Does Public Management Innovation Improve Smart Elderly Care Service Performance? Process Tracing Evidence from Beijing

Since the advent of New Public Management, innovation in the delivery of public services has been a key area of academic research. Nowadays, facing the two megatrends of population aging and digitalization and the reality of budget constraints, there is a widespread trend toward utilizing digital technologies in elderly care services. Our study addresses the question of whether these innovations (covering e-government and service delivery mechanisms) improve elderly care service performance. Employing the process tracing approach, we collect evidence from Beijing to test the causal mechanism between public management innovation and elderly care service performance. Our theoretical argument suggests that e-government measures, when combined with more decentralized service delivery mechanisms and outreach through nonprofit organizations, remove barriers to access for elderly citizens and provide improvements to their quality of life. The core of our paper then uses the theory-testing process tracing approach to collect evidence from multiple elderly service providers, both public and nonprofit, in Beijing, a city which is relatively far along globally in using digital technologies in elderly care services. We have gathered interview and archival data on a subset of the cases and will complete our research in the first few months of 2024. The initial evidence does support the important role of outreach to and training for elderly citizens.