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A governance framework facilitating a digital transformation of the public administration.

Boek - Dissertatie

This thesis studies what governance framework and related factors facilitate a digital transformation of public administration, with the overall objective of creating public value. Public administrations do not just launch digitalisation efforts on a voluntary basis, but are rather forced to take action based on a number of changing societal evolutions - the ongoing technological evolutions and emergence of disruptive digital technologies, changing user expectations on the services offered to them, and budgetary difficulties faced by governments and decision makers. As public administrations are expected to create public value, they are required to follow those societal evolutions and to make use of new disruptive digital technologies. In order to create public value in this changing context, public administrations invest in a digital transformation. A concept receiving increasingly more attention from academics and decision makers. A digital transformation of the public administration will require a framework that facilitates such a transformation. On the basis of a literature review, a number of highly important but understudied factors which can be considered to impact a digital transformation, was identified. The research focuses on four factors: (1) Internal coordination within a public administration, (2) public values striven for by a public administration, (3) the role of multi-level governance and (4) the role of user participation. From a theoretical point of view these different factors can be related to the (intra-)organisational and managerial layer impacting a digital transformation (factor coordination), the political and institutional layer impacting a digital transformation (factor public values), and the wider context in which a public administration functions and that impacts a digital transformation (the factor multi-level governance and the factor user participation). The research scope taken for this research is the Belgian federal administration, embedded in Belgium and the European Union. The research objective has been studied on the basis of a general research question and several sub-research questions. The research on and the answers to those sub-research questions are presented in the Chapters 2 to 6. In Chapter 2 research on the relation between public values, public value creation and the e-governance policy of public administrations is presented. Chapter 3 presents research on the relation between public values and the applied coordination instruments in e-governance policies. Chapter 4 is focused on the organisational structures and use of coordination instruments in the geospatial e-governance policy. Chapter 5 presents research on the role of multi-level governance in the e-governance policy of public administrations. Chapter 6 completes the research on the different factors by looking at the relation between public values and user participation methods. On the basis of the conducted research, the expertise build up as a researcher, the insights of the academic literature, and expert validation interviews, the Governance Framework facilitating the Digital Transformation of Public Administration was created, as an answer to the main research question and the research objective. The governance framework consists of four interacting facilitating factors, i.e. two Internal Facilitation Factors and two External Facilitation Factors. The two Internal Facilitation Factors are public values and coordination. The two External Facilitation Factors are user participation and multi-level governance. Those facilitating factors can have a direct and indirect effect on the facilitation of the digital transformation. A digital transformation of the public administration will - if successful - lead to the creation of public value. This public value creation can have an external and an internal component. An evaluation has to take place in order to understand to what extent public value was created, what the role of the digital transformation was in the creation of this public value and how the facilitating factors contributed to this digital transformation. At the same time, it has to be underlined that the evaluation has to contain a monitoring component, to understand already during the digital transformation process and the public value creation if certain aspects require an improvement. A final aspect of the framework is the time perspective: The digital transformation, facilitated by the four facilitating factors, is a constantly ongoing and endless process that strongly depends on the emergence and impact of disruptive digital technologies. This thesis has contributed to the academic literature by studying a number of factors and their relations, and by bringing this information together into a governance framework that can support public administration decision makers in facilitating a digital transformation within their public administration. As indicated in the thesis, it has to be underlined that each public administration is different and that also other factors (such as lack of resources, existing legal framework(s) etc.) can impact this digital transformation. Consequently, this research leads also to a number of follow-up questions that can be tackled in future studies and research activities. One can thereby think of studying other facilitating factors, and not only within the Belgian federal administration - i.e. the research scope of this thesis - but also in other public administrations at national, regional or local level. Furthermore, the research focuses on a digital transformation process, while public administrations have so far focused on e-government and e-governance processes. Also this relationship deserves increased attention in future research. This thesis has aimed to provide a view on how a digital transformation of a public administration can be facilitated and invites other scholars to continue the quest for understanding how a digital transformation can be facilitated, as in the end we - as service users and citizens - can benefit from it.
Jaar van publicatie:2021
Toegankelijkheid:Open