Re-locating accountability through technology: from bureaucratic to electronic ways of governing public sector work

Purpose: The paper explores the implications of e-government for horizontal/social accountability (to citizens) by looking into its shifting location. Its main purpose is to show how the introduction of information and communication technology in the public sector changes how public sector work is organized, shifting the traditional sources of accountability, and to discuss the implications of those changes. Design/methodology/approach: The study comes from desk-based research that brings together literature on electronic government and accountability studies and situates them in the context of a bureaucratic public sector. Findings: It shows that e-government entails digitalization of public sector work by restructuring work, reorganizing public information and knowledge and re-orientating officials-citizens relation. It argues that in the e-government era accountability is inscribed in the technology and its embodied standards; is a horizontal technological relation that renders officials accountable to the handling of digital interfaces and renders citizens co- producers of digital information responsible for bringing the public to account. The paper shows that these changes do not necessarily bring better or worse accountability results but change the sources of accountability bringing shifts in its locations thereby rendering it more precarious. The paper ends by discussing the implications of digital accountability for good public administration

Embedding employability skills in UK Higher Education: between digitalization and marketization

This article contributes to the debate on employability skills in UK higher education. It starts by discussing the concept of employability and places the debate in the context of mega-trends affecting UK higher education and the broader UK labour market. It distinguishes between different types of employability skills, as identified by employers’ surveys, and matches them with specific small-group teaching activities, drawing on pedagogic theory and practice. The article concludes that, beyond work-integrated learning, traditional small-group teaching activities can go a long way towards bridging the gap between graduates’ skills and labour market needs

[Review] Deborah Lupton (2016) The quantified self: a sociology of self-tracking

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[Review] Mitchell Dean (2014) The signature of power: sovereignty, governmentality and biopolitics

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Producing communal health through technological self-care: the emergence of digital patient activism

This study shows how patients co-produce health knowledge when they use digital technology (such as health apps and online platforms) to manage their health and the implications technological self-care has for communal health. It presents results from a qualitative study that took place in the English healthcare context and involved a range of stakeholders such as policy makers, patient organisations and patient experts, and health IT developers (e.g. health apps). The paper moves away from how patients use digital interfaces to ‘consume’ information towards how they are ‘activated’ on the basis of the information they have consumed or created and the implications of their activation for others. We argue that a care for the other emerges when patients self-manage their health through technological interfaces. We name this phenomenon digital patient activism and show that this is an unintended effect of self-care (albeit a conditional one), which although associated with a neo-liberal discourse that assumes self-responsibility merits attention and recognition given the value it creates for the community

Commitment and value creation in online health communities: insights from MedicineAfrica

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The hidden mechanism for online community growth

We live in an era of social media and online communities where much of what used to happen face to face has moved online. Even more so in the context of the COVID-19 crisis. How relevant are existing management theories within this new context? Can we simply mimic traditional management practices or do we need to modify them (or even discard them)

Between empowerment and self-discipline: governing patients' conduct through technological self-care

Recent health policy renders patients increasingly responsible for managing their health via digital technology such as health apps and online patient platforms. This paper discusses underlying tensions between empowerment and self-discipline embodied in discourses of technological self-care. It presents findings from documentary analysis and interviews with key players in the English digital health context including policy makers, health designers and patient organisations. We show how discourses ascribe to patients an enterprising identity, which is inculcated with economic interests and engenders self-discipline. However, this reading does not capture all implications of technological self-care. A governmentality lens also shows that technological self-care opens up the potential for a de-centring of medical knowledge and its subsequent communalization. The paper contributes to Foucauldian healthcare scholarship by showing how technology could engender agential actions that operate at the margins of an enterprising discourse

The role of digital health platforms in re-skilling healthcare professionals in developing countries: the case of MedicineAfrica

There is limited understanding about how digital health platforms can establish and develop professionalism in developing countries, especially where continuous professional development opportunities are scarce or under-developed. Our research illustrates how this can be achieved by drawing on a qualitative study of a non-profit platform, MedicineAfrica, that is dedicated to delivering free online health education in post-conflict countries. We identify four mechanisms through which platforms can help to enhance professionalism: standardisation of clinical practice; ‘normalisation’ of professional behaviour; development of medical knowledge; and instilling of values. We then discuss the bureaucratic process that underpins platform-led professionalisation and its potential colonising effects. The research offers a set of recommendations about how digital health platforms can enhance national health services in terms of building capacity and creating social value for the community

Establishing Professionalism through Digital Health Platforms

Despite the emerging interest in (health) platforms, there is limited research on their role in shaping professional work. Existing research has primarily focused on how platforms generate new forms of work, such as micro-tasking and crowdworking. There is limited understanding, however, about what forms professional work might take place on platforms, and, perhaps more importantly, how platforms can establish professionalism, primarily in contexts where this is under-developed or -valued. Our paper illustrates how this can be achieved drawing on a longitudinal qualitative study of a non-profit platform that is dedicated to delivering free online health education in post-conflict countries. The paper discusses four mechanisms through which platforms make up professionals: standardisation of clinical practice; normalisation of professional behaviour; development of medical knowledge; and inculcation of values. It then aims to discuss the paradoxical bureaucratic effects platforms may have as they enable those mechanisms and the potential colonising consequences they may engender