e-Petitioning is a type of information and communication technology for development that can be used by citizens to express their voices in society. Although much work is focused on government-citizen relationships, little is known about whether and, if so, how e-petitions technology might result in structural transformations in public administration. In this study, we investigated the effects of an e-petitioning system in the Turkish public administration from neo-institutional and transaction cost perspectives. In contrast to the expectation of reducing transaction costs due to ICTs use, the transaction costs increased. The changes have further strengthened the central government by transforming the current tutelary relationship into a more hierarchical structure. The change is not driven by lowering transaction costs; instead, the change mirrors the power structures. The use of technology changed the structures in such a way that political power structures are reinforced while empowering the citizens to make their voices heard.

In public administration (PA) literature, there are a number of big questions regarding institutional and organizational factors. Competency formation, availability of resources and citizen empowerment [1] are among them. The importance of big questions must not rely on instrumentality; rather should focus on how and whether they have consequences and value for society [2]. The literature also questions “the paradox of publicness” [3, 4] by referring the “special status of public organization” claim of [5] and “publicness theory” of [6]. Given that public organizations have different characteristics with regard to operational processes and organizational structures operating in a particularized environment [7:6], they pursue different ends [5]. Replying to these big questions, we put forward public sector innovation (PSI) and co-creation of public values (PVs) as particularly important when contextual and conditional indicators are at the table. PVs and innovations in government may serve the government to reorganize PA as a whole through producing holistic and long-term strategies to enhance public service delivery system in a multi-actor-environment. For this we need a functional mediator, thus we employ information and communication technologies (ICTs). Through ICT-led tools, various and differentiated stakeholders can meet on a continuous base to frame the collective ground. For governments, ICTs may well be used to realize collaboration, coordination, and co-creation values that would alleviate some of the issues addressed via the big questions.

Studies in management and organization scholarship prefer to focus on personnel who constitute the core in institutions having bilateral employee status, academicians in the case of our research. Yet, organizational issues pertaining to administrative employees, as support personnel, seem understudied in the literature. Thus, in this study, we focus on issues experienced by administrative employees in Turkish universities. We have employed leader-member exchange theory as theoretical background, and conducted a field research through a questionnaire form to test the model. Organizational cynicism, emotional burnout and leadership support constitute the main dimensions of the research theme. We argue that leadership support affects emotional burnout through organizational cynicism. Analysis shows that administrative support personnel in universities suffer from emotional burnout, mainly sourcing from organizational cynicism on which leadership support is highly influential. Thus superiors in bilateral institutions are expected to support administrative employees to eliminate cynicism, otherwise they are in danger of emotional burnout.