Digital solutions are a vital part of solving the grand challenges that public organizations are dealing with. Traditionally, innovative pilots have been used to experiment towards working with such technologies. However, there is increasing pressure for these pilots to be scaled. As Mergel, Ganapati, and Whitford (2021) argue, scaling new practices or experiments to the rest of the organization in traditional public organizations is highly challenging. We argue that this is even more difficult for digital solutions, despite scaling being necessary both in terms of making better use of public funds (economies of scale and scope) and getting more value out of such projects (synergies and new resources). Even so, municipalities seem to be struggling to scale digital projects, being sometimes diagnosed of suffering from “pilot sickness”.

Scaling has traditionally been researched either from an IT (technical) or a growth (strategy/management) perspective. However, the realities of the digital projects that public organizations have to contend with challenge traditional scaling models. This is mainly because scaling a digital project within a public sector setting often does not mean doing more of the same at a bigger scale. Rather, scaling digital projects means either fitting them into already existing institutional models and routines that are very difficult to change (and sometimes unadvisable to do so) or transferring them to entirely new settings (like cross-departmental scaling). However, research so far has not looked into how actors deal with the challenges of scaling in their day-to-day work. Therefore, we raise the research question: How is scaling and spreading of digital projects conducted across boundaries within large public organizations? What are the practices and challenges of scaling and spreading?

To investigate this question, we conduct a large-scale qualitative study in a large municipality. The data consist of 29 interviews and 52 meetings – most of these meetings are with actors from across departments including meetings between IT-managers from various parts of the organization plus ethnographic research within the unit responsible for cross-border IT-collaboration within the organization.

We find that the strategies that actors use when attempting to scale and spread digital projects vary in terms of how the process and content of the digital project is managed. This gives rise to four main types of strategies that we term: innovation, reliability, mission, and control. Especially when actors that rely on different strategies meet to spread the digital solutions across departments, a paradox arises that pulls the actors both towards divergence and unity. In investigating the practices that actors use in meetings to navigate this paradox we find that actors not only use practices that pull them towards the two divergent polls of the paradox but also that they use practices that maintain the paradox stable. We show that while this may create problems for spreading and scaling projects it also maintains the organization in the stable stance required for digital projects to keep being pursued.

Reference:

Mergel, I., Ganapati, S., & Whitford, A.B. (2021). Agile: A new way of governing. Public Administration Review, 81(1), 161-165.

This paper explores the advantages and disadvantages of blockchain technology in public administration. Blockchain technology enables decentralized and distributed processing of information that can not be easily falsified, which may increase the level of trust of its users. Although at first it was limited to the world of finance, new ways of using blockchain technology swiftly emerged, and therefore public administration could also benefit from its efficiency. Drawbacks are also evident, due to apparent alegality of technology, or the fact that it may supersede law, whereas public administration is bound by law. However, by the principle of black box this can be overcome and public administrations can use blockchain technology without hurting the principle of legality. In supranational bodies, such as EU, where states are parties of the treaty, good sides of blockchain are even more evident, especially in cases when individual states may show the lack of trust in other states or when their public administration and some laws may differ, although they share the common Acquis. One such case could be Schengen area, where migrants could be assessed by blockchain technology, which in turn could increase the number of issued Schengen visas while also increasing the quality of migrants themselves and their placement in the EU states, which can also benefit the EU economy, and the rights of migrants could also be better protected. This would also increase the level of trust of states that may otherwise show distrust towards other states that are parties to the Schengen and perhaps increase the agility of public administrations themselves.

Digital transformation, driven by disruptive technologies (DT), is significantly altering economies and societies worldwide. For public sector organisations, embracing DT can enhance efficiency, productivity, transparency, and service delivery. Nevertheless, successful integration of these technologies requires comprehensive readiness at an organisational level. This study aims to identify and understand the critical factors that enable or constrain municipalities in developing their disruptive technology capabilities. Two research questions guide this investigation: 1) What factors influence municipalities to develop disruptive technology capabilities? 2) How do these factors affect municipalities in developing disruptive technology capabilities?

Adapting and extending a model from Mikalef et al. (2022), a comprehensive questionnaire was distributed to directors and heads of departments in Slovenian municipalities, yielding a sample of 121 responses. The study revealed that organisational innovativeness, particularly related to leadership’s openness to innovation, emerged as municipalities' most significant internal enabler of DT capability. Externally, government actions, both as a regulatory authority and as a facilitator (via policies, regulations, financial incentives, and strategic guidance), were identified as major contributors to the municipalities' DT capabilities. Interestingly, perceived citizen pressure, perceived financial costs, and municipalities' perception of the benefits of DT were not significant predictors of DT capability development.

The results indicate a twofold pathway for enhancing municipalities' DT capability. Firstly, public managers must understand the potential of DT and strategically orchestrate changes in organisational elements to ensure readiness for DT adoption. Secondly, government bodies play a pivotal role in fostering DT capability by establishing a supportive regulatory framework and providing incentives. These findings offer valuable insights for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers aiming to navigate the complex landscape of disruptive technology adoption within public organisations.

This paper explores twin interlinked processes associated with technological development and developments in governance arrangements surrounding the use of surveillance cameras in the UK. Here, it is argued that the development of technology and governance mechanisms are intertwined and that the loosening of safeguards designed to raise standards and protect citizens may resulting in the deployment of technologies that are not in the public interest.

The technological backdrop to this paper is the widespread use of surveillance cameras, often referred to as CCTV, in public places in the UK and elsewhere. More recently, advances in computerisation, especially around Artificial Intelligence, have provided new opportunities for innovative applications to be integrated into public space camera systems. The most significant of these is Face Recognition Technology (FRT), where algorithms match faces in crowds to those contained in police databases. FRT is controversial for a number of reasons, including: poor success rates, inbuild racial bias, a presumption of guilt and because there is a lack of public support for such systems. To date, FRT applications have been limited in number, primarily because of oversight safeguards embedded in the Surveillance Camera Commissioner’s Surveillance Camera Code of Practice.

Whist there is a noticeable evolution of the technology in recent years there is also a significant change about to happen in the regulatory landscape. Buried in the 2023 Data Protection and Digital Information Bill is a clause which abolishes the Office of the Biometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner (OBSCC). There are no clauses setting out the transfer of roles or functions, the legislative requirements relating to surveillance cameras will simply cease to exist. Here the Bill posits that the new Information Commission, The UK’s data protection regulatory authority which will replace the Information Commissioner’s Office, will regulate surveillance cameras in the same way as any other digital technology. For some, this is seen as a retrograde step as the OBSCC had raised technical standards, encouraged ethical procurement practices, promoted the importance of public confidence in systems and provided national oversight in the way such systems were deployed. Moreover, the view that surveillance cameras are just data processes fails to recognise how they impact on citizen-state relations.

The paper assesses the new governance arrangements for surveillance cameras embedded in the 2023 Data Protection and Digital Information Bill. The paper draws on new empirical research of 20 expert interviews conducted in 2023. It focusses on the perceived benefits of legislative change and its perceived ramifications. Here, there is deep concern within the policy community, and specifically in relation to the potential unchecked deployment of FRT in the coming years.