Agile and digital transformation of the public sector

Public administrations around the world are in the midst of digitally transforming their internal administrative processes and external (citizen) services. While this transformation has been predominantly treated as a technologically complex problem in the related literature, the reality for many public managers and civil servants is that this transformation is shaping up to be fundamentally an organizational and personnel development problem: Public administrations need to build up organizational capacity and capabilities to be able to rethink their administrative practices and routines. New technological approaches and work practices imported from the software development industry are being introduced into public administrations and need to be adjusted to their context. This is resulting in new organizational structures that provide space for experimentation and testing, including innovation labs, digital or policy labs and innovation fellowships. The current literature has focused on explaining the need for these new arrangements, but has not clarified how the digital and agile transformation is taking place, what the pre-conditions are, how public managers are dealing with the ambidexterity of continuing to maintain parallel work practices (administrative routines in addition to agile practices) and how the results created in the new organizational arrangements are transferred into or absorbed by the existing administrative routines and legal contexts. Understanding these new developments by analysing empirical evidence and building a theoretical foundation is at the core of this SIG.

This SIG therefore will provide a space to discuss agile and digital transformation in public organizations and, among other:

• Promote and disseminate research
• Promote networking
• Bridge research and practice
• Improve teaching
• Develop theory

These activities will address subtopics, such as:

• The necessary internal changes that need to happen for digital and agile transformation to be successful
• New modes of interactions with the participants in the digital transformation
• New modes of service design that are introduced in the public sector
• The process of introducing and implementing agile methods in the routines of public administrations
• The impact that changes to technology procurement processes have on public management
• Organizational, procedural, technological outcomes of a digitally transformed public administration
• The role of organizational and/or institutional factors in the implementation of digital transformation
• Digital transformation competencies and digital transformation methods
• The changing relationships with digital transformation stakeholders
• Public value creation in digital transformation projects

A way to join our group

If you are interested in joining the SIG on agile and digital transformation of the public sector, please, contact any of the leaders of the SIG.

A list of planned activities and events

Although this SIG is at a very early stage, we are already thinking of future activities that include:

• The organization of a panel at IRSPM 2023: Please, check https://www.irspm.org/list-of-panels-2023/conference-2023/conferences/p29-sig-digital-and-agile-transformation-in-the-public-sector for further information
• A journal’s special issue in agile and digital transformation in the public sector in target journals such as PMR, IPMJ, Government Information Quarterly, Digital Government ACM journal or Information Polity
• An online talk series on the topics related to the SIG between conferences

In addition, we want to keep the SIG alive in between conferences, so we will be announcing shortly new (mainly online) activities, which will take place before and after our next IRSPM conference in Budapest.