How does the usage of artificial intelligence affect felt administrative accountability of street-level bureaucrats? The mediating effect of perceived discretion

ABSTRACT

Artificial intelligence has been increasingly applied in the decision-making process of public organizations, yet we know little about how it affects the felt administrative accountability of street-level bureaucrats. This study conducted an intragroup survey experiment to explore how AI usage affects felt administrative accountability with a representative sample of 190 traffic police. The research finds that AI usage negatively affects felt administrative accountability through perceived discretion. Our findings provide empirical evidence for previous studies and advance our theoretical understanding of the mechanism of how the felt administrative accountability of street-level bureaucrats is affected.

KEYWORDS:

• Artificial intelligence
• felt administrative accountability
• perceived discretion
• decision-making

Acknowledgments

We greatly appreciate the time and work of the editors and reviewers. We are also grateful for the advice from associate Professor Yue Guo at School of Government, Beijing Normal University, and the support from traffic police officers at He Nan province in China.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).