Public management, agility and innovation: The Swiss experience with the COVID-19 loan scheme
| Published date | 01 March 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00208523221143280 |
| Author | Christian Pauletto |
| Date | 01 March 2024 |
Public management,
agility and innovation: The
Swiss experience with the
COVID-19 loan scheme
Christian Pauletto
International University in Geneva and Université de Lausanne,
Switzerland
Abstract
Within only 10 days of March 2020, the Swiss administration had designed and imple-
mented a loan guarantee scheme for enterprises. The implementationphase was also
short: it lasted less than five months. This article examines how that was possible, con-
sidering the complexity of the institutional setting and the scheme’s innovative form,
especially in terms of IT, including breakthroughs for the Swiss e-administrative practice:
the scheme used algorithms to verify clients’applications, a unique identification number
for companies was implemented on a large scale, Swiss banks were integrated into the
project’s preparation and implementation, and some of their client operationswere cen-
tralised on a government e-platform. The salient features of the process are identified
through an analysis of the unfolding of operations during those ten days. The circum-
stances and context leading to radically new forms of public governanceare also iden-
tified. Besides, an output analysis was undertaken to single out the innovative features of
the deliverable. The case under considerationwas short, and came unpredictably, so that
no data or observations could be collected before or during the case. Accordingly, the
study is by and large based on ex-post enquiries. With no explicitly formalised mandates,
structures, or roles, the project participants came up with an informal organisation sys-
tem. A well-defined deliverable was apowerful driver of the process.Several character-
istics of the project, such as efficient networks, real-time information flow, flexible roles,
flat hierarchy, and swift iterative subprocesses were akin to those of ‘agile organisations’.
Taskswere performed concomitantly instead of sequentially.
Corresponding author:
Christian Pauletto, International Trade and Finance, International University in Geneva, Rte de Pré-Bois, 20,
Geneva 1215, Switzerland.
Email: cpauletto@iun.ch
Article
International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
International Review of Administrative
Sciences
2024, Vol. 90(1) 116–131
© The Author(s) 2023
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/00208523221143280
journals.sagepub.com/home/ras
Points for practitioners
It is striking thatnot muchscholarly research hasbeen published sofar witha view to
collecting and sharing the ‘lessons learned’from the unique experience of emergency
support packages during the pandemic, including at intra-organisational level. Research
could be done regarding replicability both for future emergencies and for adjusting nor-
mal-times public management practices. This proposal aims to contribute to this conver-
sation with a view to inspiringpractitionersin public administrations andgovernment
entities. It foregrounds the relationship between governmental crisis management and
the digitalisation of public administration processes using computer-enabled tools.
Keywords
COVID-19, digitisation, e-government, emergency leadership, emergency management,
post-COVID, public administration, public management
Introduction
Most research that is contributed resides in the computer science field and focuses on scrum
and agile methodologies, however there is limited research that pays attention to the actual
implementation challenges, innovative outcomes, or transformation of digital services in
government.
Mergel (2016)
The above quote from Mergel (2016) was a call to pay more attention to the adoption
of agility principles by government administrations. Her point was timely, and this article
is an attempt to address that call.
The COVID-19 emergency was of such magnitude that all governments had to adjust
their procedures and modi operandi in order to either be able to function under extremely
short deadlines or conceptualise and design totally new types of measures. Besides, a
high level of uncertainty about future epidemiological and economic developments sur-
rounded decision-making and action by governments. While the health emergency was
the priority for all governments, the economic emergency was also high on the political
agenda. Governments designed support packages for their respective economies, with
amounts that were hitherto unheard of.
1
This article considers one such measure, the ‘COVID-19 credit with joint and several
guarantee’, in short ‘COVID credit’, introduced by Switzerland in the COVID-19 credit
Ordinance of 25 March 2020 (hereinafter ‘the Ordinance’).
2
This measure was concep-
tualised in unchartered territory on two scores: policy process ‘Initiation, conceptualisa-
tion, and design process’and regulatory content ‘Content of the COVID-19 Credit
Ordinance and implementation modalities’. In terms of process, the measure was
initiated, designed and implemented in a manner that had never been tested before. In
terms of substance as well, it displays features that are new and creative. Among the
Pauletto 117
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