Track Chairs

Ulf Melin, Professor, Linköping University, Sweden. Email: ulf.melin@liu.se

Helle Zinner Henriksen, Associate Professor, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark. Email: hzh.digi@cbs.dk

Leif Skiftenes Flak, Professor, University of Agder, Norway. Email: leif.flak@uia.no

 

Track Description

Digital transformation of the public sector

The ongoing digitalization of the public sector is a contemporary issue and a fact globally today, and an important part of the transformation of our society. As an ongoing and emergent phenomenon, there is a need to emphasize the smartness using ICT in public sector. In recent years there is a significant emergence of new technologies and tools, and massive investments in large-scale systems in public sector and how they can transform service delivery (e.g. from government the citizens and firms and vice versa, automatization and the use of AI etc.) and public administration structure and culture. On one hand there are many important steps taken in this direction. On the other hand, there are several challenges left for research and practice focusing digitalization in the public sector. A high degree of service delivery is expected in digital agendas and by citizens as more mature users of technology and mobile solutions, and at the same time there are financial constrains forcing more efficient, sustainable, solutions and streamlined design and implementation processes including different stakeholders’ views, governance and values (e.g. Flak and Rose, 2005).

There is also a shift in technology and a set of new ways of using technology as a part of a paradigm shift in the digitization of the public sector. Open, linked and big data, together with data analytics is on the agenda (e.g. Janssen et al., 2012), together with social media, transforming the use of technology and also ways of communicating and delivering e-services and channel strategies. Besides this there are also eternal issues and challenges known from the IS field in general that needs to be investigated, such as implementation, stakeholder involvement (Axelsson et al., 2013), implementation and change strategies and frameworks, benefits realization etc.

The digitization of the public sector has been intensive as described above with many ambitious and innovative ideas in policy making and also in practice. The resources spent on automatization, transformation, and implementation of internal IT and e-services are vast on one hand and seldom delivered in terms of value and benefits for stakeholders.

Digitization of the public sector has been labelled as public sector IS/IT or e-government for some time now and starting to be more mature as a research field. However, research in the field is still regarded as being mostly linked to case studies, particular national contexts and the use of non- grand theories (Bannister and Connolly, 2015). This calls for more work on concepts, perspective and use of theory in the field as well as empirical studies using a plethora of perspectives, methods and approaches.

  • Digital transformation of the public sector

  • Values and paradigms related to public sector digitalization

  • Conceptual development of IT in public sector labels, e.g. e-government, transforming government, digital government, smart government

  • Inclusions and digital divides using public sector ICT

  • Automatization of processes

  • E-services and multi-channel delivery of services to citizens and businesses

  • E-government policy, implementation and practice

  • Emerging technologies and smart prefixes in the public sector

  • Implementation of IS past, present and future in public sector

  • Participation and involvement of internal and external stakeholders

  • Identification and identity of citizens and users

  • Strategies, use and implications of cloud computing in the public sector

  • Utilization of open, linked and big data in the public sector

  • Emergence and use of social media in the public sector

  • Theories and perspective related to digitization

  • Strategic policy making process and technology

  • Co-creation of innovation and services

  • Privacy, risks and threats of digitization

  • Critical and sustainable perspectives on electronic government

 

References

Axelsson, K., Melin, U., Lindgren, I. (2013). Public e-services for Agency Efficiency and Citizen Benefit – Findings from a Stakeholder Centred Analysis, Government Information Quarterly, 30(1), 10-22.

Bannister, F., Connolly, R. (2015). The great theory hunt: Does e-government really have a problem? Government information quarterly, 32(1), 1-11.

Flak, L. S., Rose, J. (2005). Stakeholder Governance: Adapting Stakeholder Theory to E-Government, Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 16(31).

Janssen, M., Charalabidis, Y., Zuiderwijk, A. (2012). Benefits, Adoption Barriers and Myths of Open Data and Open Government, Information Systems Management, 29(4), 258-268.

 

Publishing Opportunities in Leading Journals

  • Transforming Government – People, processes and policy

  • The Electronic Journal of e-Government

  • Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems

 

Track Associate Editors

1. Johan Magnusson, Professor, University of Gothenburg, Sweden

2. Marijn Janssen, Professor, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands

3.Rony Medaglia, Associate Professor, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark

4. Elin Wihlborg, Professor, Linköping University, Sweden

5. Samuli Pekkola, Professor, Tampere University of Technology, Finland

6. Karin Axelsson, Professor, Linköping University, Sweden

7. Jesper Holgersson, Assistant Professor, University of Skövde, Sweden

8. Loukis Euripides, University of the Aegean, Greece

9.Carl Erik Moe, Associate Professor, University of Agder, Norway

10. Leslie Young, Assistant Professor, RMIT University, Australia

11. Ida Lindgren, Assistant Professor, Linköping University, Sweden

12. Marius Rohde Johannessen, Associate Professor, University College of Southeast Norway

13. Christian Østergaard Madsen, Assistant Professor, IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark

14. Sara Hofmann, Assistant Professor, University of Bremen, Germany

15. Fredrik Söderström, Assistant Professor, Linköping University, Sweden

16. Øystein Sæbø, Professor, University of Agder, Norway