The Proceedings of the 23rd Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research (DGO2022) Intelligent Technologies, Governments and Citizens June 15-17, 2022

The 23rd Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research theme is “Intelligent Technologies, Governments and Citizens”. Data and computational algorithms make systems smarter, but should result in smarter government and citizens. Intelligence and smartness affect all kinds of public values - such as fairness, inclusion, equity, transparency, privacy, security, trust, etc., and is not well-understood. These technologies provide immense opportunities and should be used in the light of public values. Society and technology co-evolve and we are looking for new ways to balance between them. Specifically, the conference aims to advance research and practice in this field. The keynotes, presentations, posters and workshops show that the conference theme is very well-chosen and more actual than ever. The challenges posed by new technology have underscored the need to grasp the potential. Digital government brings into focus the realization of public values to improve our society at all levels of government. The conference again shows the importance of the digital government society, which brings together scholars in this field. Dg.o 2022 is fully online and enables to connect to scholars and practitioners around the globe and facilitate global conversations and exchanges via the use of digital technologies. This conference is primarily a live conference for full engagement, keynotes, presentations of research papers, workshops, panels and posters and provides engaging exchange throughout the entire duration of the conference

Critical perspectives on open development : empirical interrogation of theory construction

Cross-cutting theoretical frameworks and analyses examine how open innovations in international development can empower poor and marginalized populations. Over the last ten years, “open” innovations—the sharing of information and communications resources without access restrictions or cost—have emerged within international development. But do these innovations empower poor and marginalized populations? This book examines whether, for whom, and under what circumstances the free, networked, public sharing of information and communication resources contribute (or not) toward a process of positive social transformation. The contributors offer cross-cutting theoretical frameworks and empirical analyses that cover a broad range of applications, emphasizing the underlying aspects of open innovations that are shared across contexts and domains. The book first outlines theoretical frameworks that span knowledge stewardship, trust, situated learning, identity, participation, and power decentralization. It then investigates these frameworks across a range of institutional and country contexts, considering each in terms of the key emancipatory principles and structural impediments it seeks to address. Taken together, the chapters offer an empirically tested theoretical direction for the field

The Palgrave Handbook of Digital Russia Studies

This open access handbook presents a multidisciplinary and multifaceted perspective on how the ‘digital’ is simultaneously changing Russia and the research methods scholars use to study Russia. It provides a critical update on how Russian society, politics, economy, and culture are reconfigured in the context of ubiquitous connectivity and accounts for the political and societal responses to digitalization. In addition, it answers practical and methodological questions in handling Russian data and a wide array of digital methods. The volume makes a timely intervention in our understanding of the changing field of Russian Studies and is an essential guide for scholars, advanced undergraduate and graduate students studying Russia today

Public Administration in Ethiopia

"Building an effective, inclusive, and accountable public administration has become a major point of attention for policymakers and academics in Ethiopia who want to realise sustainable development. This first handbook on Ethiopian Public Administration is written by Ethiopian academics and practitioner-academics and builds on PhD studies and conference papers, including studies presented at the meetings of the Ethiopian Public Administration Association (EPAA), established in 2016. Public Administration in Ethiopia presents a wide range of timely issues in four thematic parts: Governance, Human Resources, Performance and Quality, and Governance of Policies. Each of the individual chapters in this volume contributes in a different way to the overarching research questions: How can we describe and explain the contexts, the processes and the results of the post-1990 politico-administrative reforms in Ethiopia? And what are the implications for sustainable development? This book is essential for students, practitioners, and theorists interested in public administration, public policy, and sustainable development. Moreover, the volume is a valuable stepping stone for PA teaching and PA research in Ethiopia.

Caring for technology : evolving living lab collaboration

The nature of technologies and their contexts of use have become increasingly complex, especially in health care and elderly care. In order to exploit the potential of technologies to improve care, we need better technological systems and better ways to integrate them into the work practices and the existing technological environment in the care units. This dissertation seeks to understand the potential of living lab platforms to tackle these challenges. Living labs are co-design platforms for product and service development situated in real-life contexts. They bring together diverse stakeholders (public sector, companies, academia, and users) and engage them in mutually beneficial learning. In a living lab project users are considered active partners in product development instead of passive objects of study. By combining document and interview data this article-based dissertation reconstructs the biography of a smart floor innovation. The smart floor is a floor monitoring system and a nursing tool for elderly care. It seeks to prevent accidents and help save resources by decreasing the need for routine checks in residential care facilities. The smart floor was developed in close collaboration with care professionals in a four-year living lab project that took place in a public nursing home in Finland. Even though approximately 400 living lab initiatives have taken place worldwide since the turn of the millennium, not much is known of the learning dynamics between living lab stakeholders on a detailed level. Research around living labs has been criticized for a lack of empirical studies and overly optimistic attitude towards the approach. The everyday realities of living lab collaboration have remained largely unexplored, and realization of learning between stakeholders seems to be taken for granted in many studies. This is where the present study contributes. The dissertation draws from science and technology studies, design research and research on innovation management. The articles of the dissertation focus on learning between project stakeholders, tensions and conflicts, and the role of innovation intermediaries in co-design. The added value of the living lab approach and patterns of user-developer learning on a more general level are analysed by comparing the smart floor case to other innovations. The work demonstrates that a living lab is not a panacea for information transfer and collaborative learning, and realizing its potential requires a significant amount of work and resources from all parties involved. Skilful and active intermediaries play a crucial role in mediating multi-stakeholder learning. Despite the demands, the living lab seemed to catalyse the resolution of the necessary learning challenges that would otherwise have caused significant strain on the early customer relationships. Through user collaboration a simple fall alarm evolved into a precautionary nursing tool, which ultimately generated more value for its users and the developer company than the original concept idea