When Government Innovates, Citizens Don’t All Want the Same Thing
In their 2025 article, Misaligned expectations in public sector innovation: differences between citizens and public servants, Sebastian Singler, Ali A. Guenduez, and Mehmet A. Demircioglu examine a deceptively simple question: do public servants actually understand what citizens expect from public-sector innovation? Their answer is that a meaningful “perception gap” exists—and it can quietly erode legitimacy and adoption even when an innovation is technically competent.
The authors frame “innovation characteristics” as the attributes that shape whether people will support and use new public services—things like ease of use, perceived advantage, compatibility, the ability to try something before committing, visibility of benefits, trust (including privacy and rule-of-law concerns), and cost. They then apply Q-methodology in Switzerland, asking citizens to rank statements about what drives their support for innovation, and asking public servants to rank what they believe citizens prioritize.
What emerges is citizen heterogeneity that is sharper than public servants anticipate. Citizens cluster into four groups: result-centric, trust-centric, certainty-centric, and cost- and rule-of-law-centric. In contrast, public servants tend to “see” only three citizen profiles—customer-centric, trust-centric, and result-centric—effectively compressing citizen diversity into a more managerial, service-delivery lens and missing expectations tied to democratic participation and co-creation. The most consequential mismatch is that two citizen groups (certainty-centric and cost-/rule-of-law-centric) do not have true counterparts in public servants’ mental models, and public servants also underweight issues like trialability and involvement.
For federal contractors—especially those delivering digital modernization, citizen-facing portals, AI-enabled decision support, identity programs, call-center transformations, and “customer experience” initiatives—the practical lesson is not merely “make it user-friendly.” The paper’s evidence suggests that agencies (and their integrators) risk building solutions optimized for a perceived median user while failing groups that care most about uncertainty reduction (pilots, reversibility, visible proof) or those who evaluate innovations as taxpayers and rights-holders (cost discipline, equal treatment, privacy, rule-of-law). In proposal terms, this argues for explicitly designing adoption pathways: meaningful pilots and phased rollouts, measurable and publicly communicable outcomes, privacy-by-design, transparent trade-offs, and structured stakeholder involvement that is more than perfunctory outreach.
Singler, Guenduez, and Demircioglu conclude that public-sector innovation is not only technical or administrative but also relational and political, and that closing the expectation–perception gap requires actively mapping citizen expectations, engaging stakeholders inclusively, and iterating with feedback rather than assuming one dominant legitimacy strategy.
Disclaimer: This post summarizes a scholarly article for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Any errors are mine; readers should consult the original publication and qualified counsel for decisions involving law, compliance, or procurement strategy.