Annika Naschitzki

The drivers and impacts of internal restructures in New Zealand’s public sector organisations

Email:  Annika.Naschitzki@vuw.ac.nz

Supervisors: Karl Lofgren and Geoff Plimmer

Profile

Annika is a Customer Experience and Service Design Specialist with 15 years experience in user research, accessibility and co-design. The majority of her career in Aoteatoa was in public sector organisations, working to make digital government services more user-friendly. She lead actions in the "Better Public Service - Result 10" programme around measuring the quality of New Zealand's e-government and ways to improve their usability. Accessibility, digital literacy and the use of participatory methods in the design and delivery of public service are central topics in her recent projects.

Qualifications

Master of Sociology - University of Potsdam & Free University Berlin

Research Interests

Annika’s research interest is in restructures within public sector organisations. They are a frequent phenomenon that most public servants are well familiar with and consequently have a fair impact on how the public service operates. Annika uses Path Dependence theory as a lens to study the dynamics that play out within these processes. She considers how factors like managerial culture, project management practice and the ambition to deliver innovation and modernisation interact with different approaches to restructures and their effects on people.