Digital Government Transformation Research Articles

Концепция развития местного самоуправления в условиях цифровой трансформации управления

State processes are currently regulated by conceptual strategizing, which means they rely on concepts of systematic, integrated, and consistent development in social and state spheres, e.g., municipal public administration. This research used theoretical generalizations, as well as constitutional and legal practice, to rationalize the need for a developmental concept of local government in the context of digital transformation. Acts of state strategic planning were classified according to subject and concept. Digitalization of management and local governance was described from the perspective of hierarchical subordination and strategic planning acts. The list of prospective goals and directions in the digital development of local government included: digitalizing the domestic agro-industrial complex; leveling the existing digital inequality; improving the financing of small and medium municipalities using digital systems and innovative technologies. The authors reviewed best foreign practices and modern approaches to standardization in the sphere of sustainable development concepts, which direct the regulation of local government development in the digital environment. They revealed some problematic issues of modern digital transformation of municipal government and prospective trajectories for local digital platforms.

Understanding strategies for digital government transformation: A strategic action fields perspective

Digital technologies are transforming public service provision by affecting governments, technology vendors, and citizens, as well as their interactions. However, digital government transformation (DGT) is complex and challenging, with governments often lacking clear strategic adjustments during their digital journeys. This study discusses six strategic factors, including business environment, digital infrastructure, financial capability, innovation capability, information security, and public demand, and identifies the configurations that lead to a significant increase in digital government performance. Based on the theory of strategic action fields, we developed a theoretical framework to understand the DGT process and changes in configurations. Based on a novel Multiple Time Differencing Qualitative Comparative Analysis (MTD/QCA) method, the analysis of 31 provincial regions in Chinese mainland over four years derived 13 distinct solutions in the three basic stages of DGT: exploration, concentration, and complementation. These findings reveal the complexity of DGT from an evolutionary perspective and indicate that these factors do not work in isolation, but in combination with others to promote DGT. Understanding the configurational relationships of these factors can help governments adjust their strategies across the three stages of DGT.

Does digital government transformation drive regional green innovation? Evidence from cities in China

With the escalating environmental challenges, regional green innovation, as the key to achieving the goal of environmental sustainability, has evolved into a focal point of societal apprehension. The external environment of regional green innovation has changed amid the digital government transformation (DGT). However, there hasn't been much discussion of how DGT affects regional green innovation. Therefore, to explore the impact of DGT on regional green innovation and its specific mechanism, we use the China Mobile Online Service Platform (MOSP) adoption as a quasi-natural experiment, based on panel data on 288 cities in China from 2006 to 2020, and apply a time-varying difference-in-differences model. Our study finds that DGT affects regional green innovation in a positive way. Green financial development and green-talent gathering mediate the DGT's influence on regional green innovation. The government's policy attention to green development and technology research plays a positive moderating role between DGT and regional green innovation. Our study advances the research on DGT's contribution to environmental sustainability by confirming the positive effects of DGT on regional green innovation.

City Managers as Digital Transformation Leaders: Exploratory and Explanatory Notes

This article examines the internal sources for digital transformation at the local level. It attempts to comprehend a public manager’s individual role in the introduction of digital tools to lower levels of governance, traces the institutional and personal motivators that encourage city managers in framing digital transformation efforts, and identifies barriers that temper their efforts in practice. The empirical study based on forty-seven interviews with Russian city managers explores the peculiarities of digital transformation comprehension, the key barriers hampering digital transformation, and the detours that city managers use to implement digital tools. The study explores why and how, in a situation of limited resources, unclear political attitudes, and restricted opportunities, city managers act in the direction of implementing digital tools and digital government transformation. The flexible thematic analysis shows that digital transformation at the local management level has the potential for leadership, as city managers recognize and articulate the importance of digital tools in transforming the urban environment. Digital transformation is integral to the image of the city managers’ profession and their mission to serve the local community. However, the leadership potential of digital transformation is significantly hindered by institutional factors, predominantly regulatory deficiencies, lack of resources, and social mistrust.

Building public trust through digital government transformation: A qualitative study of Indonesian civil service agency

This study aims to explore how the government can generate trust through digital government transformation (DGT). The study adopts qualitative approach by using semi-structured interviews of the Indonesian government employees who are involved in DGT on civil servants’ recruitment process. The results elaborate the influence of digital capability, governance, leadership, organizational partnership, country characteristic, collaborative environment, financial support, and transparency towards the DGT in generating citizen's trust. This study contributes to the, still limited, body of knowledge for the relationship between DGT and public trust. This also can be important consideration in creating policies particularly for the Indonesian government officials.

The impact of construction stakeholder’s readiness and acceptance of technology on the success of Indonesian digital government transformation in construction sector

Despite its potential to significantly improve the efficiency, effectiveness, transparency, and accountability of construction sector services, the implementation of digital government transformation in many countries has often failed to achieve desired results due to low user adoption. This study introduces a factor model to predict technology readiness and acceptance behavior in the implementation of digital government transformation within construction business licensing and procurement services by integrating the Technology Readiness and Technology Acceptance Models. Survey data collected from construction companies, experts, project managers, and procurement committees in Indonesia were used to test the model through Structural Equation Modelling (SMART-PLS). The findings reveal that positive technological readiness has a significant impact on perceived usefulness and users' intention to use the system. Additionally, it was discovered that a one-point increase in the intention to use led to a 0.625 increase in achievement value. This research contributes to addressing the slow adoption of digital government transformation by exploring intention-to-use behavior in the construction sector.

Does Digital Government Transformation Inhibit Corporate Environmental Violations? Evidence From the Big Data Bureau in China

Does Digital Government Transformation Inhibit Corporate Environmental Violations? Evidence From the Big Data Bureau in China

Collaborative Approach on Digital Government Transformation in West Java.

The world is witnessing exponential growth and rapid change brought about by the advent of the digitalisation era. This change offers an opportunity to revisit the strategic approach on using Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to improve the delivery of public value. Considering that governments around the world are now facing declining levels of public trust. Using so-called digital transformation, governments adapt the wide use of ICTs to better support government functions, services, and citizens, encouraging their participation in policy-making processes. Successful government digital transformation often depends on the ability of multiple government or non-government organisations to collaborate towards shared objectives. However, most governments are far from fully exploiting the benefits of ICTs, and often forget that in some social groups, access to ICTs is limited at the point of digital inequality. This article provides an overview of how the Indonesian local government implements its digital-based policy, which is centered on an electronic-based government system in Indonesia (SPBE), linking cross-sectoral central government agencies. In recent years, government organisations have spent a large part of their budgets on information and communication systems and rely on these systems for their functioning. However, the complexity of the digital transformation still requires considerable effort, especially when it comes to a lack of ICT infrastructure, human resources, and bureaucratic culture. By using qualitative methods, knowledge is formed through the perspective and way of interpretation that comes from the participants included in the research, not limited to the research implementer. The data will be collected through literature study, in-depth interviews, and observations. The aim of the research is to describe how collaborative governance contributes to the policy process of using ICTs to deliver inclusive policies by local governments.

Rethinking the Role of Local Government in Service Delivery in South Africa: Towards Digital Transformation

The article provided insights into why local government and service delivery must be rethought in light of digital transformation. It exposed the significance of digital transformation in solving local government and service delivery challenges. The article followed a qualitative research approach. It employed document analysis and literature review as data collection instruments. It argued that digital transformation can help local governments in South Africa fulfil constitutional obligations and meet policy goals. It demonstrated how digitally transformed local government can solve service delivery problems through the deployment of digital technologies that improve decision-making, cut costs, streamline operations, and offer efficient services. The article revealed that the digital divide, lack of technical expertise, data security concerns and resource constraints are some of the challenges that can affect the digital transformation of local government and service delivery in South Africa. These challenges must be resolved for digital transformation to play a significant role in improving the effectiveness of local government in service delivery. The article recommended that local governments in South Africa digitally transform in ways that foster equality and deliver local government services to all citizens. The article contributes to scholarship advocating for public sector innovation broadly, and specifically, illustrates the criticality of embracing digital transformation of local government and service delivery. Keywords: Digital Transformation, Digital Technologies, Local Government, South Africa, Service Delivery

A Survey of Digital Government: Science Mapping Approach, Application Areas, and Future Directions

With the rapid development of digital technologies, digital transformation reshapes the functioning of governments. Digital government (DG) aims to leverage technology to enhance the delivery of public services, improve efficiency, and foster transparency. Embracing DG is a strategic imperative for governments looking to provide effective, transparent, and citizen-centric services in the 21st century. Therefore, many government organizations have intensified their DG efforts in response to its necessity. However, there is little clarity in the previous literature and a lack of uniform understanding among government employees, policymakers, and citizens regarding the concept of DG. Therefore, this study aims to analyze current DG research with science mapping, classify the research areas, and propose future directions for upcoming studies. A search was conducted on Web of Science and Scopus databases since the year 2000. VOSViewer software was used for visualizing and exploring bibliometric networks. This study is one of the first attempts to examine the DG area using the science mapping approach. Selected publications were categorized into research areas, and future directions were presented to bridge the identified research gaps. According to our results, the five main research areas are DG transformation, cybersecurity, public participation and social media, open government data and transparency, and e-Government adoption models. This study guides practitioners, academics, policymakers, and public employees in planning their future studies.

Making Digital Government More Inclusive: An Integrated Perspective

This study aims to identify the key factors that can contribute to making digital government more inclusive. This study developed a research model based on integrating the theory of e-government adoption and innovation resistance theory. The empirical testing was carried out in Saudi Arabia, which is widely considered one of the most progressive nations in the Middle East in terms of digital government transformation. In total, 412 people participated in this study. This study used structural equation modeling to validate the integrated model. Based on this study’s findings, this study identified the primary factors that can help make digital governments more inclusive. The most crucial elements are perceived compatibility, perceived awareness, availability of resources, perceived information quality, perceived trust, perceived functional benefits, and perceived service response. The results of this research inform government officials and policymakers in their move toward the goal of inclusive and easily accessible digital government services.

Open government, civic tech and digital platforms in Latin America: A governance study of Montevideo's urban app ‘Por Mi Barrio’

AbstractDigital technologies have a recognised potential to build more efficient, credible, and innovative public institutions in Latin America. Despite progress, digital transformation in Latin American governments remains limited. In this work, we explore a peculiar yet largely understudied opportunity in the region: pursuing digital government transformation as a collaborative process between the government and civil society organisations. To do so, we draw from information systems research on digital government and platforms for development, complemented with governance theory from political science and conduct an interpretive in‐depth case study of an urban reporting platform in Montevideo called ‘Por Mi Barrio’. The study reveals three mutually reinforced orders of governance in the trajectory of the project and explain how the collaboration unfolded over time: (i) a technical decision to use open platform architectures; (ii) the negotiation of formal and informal rules to make the project thrive and (iii) a shared, long‐term ideology around the value of open technologies and technical sovereignty grounded in years of political history. Using a contextual explanation approach, our study helps to improve our understanding on the governance of collaborative digital government platforms in Latin America, with specific contributions to practice.

Exploring the Multiple Paths to Improve the Construction Level of Digital Government: Qualitative Comparative Analysis Based on the WSR Framework

The construction of digital government is an essential premise and foundation to improve a national governance system. Based on the Wuli–Shili–Renli (WSR) framework, this paper applies fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to data from 31 Chinese provinces to investigate how six conditional variables (information-infrastructure construction, organizational construction, financial support, digital-policy support, public demand, and digital talent) jointly affect the construction level of digital government (CDG). The results show that none of the six conditions is necessary for the CDG, and three paths exist to enhance the CDG. Information-infrastructure construction and digital-policy support play a more significant role in digital-government transformation than other variables. As a subjective and controllable approach, digital policy may significantly affect the CDG in the short term. Based on the findings above, we propose policy recommendations for strengthening the elements of coordination, enhancing the construction of information infrastructure in each province, and enhancing the digital-policy support system. This study provides a new research framework and theoretical perspective for improving global digital-government construction.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN MUNICIPAL MANAGEMENT: INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE AND APPLICATION OPPORTUNITIES IN RUSSIA

Taking into account the current trends of digital transformation, artificial intelligence is becoming one of the most relevant and in-demand digital technologies, which is used to solve a wide range of tasks related to the practice of municipal management and the provision of municipal services. Artificial intelligence is becoming more and more in demand both in public administration and in the practice of organizing the work of local governments, in the development and implementation of plans for the effective use of municipal resources. The purpose of the study is to determine the main vectors of the introduction of artificial intelligence into the practice of municipal government bodies based on the analysis of existing experience of digital transformations. Research methods. A comparative analysis was used to study the experience of introducing digital artificial intelligence technology into municipal management. The structural and functional method is applied to determine the main vectors of the use of artificial intelligence in municipal management. The results of the study demonstrated practical examples of the use of artificial intelligence in the field of municipal administration and presented new opportunities for the introduction of artificial intelligence into the practice of local self-government in Russia. Conclusions. The implementation of the digital transformation of municipal government based on artificial intelligence will require serious efforts and financial investments. However, in the future, it is possible to achieve significant improvements in the work of municipal authorities and, ultimately, improve the quality of life of citizens.

The Paradoxes of Trust and Transparency of Blockchain Technologies

The Republic and Canton of Jura has decided to adopt and integrate the CERTUS digital seal and the KSI blockchain as the central technological components of their e-government portal and of their digital government transformation program. However, this project is taking place in turbulent times. While blockchain suffers from a bad reputation for ecological reasons and while the Swiss Confederation has rejected the selected blockchain solution, this article seeks to answer how to grasp the paradoxes of blockchain technologies acceptance by state citizens in an extreme management situation. Through an action research that aims to solve practical problems and create scientific knowledge, this study highlights the paradox of trust and considers blockchain technologies to enhance trust between citizens in politically stable countries. Furthermore, it investigates the paradox of transparency of blockchain technologies in an extreme management situation and proposes communicating in two levels of abstraction to limit tensions in turbulent times.

C-suite Leadership of Digital Government

Despite decades of digitalization in day-to-day government operations and in the governance of the public sector, there is a major research gap in understanding the nature of digital government leadership (DGL) and the diversity in how top managers are leading the digital transition and transformation of government. Based on a structured literature review and in-depth inductive analysis of previous research within the domains of e-government, information systems, and public administration research, this article explores how the C-suite level of government is leading the digitalization. In the article, we propose a definition of DGL and a leadership framework to capture the nexus and direction of leadership. Also, the article proposes distinct leadership roles and actions to forward digital government.

Factors influencing village information systems adoption in Indonesia: A qualitative study

AbstractLike other developing countries, the Indonesian government is pursuing digital transformation to achieve good governance at the central and micro levels. One of the strategies for achieving digital government transformation at the micro level is implementing village information systems (VIS), information systems that village officials manage. Unfortunately, not all villages in Indonesia are thriving in adopting VIS. Therefore, this study aims to answer an overarching puzzle: Why did some village governments successfully adopt VIS while others failed? Using a case‐study approach to VIS adoption in Gunungkidul Regency, Indonesia, this study fills the gap in the literature from the technological‐organizational–environmental perspective that affects e‐government adoption at the village government level. We found four main factors that influence the success or failure of village information systems adoption: (1) VIS interoperability (technology context), (2) the workload of village officers (organizational context), (3) the role of civil society, and (4) the role of a vendor (environmental context). This research enriches the literature by identifying these four factors within the TOE framework, still rarely present in e‐government adoption studies, especially in the context of village governments in developing countries. This research has practical implications for the successful adoption of VIS as a village government effort to gain data sovereignty.

Digital government transformation as an organizational response to the COVID-19 pandemic

Many public organizations struggle to adapt to digital transformation. Whereas previous research has identified internal drivers of change, an unpredictable factor from the external environment such as the COVID-19 pandemic can trigger public innovation. In this study, we aim to investigate if and how the COVID-19 pandemic has influenced the digital government transformation. In more detail, we explore how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected different organizational aspects that are expected to be affected by a digital transformation. Findings from case studies of ten organizations from the Austrian federal administration indicate that the pandemic has not only led to an increased use of technological means but also influenced various organizational aspects such as employees' attitudes toward technology and organizational culture toward innovation. In particular, organizations heavily affected by the pandemic have benefited from a greater degree of digital transformation. Consequently, the pandemic has influenced a spirit of innovation and accelerated the speed of digital transformation.

Правовое регулирование цифровой трансформации местного самоуправления в Российской Федерации и странах Азии: сравнительное исследование

Правовое регулирование цифровой трансформации местного самоуправления в Российской Федерации и странах Азии: сравнительное исследование

Exploring Driving Factors of Digital Transformation among Local Governments: Foundations for Smart City Construction in China

To achieve sustainable urban development, many countries around the world are exploring the path of smart cities. The progress and development of digital technology has paved a promising road. Digital transformation of the government is an important factor for smart cities in China. Scholars are increasingly interested in the digital transformation of government, but there is little empirical research on the driving factors of digital transformation among local governments. Based on the technology–organization–environment (TOE) framework, this study explores the driving factors of digital transformation among local governments in China. A questionnaire survey and the structural equation model were used. Technological readiness, organizational efficiency, public service delivery, citizens’ expectations and superior pressure are significant driving factors. Technological readiness is the first factor affecting the government’s digital transformation. Applying the identified drivers, the results of this research could be used as orientation towards, and provide concrete practical approaches for, successful digital transformation among local governments, which would lay a foundation for smart city construction.