People analytics for better people management in government organizations.

I am a Professor in Public Management in the School of Public Policy at  University College London (UCL).

My core research interest is people analytics and people management in government: using data from original surveys, administrative records and field experiments for more evidence-based management of public servants.

I frequently collaborate with governments and international organizations – such as the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank – in this research, and my research has led a range of government organizations to change and improve management practices.

My work has been published in the Journal of Public Administration Research and TheoryPublic Administration Review, Public Administration, Governance, Regulation & Governance, the International Public Management Journal, World Development, Comparative Political Studies, the European Journal of Political Research, the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank and several national governments. My research has received over £1.5m in grant funding from research funding bodies and international organizations, and has won the 2018 Haldane Prize for the best article published in Public Administration. My latest books are ‘Government Analytics: An Empirical Guide to Measuring Public Administration’ (forthcoming with the World Bank), co-edited with Dan Rogger, and ‘Motivating Public Employees’ (published in 2019 with Cambridge University Press’ Elements Series), co-authored with Marc Esteve.

My current and most recent research projects include:

  • The Global Survey of Public Servants’ – a joint initiative with colleagues from the World Bank Bureaucracy Lab, the Stanford Governance Project (led by Francis Fukuyama) as well as Jan-Meyer Sahling (Nottingham) and Kim Mikkelsen (Roskilde) to undertake the world’s largest cross-country survey of civil servants and encourage governments to adopt civil service surveys as management instruments.
  • ‘Training Executives to Enhance Employee Engagement in Government: Field Experimental Evidence from Luxembourg’ (2022-2025) – a GBP640,000 ESCR-FNR-funded project (with Ludivine Martin, Jan Meyer-Sahling and Kim Mikkelsen) to assess in a field experiment whether executive engagement training enhances employee engagement in government.
  • Making Civil Services Work in Developing Countries’ (2016-2018) – a GBP400,000 British Academy-UK DFID funded project (co-led with Jan Meyer Sahling) to understand the effects of management practices on the attitudes and behaviors of public servants in developing countries. A summary of results can be found here.
  • ‘Do Ethics Trainings Enhance Integrity in Government?’ (2019-2021) – a GBP350,000 Global Integrity-UK DFID funded project (co-led with Jan Meyer Sahling and Kim Mikkelsen) to assess with a multi-country field experiment whether ethics trainings of public servants enhance integrity in government.
  • ‘Management Practices in National Statistical Offices in Latin America’ (2019-2021) – a US$200,000 Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)-funded project (with Jose Antonio Mejia, Jan Meyer-Sahling and Kim Mikkelsen) to survey public officials in National Statistical Offices (NSOs) across Latin America and the Caribbean to better understand management practices and their effectiveness in NSOs.

Previously, I was an Associate Professor and an Assistant Professor in the School of Public Policy at  University College London (UCL), a Visiting Scholar at Sciences Po, the LSE Fellow in Political Science and Public Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), a Visiting Research Scholar in the Research Department of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and an Economist with the World Bank. I received my PhD in Government from the LSE.