Developing a Conceptual Framework for Evaluating Public Sector Transformation in the Digital Era

When evaluating Public Sector transformation efforts in the UK during the past three decades, three waves can be identified. The first wave in the mid 1960s to the late 1970s is regarded as Traditional public administration and the second wave in the late 1970’s to 1990’s is labelled as New Public Management (NPM). The third wave began in the late 1990s and can be characterised as the post NPM or Digital Governance Era. This study aims to examine the concepts and associated factors that influence post NPM public sector transformation in the UK. Initial literature analysis found that while the post NPM era has no dominant model, a number of key concepts have emerged in the literature and policy statements that characterise the key attributes of post NPM public sector transformation in the UK. This paper attempts to conceptualise these concepts by formulating a conceptual framework for public sector transformation in the digital era

Examining the antecedents of public value in e-government services

This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University LondonOver the last two decades, public sector organisations in the UK have invested heavily on electronic government (E-Government) projects to transform the services offered to citizens. E-government is seen as an enabler that helps public services to become more efficient, transparent, cost effective and accountable. In this respect the implementation of e-government projects have been influenced by private sector thinking borrowed from New Public Management (NPM) principles. However, the evaluation of e-government under the influence of NPM has been primarily focused on economic and technical outputs whereas its value to citizens has been largely ignored. Furthermore, research shows that many e-government projects have failed to deliver the desired outcomes when influenced by NPM principles. Recent studies have emerged that highlights the significance of public value to understand the broader outcomes of e-government services. The aim of this study is to explore the concept of public value and identify the antecedents that affect value and the consequences of value on e-government. To do so, this study develops a conceptual model grounded on Public Value Theory, DeLone and McLean IS Success Model and Means End Chain Theory combining the disciplines of Public Administration, Information Systems and Marketing. The conceptual model was validated through Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) based on online surveys of 705 users of egovernment services in the UK. The findings have highlighted significant theoretical and practical implications for researchers and policy makers. This research highlights that the key dimensions (services, outcome and trust) of public value theory cannot be validated on their own as they are far too abstract in current literature. Therefore, this study verifies that public value can only be validated by drawing from the multiple fields of Public Administration, Information System and Marketing. From a practical perspective, the study offers policy makers a frame of reference to understand the influence of value on the adoption and re-use of e-government services.Brunel Business School Graduate Research Assistant (GRA) scholarship programm

Post-bureaucracy and reanimating public governance: A discourse and practice of continuity?

Purpose 'Seeks to examine changes in the environment in which public policy and public management operate and the claim that bureaucracy has been replaced by post-bureaucracy as a result of these changes. Design/methodology/approach – It proposes reanimated public governance as a concept that occupies the space between public administration and restructured public governance (including reinvented government and New Public Management (NPM). Rather than accepting the existence of post-bureaucracy, per se, the paper argues that there has been a process of extending bureaucracy that cuts across public and non-public boundaries rather than the development of post-bureaucracy per se. Findings – In examining the claims for post-bureaucracy, we are witnessing a discourse and practice of continuity rather than difference. The need for economies of scale and scope, standardisation and the existence of indivisibilities in public services suggest that public sector reforms and proposals for new governance models establish extended or flexible forms of bureaucracy rather than post-bureaucratic organisational forms. Attempts to introduce ICT-based services and the need for regulatory agencies to oversee the contracts with private and non-profit service providers reinforce these findings. Research limitations/implications – The arguments in this paper are based on marshalling the literature and debates surrounding public sector reform to advance a central thesis. It draws on real world examples but does not advance direct empirical evidence. There is scope for internationally comparative case-studies of different public service functions and discourses and practices in different countries Practical implications – Policy makers and managers should treat the clarion call of post-bureaucracy as a way of liberating public services from a lack of creativity, innovation and accountability with healthy scepticism. In particular, the view that public sector reforms through post-bureaucratic re-organisation will lead to efficiencies is one to be challenged. Reforms in any service driven organisations are not zero-cost and any implied operational cost saving should be considered against increased transaction costs. Originality/value – There have been heroic claims made for post-bureaucracy in many organisations enabled by developments associated with the concepts of information society and knowledge society. By locating public sector reforms under the rubric of 'restructured public governance' a deeper investigation of the implications for the discourses and practices associated with public sector reform is advanced

Conceptualising Digital Transformation in Cities: A Multi-Dimensional Framework for the Analysis of Public Sector Innovation

Digital transformation within local public administration is often conceived as the result of technological advancements, with scarce attention being paid to framing these processes within multi-level organisational settings. Against this background, this article introduces a framework for exploring the different dimensions of digital innovation in the public sector at the urban scale. It proposes conceptual categories that capture digital transformation drivers and mechanisms, encouraging reflections about their capacity to resonate in specific (urban) contexts. After examining frameworks seeking to deconstruct digital transformation in its multiple dimensions, the study proposes a conceptual model and validates it against the result of the literature review. By identifying conceptual categories and their interactions, the study seeks to support a more comprehensive understanding of transformation processes, specifically focusing on public service provision and delivery and their relationship with endogenous and exogenous innovation drivers. At the same time, the study aims to support local public authorities in gaining awareness of their transformative potential and helping them “steer” local digital transformation dynamics

Sustainable eLearning in a Changing Landscape: A Scoping Study (SeLScope)

The report begins by exploring the concept of sustainable e-learning - defining it and establishing its characteristics in the context of Higher Education. To ensure a sound and systematic process, the review is informed by a five-phase methodological framework for scoping reviews by Arksey and O'Malley (2005). Examples and perspectives on the concept of sustainable e-learning are summarised and key factors impacting on sustainability are abstracted. highlights potential gaps and suggests directions for further research on the topic

COBRA framework to evaluate e-government services: A citizen-centric perspective

E-government services involve many stakeholders who have different objectives that can have an impact on success. Among these stakeholders, citizens are the primary stakeholders of government activities. Accordingly, their satisfaction plays an important role in e-government success. Although several models have been proposed to assess the success of e-government services through measuring users' satisfaction levels, they fail to provide a comprehensive evaluation model. This study provides an insight and critical analysis of the extant literature to identify the most critical factors and their manifested variables for user satisfaction in the provision of e-government services. The various manifested variables are then grouped into a new quantitative analysis framework consisting of four main constructs: cost; benefit; risk and opportunity (COBRA) by analogy to the well-known SWOT qualitative analysis framework. The COBRA measurement scale is developed, tested, refined and validated on a sample group of e-government service users in Turkey. A structured equation model is used to establish relationships among the identified constructs, associated variables and users' satisfaction. The results confirm that COBRA framework is a useful approach for evaluating the success of e-government services from citizens' perspective and it can be generalised to other perspectives and measurement contexts. Crown Copyright © 2014.PIAP-GA-2008-230658) from the European Union Framework Program and another grant (NPRP 09-1023-5-158) from the Qatar National Research Fund (amember of Qatar Foundation

Shifting the digital skills discourse for the 4th industrial revolution

Copyright ©the Authors All rights reserved. Permission to make digital or paper copy of part or all of these works for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that the copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies: 1) bear this notice in full; and 2) give the full citation on the first page. It is permissible to abstract these works so long as credit is given. To copy in all other cases or to republish or to post on a server or to redistribute to lists requires specific permission and payment of a fee. Contact [email protected] to request redistribution permission.School of Computin

Digital Preservation Services : State of the Art Analysis

Research report funded by the DC-NET project.An overview of the state of the art in service provision for digital preservation and curation. Its focus is on the areas where bridging the gaps is needed between e-Infrastructures and efficient and forward-looking digital preservation services. Based on a desktop study and a rapid analysis of some 190 currently available tools and services for digital preservation, the deliverable provides a high-level view on the range of instruments currently on offer to support various functions within a preservation system.European Commission, FP7peer-reviewe

Un enfoque de toma de decisiones multicriterio aplicado a la estrategia de transformación digital de las organizaciones por medio de la inteligencia artificial responsable en la nube de las organizaciones. Estudio de caso en el sector de salud

Tesis inédita de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Estudios Estadísticos, leída el 08-02-2023Organisations are committed to understanding both the needs of their customers and the capabilities and plans of their competitors and partners, through the processes of acquiring and evaluating market information in a systematic and anticipatory manner. On the other hand, most organisations in the last few years have defined that one of their main strategic objectives for the next few years is to become a truly data-driven organisation in the current Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) context (Moreno et al., 2019). They are willing to invest heavily in Data and AI Strategy and build enterprise data and AI platforms that will enable this Market-Oriented vision (Moreno et al., 2019). In this thesis, it is presented a Multicriteria Decision Making (MCDM) model (Saaty, 1988), an AI Digital Cloud Transformation Strategy and a cloud conceptual architecture to help AI leaders and organisations with their Responsible AI journey, capable of helping global organisations to move from the use of data from descriptive to prescriptive and leveraging existing cloud services to deliver true Market-Oriented in a much shorter time (compared with traditional approaches)...Las organizaciones se comprometen a comprender tanto las necesidades de sus clientes como las capacidades y planes de sus competidores y socios, a través de procesos de adquisición y evaluación de información de mercado de manera sistemática y anticipatoria. Por otro lado, la mayoría de las organizaciones en los últimos años han definido que uno de sus principales objetivos estratégicos para los próximos años es convertirse en una organización verdaderamente orientada a los datos (data-driven) en el contexto actual de Big Data e Inteligencia Artificial (IA) (Moreno et al. al., 2019). Están dispuestos a invertir fuertemente en datos y estrategia de inteligencia artificial y construir plataformas de datos empresariales e inteligencia artificial que permitan esta visión orientada al mercado (Moreno et al., 2019). En esta tesis, se presenta un modelo de toma de decisiones multicriterio (MCDM) (Saaty, 1988), una estrategia de transformación digital de IA de la nube y una arquitectura conceptual de nube para ayudar a los líderes y organizaciones de IA en su viaje de IA responsable, capaz de ayudar a las organizaciones globales a pasar del uso de datos descriptivos a prescriptivos y aprovechar los servicios en la nube existentes para ofrecer una verdadera orientación al mercado en un tiempo mucho más corto (en comparación con los enfoques tradicionales)...Fac. de Estudios EstadísticosTRUEunpu

Towards a Model on Digital Transformation within the Higher Education Sector – A South African Perspective

Digital transformation is the application of technology to build new business models, processes, software and systems that result in more profitable revenue, greater competitive advantage and higher efficiency. The factors influencing digital transformation in the higher educational sector were examined in this study. Specifically, data was drawn from 400 respondents and the following variables: organizational IT application portfolio, organizational culture, organizational structure, leadership and ethics predict digital transformation in higher educational sector by using regression analysis. The researcher found that the organizational culture contribution was the highest by predicting 78.9% of digital transformation in the higher education sector