ARCHITECTING STRUCTURAL FLEXIBILITY IN DESIGN PROCESSES – A CASE STUDY OF PUBLIC SECTOR DIGITAL INNOVATION

Public sector organizations (PSO) are under pressure to undertake digital innovation in order to meet the challenges of a higher demand for service quality despite tighter budgetary restrictions. Effective digital innovation presupposes the flexible and appealing collaboration of heterogeneous actors possessing distinct knowledge loosely coupled in a complex service ecosystem. However, many PSOs lack access to employees possessing the specialized knowledge needed to execute digital innovation design processes and may thus need to seek external collaborations. This paper reports a case study of a PSO pilot project attempting to facilitate an inclusive design process for digital innovation. The study examines how teams comprising public sector professionals and private sector developers come to be involved and awarded agency during a digital innovation design process in the public sector. Findings indicate a need to architect conditions that allow for flexible provisional participation in the design process, thereby allowing novel collaborations to emerge, facilitating access to innovation intermediation and the integration of knowledge resources required for successful digital innovation. This paper contributes to our understanding of the setup and execution of digital innovation design processes in the public sector

Time to Refuel the Conceptual Discussion on Public e-Services : Revisiting How e-Services Are Manifested in Practice

There are various models and frameworks describing the nature of e-services in the public sector. Many of these models are based on previous conceptualizations and have evolved over time, but are first and foremost conceptual creations with weak empirical grounding. In the meantime, practitioners in the field have continued to further develop e-services, and new advancements in technology have enabled new solutions for e-services. In the light of advancements in practice, and the limitations seen in current conceptual work concerning public e-services, we identify a need to refuel the conceptual discussion on e-services in the public sector by empirically investigating how e-services can be manifested in practice. The aim of this paper is to illustrate the possible variations of e-services in practice, and to discuss this variation in relation to the conceptual representation of the phenomenon. Based on qualitative interviews with employees involved with e-service development and provision at a large governmental agency, we illustrate that an ‘e-service’ can take on many different forms within an organization; ranging from downloadable forms, to complicated self-service systems that require expertise knowledge and IT-systems with specific processing capacity. The notion that all services mediated through a website can be understood under one general umbrella term, without further categorization, needs to be challenged

Close Encounters of the Digital Kind::A Research Agenda for the Digitalization of Public Services

This paper contributes to e-government research by presenting a review and discussion on how digitalization of public services has affected the interaction between citizens and government. We argue for a conceptualization and critical reflection on the nature of the underlying interaction between citizens and public officials - the public encounter - that digital public services are developed to support. We apply a qualitative and hermeneutic approach and illustrate that digital public services change public encounters concerning when, where, and how interactions occur, what each actor does, and the skills required of them. By relating these changes to emerging digital technologies (e.g. data mining, machine learning, sensor technology, and service automation), we illustrate that while these new technologies carry the potential to further digitalize service provision and fulfill the democratic goals of digital government, authorities can apply the same technology to restrict, control, and surveil citizens. Based on a critical discussion on what digitalization might entail for society, we identify problem areas arising from this development and propose a research agenda for understanding this phenomenon further. We raise questions and ethical concerns regarding accountability and reskilling of citizens and public officials as public service provision becomes citizen self-service.Funding Agencies|Swedish Transportation Administration; Research Center for Government IT</p

Serviços públicos digitais: avaliação de e-serviços de gestão do património imobiliário federal do Brasil na perspetiva dos utilizadores

Este estudo busca examinar a satisfação dos utilizadores de serviços públicos digitais prestados no Brasil, bem como a aplicabilidade do modelo de avaliação adotado (COBRA) no contexto brasileiro. A partir de 3.203 respostas de utilizadores de vinte e-serviços de gestão do património imobiliário federal ofertados pelo Ministério da Economia, foram examinados os benefícios, oportunidades, custos e riscos, bem como o grau de correlação destes com a satisfação final dos utilizadores, aplicando-se análises fatoriais exploratória e confirmatória para averiguação da estrutura interna e ajuste do modelo. Os resultados demonstram que existe um ajuste parcial dos dados da amostra ao modelo proposto, por um lado rejeitando a vinculação dos riscos à satisfação e, por outro, revelando que os benefícios, oportunidades e custos foram capazes de explicar significativamente o nível de satisfação dos utilizadores. Além de contribuir para a literatura sobre avaliação de e-serviços, particularmente aquela baseada nas dimensões do modelo aplicado, o estudo vem dar um contributo empírico para a discussão sobre o processo de avaliação de e-serviços, questão com relevância crescente nas preocupações dos decisores públicos e das políticas públicas; Abstract: Digital public services: evaluation of federal public property management e-services in Brazil from the users’ perspective This study aims to examine the satisfaction of users of digital public services provided in Brazil, as well as the applicability of the applied evaluation model (COBRA) in the Brazilian context. Based on the answers to a questionnaire of 3,203 users of twenty public property management e-services offered by the Ministry of Economy, the benefits, opportunities, costs and risks have been examined, as well as the degree of correlation with the users' satisfaction, applying exploratory and confirmatory factor analyze for internal structure analysis and model adjustment. The results show a partial adjustment of the sample data to the proposed model of analysis, rejecting, on the one hand, the link of risks to satisfaction and, on the other, showing that the benefits, opportunities and costs explain to a great extent the level of user satisfaction. In addition to contributing to the literature on e-service evaluation, particularly that using the dimensions of analysis of the applied model, the research provides an empirical contribution to the discussion about the e-service evaluation process, an issue with increasing relevance and concern of policy makers