Making Sense of AI Benefits: A Mixed-method Study in Canadian Public Administration

Rohit Madan () and Mona Ashok ()
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Rohit Madan: Queen’s University Belfast
Mona Ashok: University of Reading

Information Systems Frontiers, 2025, vol. 27, issue 3, No 3, 889-923

Abstract: Abstract Public administrators receive conflicting signals on the transformative benefits of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the counternarratives of AI’s ethical impacts on society and democracy. Against this backdrop, this paper explores the factors that affect the sensemaking of AI benefits in Canadian public administration. A mixed-method research design using PLS-SEM (n = 272) and interviews (n = 38) tests and explains the effect of institutional and consultant pressures on the perceived benefits of AI use. The quantitative study shows only service coercive pressures have a significant effect on perceived benefits of AI use and consultant pressures are significant in generating all institutional pressures. The qualitative study explains the results and highlights the underlying mechanisms. The key conclusion is that in the earlier stages of AI adoption, demand pull is the main driver rather than technology push. A processual sensemaking model is developed extending the theory on institutions and sensemaking. And several managerial implications are discussed.

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; Public administration; Sensemaking; Institutional theory; Institutional pressures (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1007/s10796-024-10475-0

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