This article undertakes a quantitative and holistic approach to frame a model of e-maturity in local governments, defined as the extent to which technologies permeate public service delivery. ...Moreover, the study adds evidence on the performance associated with different levels of e-maturity. In so doing, we collect survey data from 814 Italian local governments and integrate it with secondary sources. We propose a new angle for assessing e-maturity at the local government level, where the novel approach is the categorisation of public services on the basis of their final users. The application of a latent class analysis shows that the level of e-maturity is quite limited among Italian local governments and that most of them tend to prioritise government-to-business rather than government-to-citizen services in their digitisation process. A high level of e-maturity is associated with greater effectiveness rather than efficiency.
Points for practitioners
• When assessing e-maturity, municipalities should treat differently Government to Citizen and Government to Business services.
• Currently, municipalities are focused more on the digitization of Government to Business services.
• Socio-economic and environmental factors have a partial effect on e-maturity. The size of the municipality and the income per capita are the most significant indicators.
• E-maturity raises effectiveness without a clear effect on efficiency. Only when reaching a fully accomplished e-maturity a slight effect on municipalities' expenditures can be detected.
•Digital government transformation is not well-defined and hardly investigated.•Digital technologies have a limited impact on public organization’s culture and structure.•Managerial activities play ...an essential role in digital government transformation.•Although cultural barriers exist, they do not influence transformation efforts.•Organizational barriers hinder the transformation, whereas managerial activities can help to overcome them.
Digital technologies are transforming the public sector by affecting applications, processes, culture, structure, and civil servants’ responsibilities and tasks. Yet, there is a void in research about driving and impeding factors influencing digital government transformation (DGT). The article contributes to the current debate on DGT by quantitatively assessing the transformation and its driving and impeding factors. The analyses were performed by collecting and analyzing through structural equation modeling 491 answers to a survey to Italian administrations. Results show that DGT is influenced by a combination of different factors, including the sense of urgency, the need for change, and the creation of a collaborative environment, suggesting that more effort is required for including public managers in the current debate on DGT. Organizational barriers and lack of support are impeding factors. Finally and counter-intuitively, resistance to change was not found to impede the transformation.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is viewed as having great potential for the public sector to improve the management of internal activities and the delivery of public services. However, realizing its ...potential depends on the proper implementation of the technology, which is characterized by unique factors, that afford or constrain its use. What these factors are and how they affect AI implementation is still poorly understood, and scholars call for studies to add empirical evidence to the existing knowledge. This study relies on a case study methodology and, by adopting an abductive approach, applies a double theoretical perspective: the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework and the Technology Affordances and Constraints Theory (TACT). Drawing on these combined lenses, we develop a conceptual framework that extends previous studies by showing how AI implementation is the result of a combination of contextual factors that are deeply interrelated and, specifically, how AI-related factors bring new affordances and constraints to the application domain.
•Shed light on the specifics of AI and the related changes for organizing.•Adopt the TOE framework for understanding AI features in Public Sector Organizations.•Disentangle AI affordances and constraints within the public context.
Several governments are actively encouraging their administrations to deliver public services exclusively through digital channels. This strategy consists of putting in place a series of complex and ...specific actions that bring into play numerous actors, to ensure that users are willing to accept digital channels and that weaker users are not disadvantaged. Although this strategy is being increasingly adopted in various countries, scholars have scarcely begun to explore its logic. This research explores how to define a service delivery strategy that forces users to adopt digital channels. Four in-depth case studies have been conducted on Italian local governments that started delivering their non-educational school services through digital channels alone. We found that a mandatory service delivery strategy is feasible when the starting point is to understand the users' characteristics, skills and behaviours and, as a consequence, whether they perceive the service as complex and/or ambiguous. With this in mind, public organisations can select the proper mix of channels for each category of users and combine their change in approach with behavioural-type interventions, i.e. by creating the right conditions to modify the users' behaviour.
•Scant research deepens mandatory digital channel for public service delivery.•A proper service delivery strategy combines behavioural and channel management interventions.•Governments must adapt the service delivery strategy to users' characteristics.•A mandatory strategy must embed indirect channels, involving intermediaries and street-level-bureaucrats.
We investigate how AI introduction affects public entities at the micro-level, hence the roles, competences and tasks of the agents involved. In doing so, we rely on the organizational design theory ...and we focus on a specific AI solution (chatbot) implemented within a defined microstructure, the customer service department. Using data collected through six exploratory case studies, we show how the creation of an AI team becomes a novel form of organizing that solves the universal problems of organizing. Results confirm that AI implementation is a complex organizational challenge and suggest that artificial agents act similarly to human ones.
Governments have been putting forward various proposals to stimulate and facilitate research on Artificial Intelligence (AI), develop new solutions, and adopt these technologies within their economy ...and society. Despite this enthusiasm, however, the adoption and deployment of AI technologies within public administrations face many barriers, limiting administrations from drawing on the benefits of these technologies. These barriers include the lack of quality data, ethical concerns, unawareness of what AI could mean, lack of expertise, legal limitations, the need for inter-organisational collaboration, and others. AI strategy documents describe plans and goals to overcome the barriers to introducing AI in societies. Drawing on an analysis of 26 AI national strategy documents in Europe analysed through the policy instrument lens, this study shows that there is a strong focus on initiatives to improve data-related aspects and collaboration with the private sector, and that there are limited initiatives to improve internal capacity or funding.
The article quantitatively investigates the e-maturity of municipalities, defined as the extent to which a public organisation uses Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for delivering ...public services. We first question existing e-maturity models and then propose a new method for assessing e-maturity based on the usage of digital services. We performed a Latent Class Analysis on data from 2,219 Italian Municipalities. The article quantitatively investigates the e-maturity of municipalities, defined as the extent to which a public organisation uses Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for delivering public services. We first question existing e-maturity models, and then propose a new method for assessing e-maturity based on the usage of digital services registered in 2,219 Italian municipalities. We perform Latent Class Analysis and introduce organisational factors and ICT expenditures to investigate the determinants underlying the resulting classes. Consequently, we underline the importance of key organisational characteristics, which partially explain e-maturity. Furthermore, municipalities with low e-maturity tend to spend less in ICT. Instead, no difference is found when comparing municipalities with medium and high e-maturity. Hence, the adoption of digital services does not depend on the amount of money spent in ICT, rather, probably, on the priorities and strategic choices set by municipalities. This result paves the way for further studies in the field. Subsequently, we introduced organisational factors and ICT expenditures to investigate the determinants underlying the resulting classes. Results underline the importance of key organisational characteristics, which partially explain e-maturity. Furthermore, municipalities with low e-maturity tend to spend less in ICT. Instead, no difference is found when comparing municipalities with medium and high e-maturity. Hence, the adoption of digital services does not depend on the amount of money spent in ICT, rather, probably, on the priorities and strategic choices set by municipalities. This result paves the way for further studies in the field.
This paper presents the findings of an online survey carried out as part of AI Watch, the European Commission knowledge service to monitor the development, uptake and impact of Artificial ...Intelligence (AI) for Europe. The survey was addressed at practitioners of public administrations at central, regional, and local level and aimed to compile a collection of cases of AI-enabled solutions used by public sector administrations. It analyses the drivers, obstacles, opportunities, and influencing factors of AI adoption and use by European public sector administrations, and identifies the perceived impacts of AI-enabled solutions on the different beneficiaries/users of services provided by public sector administrations. Findings from 62 respondents show that there is a wide array of AI initiatives in the public sector in European Member States moving beyond the pilot stage, that there is lack of citizen involvement in the design of AI services, low digital literacy of employees using AI systems, and that the disrupting effect that AI is expected to have in the public sector is still not mirrored in concrete large-scale AI projects with wide impact on public affairs.
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