While public-sector management problems are steeped in positivistic and socially constructed complexity, public management education in the management of complexity lags behind that of business schools, particularly in the application of simulation-based learning. This paper describes a Simulation-Based Learning Environment for public management education that includes a coupled case study and System Dynamics simulation surrounding flood protection, a domain where stewardship decisions regarding public infrastructure and investment have direct and indirect effects on businesses and the public. The Pointe Claire case and CoastalProtectSIM simulation provide a platform for policy experimentation under conditions of exogenous uncertainty (weather and climate change) as well as endogenous effects generated by structure. We discuss the model in some detail, and present teaching materials developed to date to support the use of our work in public administration curricula. Our experience with this case demonstrates the potential of this approach to motivate sustainable learning about complexity in public management settings and enhance learners’ competency to deal with complex dynamic problems.

Remote voting through the Internet provides convenience and access to the electorate. At the same time, the security concerns facing any distributed application are magnified when the task is so crucial to democratic society. In addition, some of the electoral process loses transparency when it is encapsulated in information technology. In this paper, we examine the public record of three recent elections that used Internet voting. Our specific goal is to identify any potential flaws that security experts would recognize, but that may have not been identified in the rush to implement technology. To do this, we present a multiple exploratory case study, looking at elections conducted between 2006 and 2007 in Estonia, The Netherlands, and Switzerland. These elections were selected as particularly interesting and accessible, and each presents its own technical and security challenges. The electoral environment, technical design, and process for each election are described, including reconstruction of details which are implied but not specified within the source material. We found that all three elections warrant significant concern about voter security, verifiability, and transparency. Usability, our fourth area of focus, seems to have been well-addressed in these elections. While our analysis is based on public documents and previously published reports, therefore lacking access to any confidential materials held by electoral officials, this comparative analysis provides interesting insight and consistent questions across all these cases. Effective review of Internet voting requires an aggressive stance towards identifying potential security and operational flaws, and we encourage the use of third-party reviews with critical technology skills during design, programming, and voting to reduce the changes of failure or fraud that would undermine public confidence.

In this paper, we present insights generated by modeling the emergence of insider threat vulnerabilities in organizations. In our model, we integrate concepts from social judgment theory, signal detection theory, and the cognitive psychology of memory and belief formation. With this model, we investigate the emergence of vulnerabilities (especially that are insider-driven) in complex systems characterized by high levels of feedback complexity, multiple actors, and the presence of uncertainty in the judgment and decision processes. We use the system dynamics method of computer simulation to investigate the consequences caused by changes to the model's assumptions. We find that the emergence of vulnerability can be an endogenous process and that leverage points to reduce this vulnerability involve improvement in information acquisition, information management, and the training of personnel in judgment and decision-making techniques

Many water resources management (WRM) problems are similar in nature, and yet they continuously appear in different forms and in different geographical locations. Understanding a malfunctioning system structure is essential for developing sustainable solutions, which should be further examined using detailed quantitative models. Persistent WRM problems can be explained at the strategic level using a set of generic system structures, commonly known as system archetypes. These causal-descriptive conceptual models can be used as diagnostic tools to identify weak links and problematic feedback loops in management schemes, facilitating the dissemination of policy-relevant insights for addressing the weaknesses. This paper illustrates the use of generic structures in water resources systems for uncovering the root cause of some ubiquitous WRM problems and potential unintended consequences of short-sighted solutions. The utility of system archetypes is discussed in terms of gaining big-picture systemic insights, developing effective technological solutions and complementary management policies, and monitoring sustainable system trajectories.