Governance 4.0 and the Evolution of Good Governance in India: Digital Transformation, Institutional Reform, and Citizen-Centric Administration

Strengthening Digital Governance in Sri Lanka: Towards Horizontal Integration and Institutional Reform in the Public Sector

It is concluded that effective digital transformation in Sri Lanka necessitates a multi-pronged approach encompassing legal reform, strategic investment in ICT capacity, strengthened institutional cooperation, and the ethical deployment of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence.

Innovation or Reconfiguration? Educational Decentralization and the Changing Architectures of Public Management

Decentralization reforms are reshaping contemporary public management and are often presented as innovations capable of improving efficiency, accountability, and responsiveness to the citizens’ demands. Yet their implications for governance arrangements remain highly contested. This paper critically analyzes the process of educational decentralization in Portugal to explore whether it represents a genuine administrative innovation or a broader reconfiguration of state governance. The study draws on a critical interpretative policy approach informed by post-structuralist policy analysis and the sociology of public policy instruments. Based on a qualitative analysis of legislation, policy documents, planning instruments, institutional reports, and governance arrangements, it applies a threefold analytical framework—Promise, Reality, and Transformation—linking policy discourse, instruments, and governance transformation. The findings suggest that while decentralization is discursively justified by narratives of modernization and local empowerment, it is operationalized through dense regulatory architectures, policy instruments, accountability mechanisms, and digital governance infrastructures. This leads to a paradoxical decentralized centralism, in which expanded local responsibilities coexist with strengthened capacities for central coordination, evaluation, and multilevel regulation. The study contributes to debates on public management and governance transformation by showing how decentralization may reconfigure rather than diminish state power in the context of contemporary multilevel governance.

Public Management and Policy

Digital government, circular economy, and public value creation: orga-nizational factors in the adoption of digital technologies in the Federal District (Brazil) and New York State (United States)

Digital government initiatives are increasingly mobilized to address complex, cross-boundary policy challenges, yet their contribution to public value creation remains highly contingent on organizational and institutional conditions. This paper examines how organizational capacity and interorganizational coordination shape the adoption and use of digital government initiatives in circular economy governance. Building on public value theory and governance network perspectives, the study adopts a qualitative comparative institutional design, analyzing the Federal District (Brazil) as the primary empirical case and drawing analytical insights from New York State (United States). Empirical evidence is based on semi-structured interviews with public managers and technical staff, complemented by document analysis and institutional observation conducted during a visiting PhD period at a U.S. public policy school. The findings show that digital technologies contribute to transparency and information integration, but their capacity to generate public value—such as policy coherence, effectiveness, and sustainability—is fundamentally mediated by organizational capacity, coordination mechanisms, and institutional stability. By explicitly linking circular economy governance to organizational and networked perspectives on public value creation, the study advances digital government research and offers implications for governments in both developing and developed contexts. This is not a comparison between the global North and South, but rather a qualitative study seeking to improve concepts of digital government in both Brazil and the United States.

Corporate Governance Professionals in Georgia: Institutional Evolution and the Emergence of a New Legal Profession

This article examines the development of corporate governance professionals in Georgia as part of the country’s broader institutional transformation since the early post-Soviet transition. While corporate governance scholarship has traditionally focused on formal structures such as boards, shareholders, and regulatory frameworks, this study shifts attention to the individuals and functions responsible for sustaining governance processes within corporations. Using a qualitative, exploratory and analytical research design, the article applies doctrinal and institutional analysis to trace the evolution of governance-related roles through four stages: legal transplantation and weak institutionalization in the 1990s; deregulation and the rise of internal governance coordination during the 2000s; internationalization and the emergence of more differentiated governance roles between 2010 and 2022; and increasing legislative complexity following the entry into force of the new Law on Entrepreneurs in 2022. The analysis draws on legislative developments, regulatory frameworks, and corporate governance practices, with particular attention to the banking sector as a leading driver of governance innovation. The article argues that corporate governance professionals in Georgia have emerged gradually as a response to increasing legal and organizational complexity rather than through formal legal recognition. While governance roles have become more structured and visible within corporate practice, they do not yet constitute a fully institutionalized profession. Instead, they represent an emerging field shaped by institutional demand, regulatory development, and the need to translate legal frameworks into operational governance processes. The Georgian case demonstrates how professional roles can develop through institutional evolution and highlights the importance of governance-related expertise in supporting corporate decision-making. At the same time, the findings suggest that the future development of governance professionals remains contingent on broader structural factors, including market development, regulatory practice, and the continued maturation of corporate governance systems.

Corporate Governance and Management Control Effectiveness: A Review of Challenges and Strategic Directions

This structured literature review explores the role of corporate governance in enhancing the effectiveness of management control systems (MCS), with a particular focus on the emerging challenges and strategic directions in implementation. Drawing on peer-reviewed publications from 2020 to 2025, the study synthesizes four critical themes: (1) the functional role of governance in MCS design, (2) multidimensional indicators of control system effectiveness, (3) barriers to governance-aligned MCS implementation, and (4) strategic responses to contemporary governance demands. The review reveals that corporate governance improves MCS by reinforcing transparency, accountability, risk mitigation, and stakeholder engagement, particularly when supported by internal audit, board independence, and digital capabilities. It also highlights emerging concerns such as cybersecurity, remote work productivity, technological adaptation, and employee well-being. Theoretically, this study contributes by integrating control systems theory with digital governance and behavioral insights; practically, it offers guidance for designing responsive, ethical, and performance-driven control architectures. Limitations include the reliance on secondary sources and the lack of empirical generalization, prompting future research to investigate causal mechanisms through mixed-methods approaches