The theoretical work focused on developing further the concept of public sector technological capacities in relation to (1) the change in internal organizational processes and (2) external relationships with citizens, society and private organizations. For the former aspect, the developed conceptual framework made three specific contributions to the digital governance literature. First, the framework provided an analytical lenses for studying which managerial and organizational processes are behind the emerging technology-induced public management trajectories. Second, it offers an evolutionary rather than instrumental or static framework for understanding public sector technological change. Third, the framework shows how mapping the evolution of digitalization projects on organizational level might provide a useful empirical framework for understanding technological capacities.
As for the second theoretical focus, we first addressed the interlinkages between public sector technological capacities and citizen engagement. We summarized the existing evidence and revisited the key technological issues relevant for public service co-production and co-creation, and then developed an analytical framework that distinguishes between the impacts of different technologies (per functionality) on different elements of co-production and co-creation (interaction, motivation, resources and decision-making). Secondly, we addressed the interlinkages between public sector innovation/technological capacities and private firms. As a result, we demonstrated how public sector can induce technological innovations through public-private partnerships, and how this capacity can be seen as a key relational capability of technology-oriented public sector organizations.
Using the developed theoretical framework and insights, the empirical work focused on Estonia – as a leading digital governance case – and on a comparative study of four different countries. We used document analysis and interviews to gain new empirical insights. On Estonia, we first compared nine different Estonian public sector organizations with different levels of technological capacities. The results showed how idiosyncratic external selection environment causes uneven development of technological capacities in the public sector even in the allegedly supportive overall e-government context. We then analyzed more closely two Estonian case-studies (e-residency and VAT collection reform) to understand the relationship between the inter-organizational collaboration and public sector technological capacity. As a result, we showed that digital technology (machine-to-machine solutions) is not neutral, but it may act as a syntax of how public services evolve over time. Thirdly, we did an in-depth case study on the dynamic capacity of digital technologies as we explored the evolution of the Estonian tax authority from a post-Soviet public sector organization to a globally leading organization of its kind. As the main result, we showed which managerial and organizational processes were behind the emergence and evolution of the high-level technological capacities.
Comparatively, and in cooperation with project partners, we relied on the cases of tax authorities in Estonia, Singapore, New Zealand and Belgium to show 1) how public sector organizations develop new technological capabilities by combining internal and external sources of new knowledge, and 2) what kind of new administrative trajectories are emerging from these learning processes. We showed how public sector organizations set the organizational boundaries in terms of what knowledge (technological capacity) is being created inside organization and what is outsourced, and demonstrated how the ICT revolution is influencing the transformation of the public sector in terms of emerging public administration trajectories.
