviours (OCBs) and to sustain identification and sense-making processes (Chaudhary et al., 2022; Costa et al., 2024; Gnankob et al., 2022; Tomo and Mangia, 2025). In this regard, HRM practices may support the design of “great places to work”, especially considering the need of providing employees with resources and support for more human-centred and ergonomic workplaces when working from distance (i.e. with the new forms of work) (Petani and Mengis, 2021). Activities in this sense might be virtual team-building, regular check-ins with colleagues and encouraging employees to set clear boundaries between work and personal life (Todisco et al., 2023). Additionally, effective communication and conflict management play a crucial role in the success of virtual teams, particularly for organizations with geographically dispersed or remote employees (Klonek et al., 2022). In such cases, organizations must establish an environment conducive to e-leadership development, managing interdependencies and motivating employees (Chaudhary et al., 2022).

Again, HRM practices are fundamental in creating the setting and encouraging the development of digital skills and culture (Lopes et al., 2023).

However, organizations must be aware of the fact that individual conditions may differ significantly (Tomo and Mangia, 2025). Consequently, the relationship between evolving work models, employee well-being and work-life balance is complex and influenced by how new work environments are structured and supported through organizational policies.

On these grounds, given the complexity and intertwined nature of the diverse socio-technical dimensions encompassing digital transformation, it is crucial to understand the challenges brought by this new context (new workplaces, practices and technologies) as well as the connected reforms and the effects they might have, after their introduction, on organizational and managerial practices, on the new forms of work and work environments at rise in the public sector and on the need of balancing internal assets and external drivers of knowledge (e.g. consultants).

Indeed, from a macro and/or external perspective, the complexity characterizing digital transformation may require public administrations entrusting such a complex task to individuals or firms with more adequate and updated digital competences. Such consideration highlights the attractiveness to external consultants willing to integrate public administration's (sometimes scarce) knowledge with their expertise to handle the introduction of digital processes.

However, this, in turn, may represent another challenge for public administrations, as they must deal with external consulting firms often driven by short-term goals (e.g. profits and influence over decision-making processes), also risking incurring in vendor (consulting) lock-in.

In this special issue as well as in the conferences where we acted as convenors and/or track chairs, we sought to address the complexity of digital transformation in the public sector by inviting authors to reflect upon the diverse nuances and levels of impact of this process.

Our journey is not just a collection of academic contributions but a living process of knowledge creation carried out within diverse networks of learning societies such as the European Group of Organizational Studies (EGOS) and– European Group of Public Administration (EGPA) community of academics, young researchers and practitioners. Both networks offered ideal critical lenses through which to continue exploring our topic. Together, they have represented a complementary medium for academics and pracademic knowledge creation: EGOS with its emphasis on theory development and creativity across organizational studies, while EGPA anchors these explorations within the public management, policy and governance realities of public administration. By moving between these two arenas, intellectual ad practitioner community has critically examined digital transformation in the public sector from multiple vantage points, combining conceptual innovation with applied insights.

Recent research has shown that conferences can be conceived not merely as venues for academic dissemination, but as living laboratories for creativity, sustainability and social experimentation (Bertella and Castriotta, 2024). Their study of the EGOS 2023 Colloquium demonstrates how creative and reflexive practices – such as the #SailingEGOS initiative – can function as prototypes for re-imagining academic gatherings as low-carbon, inclusive and intellectually generative events. This aligns with our conceptualization of conferences as pracademic spaces for collective knowledge creation, where dialogue and co-experimentation become mechanisms for advancing both scholarly thinking and sustainable practice, where theory and practice meet to co-produce knowledge.

Our trajectory dates to 2018, when we first convened a sub-theme at the EGOS Colloquium on human resources management in the public sector. This sub-theme has then developed through the years and across global events and trends, embracing the digital evolution of the public sector. Specifically, in this editorial, we build upon our experience as sub-theme convenors at EGOS 2023, 2024 and 2025 to design a path of how the issue of digital transformation in the public sector evolved over the last years. Theoretically, we will ground our reasoning on the concepts of the journey, development of knowledge and construction of a DNA as a metaphor for referring to the building of a community on digital transformation of the public sector.

Academic literature has long emphasized that knowledge creation is not an individual endeavour but a social, cumulative and iterative process that thrives on dialogue, interaction and shared reflection (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995; Tsoukas, 2009; Louw and Zuber-Skerritt, 2011). Conferences and research networks play a crucial role in this dynamic by creating what Nonaka (1994) conceptualized as ba – a shared space for emerging relationships, collective experimentation and collaborative learning. Within such spaces, knowledge evolves through the continuous conversion between tacit and explicit dimensions, where learning occurs not only by producing new theories but also by reinterpreting and recombining existing insights (Gherardi, 2019; Nicolini, 2022).

EGOS exemplifies how these relational and reflexive spaces nurture collective sense-making and the development of shared conceptual frameworks that transcend disciplinary boundaries. Likewise, EGPA provides an institutionalized forum where pracademic exchanges can connect theory to public sector practice, reinforcing the link between knowledge production and societal impact. Research networks such as these do not merely disseminate knowledge; they act as epistemic communities that co-produce theoretical and methodological innovations by enabling encounters between diverse perspectives and contexts (Brown and Duguid, 2001; Wenger, 1998).

In this sense, our sub-theme functioned as a microcosm: a temporary yet generative community where ideas were debated, reshaped and recombined, gradually sedimenting into a common DNA of digital transformation in the public sector.

Knowledge creation in our journey is not a linear accumulation of insights, but a dynamic, iterative and collective process. The metaphor of DNA helps us to capture this complexity: each conference, interaction and paper contributes a new strand, a mutation or a recombination that enriches the overall genome of knowledge about digital transformation in the public sector. Rather than a fixed structure, this DNA evolves through time, adapting to contextual shifts and integrating diverse perspectives from scholars, practitioners and institutions.

Following Bertella and Castriotta (2024), we may interpret the evolution of our community's DNA as an alternation between “inside-the-box” practices – incremental, institutionally grounded approaches to governance and HRM – and “outside-the-box” experimentation that embraces uncertainty times.

The metaphor of DNA has accompanied our reflections in EGOS sub-themes, as shown in Figure 1 below.

Each of these stages generated pieces of DNA, knowledge strands that together compose a more complex genome of digital transformation in the public sector.

The editorial thus aims to map and weave these strands into a coherent narrative. We do this by deliberately adopting a participatory and reflexive approach, seeking to move beyond the conventional sequencing of pre-, during- and post-conference activities as mere logistical steps. Instead, we conceived these moments as interdependent phases of a single process aimed at cultivating a sense of scholarly community, stimulating dialogical reflection and orienting research conversations toward prospective trajectories. The community engaged in this process consisted of around 30 scholars who voluntarily took part in a series of structured activities, generating a variety of multimodal outputs – including keywords, maps, collages, scenarios and group discussions – that provide the empirical basis for subsequent analysis.

The conference phase was organized as a combination of embodied, visual and digital practices, each designed to elicit different forms of knowledge articulation and collective reasoning. It opened with a walking dialogue through Athens, inspired by Socratic inquiry and peripatetic learning, which served not merely as an icebreaker but as an embodied method for situating scholarly identities within a historical and symbolic landscape. By conversing while moving, participants engaged in a rhythm of thought that foregrounded relationality, resonance and reflective questioning. This was followed by the introduction of a bibliometric map, constructed from Web of Science data, which made visible the intellectual networks represented in the sub-theme. Rather than functioning as a neutral backdrop, the map operated as a boundary object that simultaneously reflected existing proximities and stimulated recognition of gaps and latent intersections among participants' research agendas (Zupic and Čater, 2015). The subsequent paper sessions embedded analogic knowledge mapping exercises, where participants identified five core keywords per paper and added five further keywords pointing to possible extensions, tensions or future developments. These were progressively placed on A3 cartographies, which evolved across days 2–4 into a visual archive of the discussions. This iterative practice, structured around the heuristic “Inside the Box – Outside the Box – Into New Boxes” (Weisberg and Markman, 2009; Cropley, 2006), encouraged participants to move from descriptive fidelity to speculative exploration, creating conceptual bridges across contributions that might otherwise have remained unconnected. On the final day, the process culminated in scenario-building exercises, where participants worked in small groups to articulate collective imaginaries of desirable futures (Gümüsay and Reinecke, 2024). Each group first engaged in textual drafting with the aid of ChatGPT Pro, which facilitated the rapid generation of narrative structures and then translated these scenarios into analogic collage maps by integrating conceptual keywords with visual material drawn from international press and creative magazines. Participants annotated these collages by signing or tagging areas corresponding to their prospective research interests, thereby producing a layered representation that combined conceptual, visual and relational dimensions. Importantly, the collages were not only artistic outputs but also methodological devices that crystallized potential co-authorship constellations and oriented the group toward tangible trajectories of collaboration.

The post-conference phase extended the process into a series of online co-writing workshops convened two months later. These encounters created structured opportunities to consolidate emergent ideas, identify thematic convergences and explore avenues for collaborative publication. From a methodological standpoint, analysis combined content analysis of keywords and cartographies, visual interpretation of collages and thematic coding of textual scenarios and workshop transcripts. Triangulation across these heterogeneous materials enhanced analytical robustness, while iterative validation during the sessions themselves added a further layer of credibility. At the same time, the approach is not without limitations: participation was voluntary and thus subject to self-selection dynamics, and the process was embedded in the specific context of an EGOS sub-theme, which may limit its transferability. Nonetheless, the combination of embodied, analogic and digital practices offers a methodological contribution to the study of collective creativity and scholarly community-building.

We proposed these activities during the conference session as an intentional experiment to explore how alternative formats of knowledge sharing and community building could prefigure more sustainable, inclusive and reflexive forms of organizing – both within academia and beyond. The rationale was to challenge the dominant, efficiency-driven logics of academic exchange and instead cultivate a space of slow and mindful interaction (Berg and Seeber, 2016; Lee and Benjamin, 2023). In doing so, we mirrored broader transformations occurring in the public sector, where digitalization is reconfiguring how knowledge is produced, shared and legitimized. Just as digital infrastructures in public administration can either reinforce bureaucratic silos or enable open, collaborative ecosystems (Mergel et al., 2019), academic conferences can either replicate extractive knowledge transactions or become living laboratories of collective intelligence.

By integrating creative, participatory and technology-mediated activities – such as collaborative online mapping, digital whiteboards and hybrid dialogue spaces – we aimed to translate the affordances of digital tools into catalysts for trust, transparency and co-production. These design choices reflect an understanding of technology not merely as an instrument of efficiency but as a social infrastructure that supports relationality, empathy and shared meaning-making (Criado and Gil-Garcia, 2019). In both academia and the public sector, digital transformation thus calls for a reorientation of technological design toward community building rather than control and toward learning rather than mere information management.

Our session showed that when digital tools are embedded in participatory and reflexive practices, they can nurture communities of practice (Edelheim et al., 2018) that transcend organizational and disciplinary boundaries. In line with Buhl et al. (2019) and Baas and Hjelm (2015), we treated the conference as a microcosm of experimentation – an arena for testing how hybrid and human-centred forms of digital collaboration can sustain shared values and institutional change. This resonates with the emerging vision of digital public value (Cordella and Bonina, 2012), in which innovation arises not from technology itself but from its capacity to enhance collective learning, responsibility and inclusiveness. Ultimately, both in academia and in the public sector, knowledge sharing and community building represent the foundation for sustainable digital transitions – where technology becomes a means to deepen, rather than accelerate, our capacity to think, connect and act together.

Across the sessions, several insights emerged that together outline the contours of the digital transformation journey in the public sector. The digital era is reshaping organizations, requiring agility, simplification and innovative approaches to workflows, teamwork, leadership and organizational culture.

Digital technologies are not simply neutral tools but active drivers of change in governance, with deep implications for decision-making, leadership roles and stakeholder engagement.

At the same time, innovative HRM practices, such as empowerment, psychosocial safety climates and job-crafting, proved to be crucial levers for sustaining both well-being and adaptability. New agile work models and employee-driven innovation revealed the creative potential of bottom-up experimentation while also highlighting the tensions arising from pressures of consultocracy.

Sector-specific cases, from healthcare to academia and megaprojects, underscored the importance of a stakeholder approach and communities of practice in accelerating digital adoption. Attention to well-being revealed paradoxes: autonomy can simultaneously fuel innovation and cause exhaustion, which in turn stresses the importance of integrated organizational support.

Moreover, AI pilots in public services opened debates on governance, ethics and skills development, demanding strong leadership. Finally, effective knowledge management, new communication channels and a learning-oriented mindset emerged as essential for sustaining ongoing success.

Each paper in this special issue can be read as a node in this evolving map of knowledge creation. Rather than isolated contributions, they represent strands of DNA that collectively define a growing research community around digital transformation in the public sector.

In this special issue, we sought to embrace the complexity of digital transformation in the public sector by including papers addressing this issue from different perspectives possibly catching up the intertwining interaction between macro, meso and micro-levels. Also, papers included in this special issue well represent the DNA we built around the theme of digital transformation.

The first paper by Todisco et al. (2026) falls in our DNA categories “institutional logics and change” and “governance and transformation”, describing a new trend in the public sector, the anticipatory governance (AG), and explaining how technology and managerial challenges may be addressed to develop a public administration closer to citizens' expectations and problems by anticipating macro-trends. The authors, in their paper “Foreseeing the future: Anticipatory governance as a response to the technological and managerial challenges in the public sector”, also extend this reasoning to how AG and technology may achieve better outcomes in the public workplace. The study concludes that AG can be a valuable approach for public organizations in redesigning decision-making processes and facilitating a new way of working in response to technological advancements.

Ayaz et al.’s (2026) paper, titled “Reimagining the digital future of public universities: experiences, perceptions, and institutional factors in open-source adoption”, falls at the edge of two DNA categories, namely “innovation and technologies” and “HRM practices”. The paper focuses on the perspectives of IT personnel working in public universities, addressing human and institutional dimensions of the transition to open-source database systems and highlighting that factors influencing this adoption are not only related to technical and economic aspects (e.g. cost advantage) but also to lack of technical knowledge, staff shortages and planning problems. Authors recall the importance of training, gradual implementation and institutional support for a successful transition, with practical implications reminding that public administration must invest not only in technical infrastructure but also in human resources and strategic planning for ensuring the sustainability of the transition process.

Andersen et al. (2026), in their research “Orchestrating public sector innovation processes for digitalization”, study orchestration of innovation processes that bring together internal and external actors to create PSI in a Swedish regional government initiative focused on digital solutions. In this regard, according to our DNA framework, we locate this paper at the edge of the categories “innovation and technologies” and “consulting and knowledge”. In this paper, Andersen et al. start from the premise that public sector often imitates private firms' innovation processes, particularly when introducing new solutions such as digital processes, searching for quality improvement in the provision of services. The authors finally develop five propositions showing the paradoxical nature of PSI orchestration: the need for top management involvement; the necessity of orchestrator engagement in implementation; the benefits of organizing innovation away from daily routines; the tendency for collaborations among diverse stakeholders to emerge as outcomes rather than drivers of the process and how the public culture orients the process to resources rather than value.

The paper by Li et al. (2026), “Digital Exclusion and Citizen Engagement with E-government Services in China”, explores how digital exclusion impacts citizen engagement with e-government services in China. We include this paper in the DNA categories “innovation and technologies” and “government and transformation” since it discusses citizen reactions and adaptation to a new form of government (digital government and e-government). In more detail, this study explores migrants' experiences of digital exclusion and its effects on empowerment and service satisfaction, providing empirical insights into whether e-government enhances social belonging or deepens exclusion in China. Results indicate that the digital divide reinforces social inequality, with older, less-educated and migrant users experiencing greater difficulty accessing digital public services, while perceived ease of use and usefulness significantly influence satisfaction and intention to use e-government services. Government responsiveness and expectation confirmation are critical in fostering psychological, social and political empowerment, particularly for migrants who rely more on digital platforms but do not have access.

Finally, there are two papers falling in the DNA categories “HRM practices” and “workplace, well-being and work-life balance” as they both analyse managerial practices, well-being and workplaces in the digital work environment brought by new forms of work (in this case, hybrid and flexible work).

Ferrarini et al. (2026), in the paper titled “Job characteristics, organizational citizenship behavior and job performance: does flexible working time matter? Evidence from the public sector”, offer interesting implications about the antecedents, outcomes and moderators of OCB in the public sector. The paper aims to examine how role clarity, job autonomy and task variety relate to OCB and employee performance, also exploring the moderating role of flexible working time (FWT) in these relationships, within a post-COVID-19 work environment. Results from this paper show that job autonomy and task variety are positively related to OCB, while role clarity is not. FWT strengthens the effect of job autonomy on OCB but weakens the positive effect of task variety. Moreover, OCB mediates the relationship between job autonomy and task performance at higher levels of FWT, while the indirect effect of task variety on performance via OCB is significant at lower levels of FWT but attenuated as FWT increases.

The paper “Managing Hybrid Workers and Teams in the Public Sector: from management by results to purposeful management” by Lundy et al. (2026) identifies the management capabilities currently being used and those required for effective management of public sector hybrid workers. In their study, the authors found that participants demonstrated capabilities to effectively manage hybrid workers and teams in the areas of communications and managing for outcomes. However, capability was lacking in career development support and making decisions around where work was best performed. Also, findings show that a more purposeful management approach enables more effective management by results. In so doing, the research concludes highlighting recommendations about two important gaps in managerial capability to be included in public sector capability frameworks and management development programs: the capability to prioritise conscious decisions on work locations and to provide purposeful support for career and skill development regardless of work location.

From the disruptive experience of the COVID-19 pandemic to the current post-COVID environment, public administrations have been forced to rethink what constitutes the new normal and the possible next normal. Remote and hybrid work practices – such as work from home or from anywhere – have not only challenged traditional bureaucratic structures but have also reshaped organizational identities and the relationship between civil servants and their institutions (Palumbo, 2020; Todisco et al., 2023; Tomo and Mangia, 2025). This transition has highlighted the importance of developing anticipatory governance capabilities, enabling administrations to move from reactive to proactive responses in contexts of volatility and uncertainty (Van der Wal, 2020; Mergel et al., 2019; Todisco et al., 2024). At the same time, sustainability and inclusion have emerged as critical dimensions of digital transformation in the public sector. Flexible and hybrid organizational models must be designed to promote OCBs, employee well-being and work-life balance while also aligning with broader societal goals such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 8, 11 and 16). This requires embedding principles of transparency, accountability and social responsibility into the design of digital reforms, ensuring that technological adoption is not only efficient but also just and equitable (Costa et al., 2024; Chaudhary et al., 2022).

Ultimately, the value of this special issue lies not only in the academic insights it gathers but also in the demonstration that conferences like EGOS and EGPA can act as pracademic spaces of lasting creativity, where the DNA of a field is collectively shaped. In these spaces, knowledge creation is cumulative, participatory and future-oriented – combining conceptual innovation with applied insights and ensuring that the creativity sparked within conference walls “goes a long way.” This resonates with the call for organizational scholarship to embrace creativity as a significant social act with enduring consequences (see EGOS, 2025 general theme) and positions our research community at the intersection of theory and practice, contributing to a more adaptive, inclusive and sustainable public sector for the years to come.