6 minute read
Finding ways to improve government interactions with citizens
Text: John Cremer
Photos: Hazel Chow
Prof Richard M. Walker, ranked among the world’s top 2% of scientists, explores how governments can innovate to better serve citizens. His research, cited globally, bridges theory and practice to reshape public administration in Hong Kong and beyond.
In one way or another, everyone ’s life is affected by the workings of public administration and the effective management of government, which gives immediate relevance to the study of how and why things happen in that domain.
Those questions can centre on anything from the cost of public services to general preparedness for the changes that demographic shifts are inevitably going to bring.
The focus, though, for Prof Richard M. Walker, Chair Professor and Head of Department of Government and International Affairs at Lingnan University, has largely been on effective government and citizen-government relationships. And the broad impact of that work saw him listed among the world ’ s top 2 per cent of most-cited scientists in 2024, according to a report by Stanford University.
In addition, he has been honoured with the prestigious 2025 H. George Frederickson Award for Career Contributions to Public Management Research from the Public Management Research Association. This award, is presented annually to only one scholar worldwide, acknowledges his profound impact on the intellectual development of the field.
“I am interested in how you make a government function effectively and perform better,” says Prof Walker, who joined Lingnan in October last year. “In particular, my work looks at innovation and how to create the capacity in different government organisations to deliver new programmes and shift into tech-based services using AI and so forth.”
In most instances, he notes, examining citizen-government relationships can be quite methodological. Often too, the measure of a fundamental issue like immigration processing at an airport comes down to overall user satisfaction gauged against initial expectations about speed and waiting times.
“You need to understand the context and build these things into the way governments think about interactions with citizens, expenditure, and levels of performance,” Prof Walker says.
To assess the bigger picture and answer pertinent questions, his research draws on the results of surveys, experimental lab methods, integration studies, and computational social science. The underlying aim is to provide managers in widely diverse roles with much more meaningful information, so the services they oversee can be improved and adjusted.
For example, someone arriving in a hospital lobby could be there to celebrate a birth or visit a sick relative. Obviously, it is vital to understand that expectations vary depending on the circumstances.
“Today, many government departments don’t take things like this into account,” Prof Walker says. Historically, citizens used to be compliant; they dutifully accepted the services governments provided. But the world and society have changed. There must now be clear goals, targets and strategies to enhance citizen satisfaction.”
Since first becoming interested in the field of “new public management ” more than 30 years ago, Prof Walker has consistently applied the lessons of business literature to bring a less vague, more urgent mentality to government ideas and public initiatives.
This entails developing theories and doing detailed studies on the management factors that lead to better performance, drawing policy implications, and discussing them with civil servants, international bodies, or other officials.
“This work is all about providing systematic, evidence-based studies to enhance decision making that can bring positive change,” says Prof Walker, who has served as a consultant on various projects for APEC, the OCED, the UNDP, and governments in Hong Kong and the United Kingdom. “Of course, there are no guarantees such bodies will accept the suggestions made.”
Even so, the primary research and conclusions can still have a significant impact through journal publication and ongoing citations.
Indeed, Prof Walker’s recent academic papers on diverse aspects of public management have been referenced by the World Bank and WHO, the European Commission, think tanks, and officials representing governments everywhere from Argentina and Australia to South Korea and the United States.
“In public administration, many of the concepts and theories are Western-derived, but those ideas translate very differently in other societies, ” he says. “Therefore, you have to consider practical implications in the local context to see if the theory stands up there. For example, in an Asian setting, the idea of expectations and satisfaction may not be as strong, a little more subtle.
Governments are keen to move ahead with AI and develop efficient, better-tailored services, but you have to remember they affect real people... The decisions must be appropriate and good.
“Realising that, I started to replicate studies done elsewhere to see what differences would emerge. The theories have value, but we need to adapt them properly and ensure that students are taught public administration or public policy in the context of where they are going to practise.”
Since arriving from his previous professorship at the City University of Hong Kong, Prof Walker has assumed additional responsibilities as Director of both the Lingnan University Institute for Advanced Study and Director of the newly established Government and Bureaucracy Lab.
The role of the latter is to look into issues that cut across public administration and political science, no doubt with a particular focus on AI in government and how that is going to change the scope of services and day-to-day interactions with the average citizen.
“Overall, there are a lot of opportunities to do research that impacts society in Hong Kong, Mainland China, and the rest of the world, ” Prof Walker says. “The faculty also has great depth of knowledge in international relations, as well as many PhD students working on issues that affect relations between China, Africa, India and other countries.”
Regarding the trend towards increased use of AI in public policy-related decisions, he sees advantages, but also fundamental problems that must still be addressed. One is that citizens need to trust their government. However, if AI is designed to make decisions on, say, welfare allowances or the allocation of public housing, there may be biases written into the algorithms, which could be hard to explain or unravel.
“Governments are keen to move ahead with AI and develop efficient, better-tailored services, but you have to remember they affect real people,” Prof Walker says.“The decisions must be appropriate and good.”
As a long-term Hong Kong resident, he remains committed to the city and the chance to give students a fuller understanding of how political systems, institutions, and society actually work. That knowledge also reveals the processes of leadership and negotiation and can open the door to fast-track careers in any number of fields.
“Compared to anywhere, Hong Kong currently has the highest density of world-ranked universities, ” he says. “Education is taken very seriously by the government, and the ethos, the desire to research and advance is just outstanding,” he says. “ That is what keeps me here.”
