Across the world, artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are being more widely employed in public sector decision-making and processes as a supposedly neutral and an efficient method for optimizing delivery of services. However, the deployment of these technologies has also prompted investigation into the potentially unanticipated consequences of their introduction, to both positive and negative ends. This paper chooses to focus specifically on the relationship between gender bias and AI, exploring claims of the neutrality of such technologies and how its understanding of bias could influence policy and outcomes. Building on a rich seam of literature from both technological and sociological fields, this article constructs an original framework through which to analyse both the perpetuation and mitigation of gender biases, choosing to categorize AI technologies based on whether their input is text or images. Through the close analysis and pairing of four case studies, the paper thus unites two often disparate approaches to the investigation of bias in technology, revealing the large and varied potential for AI to echo and even amplify existing human bias, while acknowledging the important role AI itself can play in reducing or reversing these effects. The conclusion calls for further collaboration between scholars from the worlds of technology, gender studies and public policy in fully exploring algorithmic accountability as well as in accurately and transparently exploring the potential consequences of the introduction of AI technologies.

Crowdsourcing has proliferated across disciplines and professional fields. Implementers in the public sector face practical challenges, however, in the execution of crowdsourcing. This review synthesizes prior crowdsourcing research and practices from a variety of disciplines and focuses to identify lessons for meeting the practical challenges of crowdsourcing in the public sector. It identifies three distinct categories of crowdsourcing: organizations, products and services, and holistic systems. Lessons about the fundamental logic of process design—alignment, motivation, and evaluation—identified across the three categories are discussed. Conclusions drawn from past studies and the resulting evidence can help public managers better design and implement crowdsourcing in the public sector.

Crowdsourcing serves as a distributed problem‐solving production model for modern governments, and it has the potential to transform citizens into coproducers of public services. To consolidate the theoretical basis, this article provides a typology for crowdsourcing public services based on theories of coproduction, public sector volunteerism, and government–citizen relations. This typology includes two dimensions—the policy stage, and the functionality of citizens' effort—and four types of crowdsourcing, namely, complementary crowdsourcing in service implementation, supplementary crowdsourcing in service implementation, complementary crowdsourcing in policy and service design, and supplementary crowdsourcing in policy design. Four cases are selected for illustration. Designing crowdsourcing based on citizen and government relationships will help designers align goals and tasks to the right coproducers and enhance relationships in a democratic way. Furthermore, this typology will allow the field to systematically and collectively build knowledge.

In the context of government regulation and social demand, Chinese foundations have increasingly faced pressure to make their organizations more transparent. Our paper explores the factors associated with voluntary disclosure by foundations in China. Building on the literature on transparency and foundation development in China, we explore how the public (donations) and the government (funding and control) might influence the voluntary transparent behaviors of Chinese foundations. Using the database of the China Foundation Center, we perform regression analysis of N = 2074 Chinese foundations. Controlling for organization size, age, and other characteristics, we find that foundations that depend more on donations, collect more restricted funds, receive fewer government funds, and operate with less government control have a higher probability of offering voluntary disclosure. We then discuss organizational strategies and policy implications for building a healthy and transparent foundation sector in China.

Listings of Internal Revenue Service (IRS)-registered and state-incorporated nonprofits for the same region may differ for a variety of reasons. Using Indiana as a case study, we first describe the distribution of nonprofits across these two listings. We then present findings from a small telephone survey of incorporated nonprofits that are not registered with the IRS for Indiana to explore whether they are excluded from the IRS-listing for statutory, technical, or compliance reasons. We consider several aspects of state incorporation status: date of incorporation and whether active status has been maintained or not. We conclude that researchers need to pay careful attention to the limitations of the IRS registration system when wishing to examine the dimensions of the nonprofit sector at local, state, or regional levels. Our finding, that some nonprofits fail to maintain active incorporation status, points to significant problems of nonprofit capacity.

This article explores why people are poor and on welfare, according to social service agency directors who administer programs that serve current and former welfare recipients. Based on data from 295 local social service agency directors in Indiana, 75% of respondents believe educational and labor market barriers are important causes of long-term poverty and welfare, 44% believe cultural transmission or learned lifestyles are causes, 23% believe poor attitudes and work ethics as well as laziness or lack of motivation among the poor are causes, and 8% believe government assistance causes dependency among recipients and makes them poor. Evidence suggests that agency directors who believe that poor attitudes and behavior of the poor primarily cause poverty and welfare are more likely to be in organizations that did not ration services since welfare reform or engage in political activities designed to support these changes. In contrast, agency directors who maintain educational and labor market barriers as primary causes of poverty and welfare are more likely to be in organizations that have adopted new programs and developed collaborative strategies with other organizations since welfare reform.