@article {7547,
	title = {COVID-19 as a driver for e-participation: insights from participatory budgeting in Poland},
	journal = {Central European Management Journal},
	volume = {33},
	year = {2025},
	month = {4/2025},
	pages = {123-146},
	abstract = {Purpose {\textendash} This paper explores how COVID-19 has impacted the shift from public participation by conventional means to e-participation. Specifically, we investigated to what extent COVID-19 has been a driver for electronic participation in community participatory budgeting, which is a kind of residents{\textquoteright} consultation on how to spend part of a budget on local projects. We expounded on the concept of e-participation and its sub-concepts and investigated how these were applicable to participatory budgeting.
Design/methodology/approach {\textendash} We interviewed 34 leading managers in five City Halls in Poland regarding their views and experiences with moving public interactions related to participatory budgeting online during COVID-19.
Findings {\textendash} The findings indicated that COVID-19 has accelerated the digitalization of the participatory budgeting processes and, to some extent, may have increased community participation in general. We observed increased e-participation in the forms of e-consultation, e-deliberation, e-lobbying and e-voting. Originality/value {\textendash} Mainly, this study contributed to the field by providing empirical evidence that COVID-19 increased various forms of e-participation as related to participatory budgeting. Moreover, we delineated various forms of e-participation and mapped them to activities in participatory budgeting.},
	issn = {2658-0845 },
	doi = {10.1108/CEMJ-04-2024-0128}
}
