Conference Agenda

Across the globe, digital transformation is one of the most significant trends in public sector reform. It reshapes public service delivery, the internal organization of public administration and has wider governance implications. The introduction of robotics and artificial intelligence is currently shaking up the debate and the expectations towards the entire public sector significantly.

In many countries, local governments play a crucial role in public service delivery due to their proximity to citizens and involvement in democratic processes. As a significant portion of citizen-state interactions occur at the local level, municipalities are central to digital transformation, and citizens and businesses expect contemporary and modern digital service delivery. Local governments are also pivotal in fostering trust between citizens and the government. Events like the COVID-19 pandemic have underscored the necessity of well-organized digital administrations to provide efficient services.

It is surprising that in current comparative research concerning digital transformation, the developments in local governments have been insufficiently investigated. Systematic cross-country comparative studies on the state of digital transformation at the local government level and its effects are scarce, and there are calls for more research in this area. Given the expected technological disruptions, it is crucial to assess past developments that form the ground on which these disruptions of service delivery build on.

Focusing on public service delivery, we show in this paper in a first step ‘what is known’ about digital transformation at the local level of government in Europe. In a second step, building on the gained insights, we develop several ideas for ‘what needs to be known’. The review aims to answer three key research questions:

RQ 1: What are the focal themes of digital transformation research regarding the local level of government?

RQ 2: What are the influential factors and effects of digital transformation?

RQ 3: What are avenues for future research based on the results?

To answer these questions, we analyze 113 articles published between 2010 and 2023, methodologically following the well-established ‘PRISMA’ approach for transparent and complete reporting. Our review focuses specifically on Europe to ensure coherence in administrative cultures across the countries examined. We limit the scope to research on digital transformation at the local government level that addresses public service delivery, both internally (e.g., shared services or capacity-building for service delivery) and externally (e.g., services to citizens or businesses). We exclude research on topics like communication methods (e.g., social media), and areas of the body of research ‘smart cities’ that do not directly relate to service delivery but are, for example, infrastructure related.

The paper is organised as follows: Initially, an analytic framework is developed for the review. This is followed by a description of the methodology, including the literature search, eligibility criteria, and study selection process. Subsequent sections present the review’s results, including an analysis of the sample characteristics and answers to the research questions. Finally, the paper concludes with a discussion and suggestions for future research and implications of this common trend for public administration across Western, Central, and Eastern Europe.

In the era of Digital Governance, digital transformation is defined as an ongoing process of internal changes within organizations for the enhanced delivery of public services through the implementation and use of digital technologies (Mergel et al., 2019; Vial, 2019; Hanelt et al., 2021). Digitalisation in particular, that is, the redesigning of the ways of providing processes and services and their implementation using digital technologies (Scupola & Mergel, 2022; Tangi et al., 2020), holds promise for public organizations in their attempts to improve service quality, increase citizen participation, and increase transparency, accountability, legitimacy, and trust in governments.

Specifically in relation to the fight against corruption, digitalisation is argued to have the potential to provide more data and more efficient communication channels to make these data readily available to a wider audience of stakeholders in the public sector. Such increases in data availability and transparency can be seen as catalysts for increased accountability and reduced public corruption. At the same time, there are arguments in the literature supporting the view that digitalisation can create conditions which are conducive to behaviours related to abuse of power.

Using Flyverbom’s (2019) ‘digital prism’ framework as an interpretive lens, we analyse perceptions of local and regional government officials in the Polish public sector context to elucidate the intricate relationship between digitalisation and corruption. Flyverbom (2019) challenges the assumption that more and more accessible information necessarily result in clarity; and proposes that information can be framed and refracted in various angles, to reshape visibility and redefine social, organisational, and economic interactions. It is from this perspective that we explore how digitalization conditions the way corruption is refracted and reconfigured, and eventually managed.

The study makes a contribution to an evolving body of empirical literature that aims to understand the impact of contextual factors (such as digital technology) on anti-corruption and integrity management systems, providing empirical evidence of corruption manifestations in digitised public service settings. Our findings suggest that although digitalisation does not directly impact on corruption, it can help in the fight against it by creating a digital context within which administrative actions closely followed and irregularities can be more easily detecting. By making the manipulation of data and information more difficult, it can therefore be seen to, at least indirectly, reduce the abuse of power in public administration activities. At the same time, however, it can be used as a means of formal and informal control mechanism, one that can legitimise specific modes of visibility and communication, thereby creating a setting that presents vulnerabilities and new pathways for corrupt behaviour.

As Europe’s public sector embraces digital transformation, including the use of AI and data-driven tools, critical governance challenges have emerged. These include algorithmic bias, privacy con-cerns, and declining public trust. While much of the policy and scholarly focus has emphasized technical solutions to these problems, this research argues that the social sciences are essential for designing ethical, legitimate, and socially grounded digital governance.

This paper explores how Romanian academia—particularly the social sciences—engages with the digital transformation of public administration. Using original survey and interview data from fac-ulty at Romanian universities, we examine academics’ perceptions of societal impact, institutional support for public engagement, and the role of disciplines in digital innovation. Our findings sug-gest that while Romanian academics are highly motivated to contribute to societal change, they feel constrained by institutional structures that prioritize STEM fields and undervalue the broader con-tributions of social scientists. This reflects a narrow interpretation of the “third mission” of univer-sities, which still centers on technology transfer to industry, rather than policy engagement or civic outreach.

We situate these findings within the context of Romania’s post-communist governance landscape, which is characterized by a legacy of centralized control and a trust deficit in public institutions. Despite ambitious digitalization strategies, including a national AI strategy, Romania lags behind other EU countries in digital uptake and e-government effectiveness. Our research suggests that this gap cannot be addressed by technical fixes alone. Social dynamics—such as resistance to change, low citizen trust, and weak institutional collaboration—play a major role in shaping outcomes. Ro-manian universities, particularly in the social sciences, have untapped potential to contribute to dig-ital public sector reform through ethical oversight, policy input, and community engagement.

The study contributes to broader European debates on how to ensure that technological innovation in governance remains democratically legitimate and socially responsive. We argue for a rebalanc-ing of the current STEM-dominated narrative by integrating social science expertise into digital governance frameworks. Disciplines such as public administration, sociology, ethics, and organiza-tional studies can offer critical insights into the design and implementation of fair, inclusive, and context-sensitive governance systems.

Although focused on Romania, the findings carry broader implications. We propose avenues for comparative research across European regions, particularly between Western and Central-Eastern countries, to better understand how administrative traditions, civic cultures, and academic ecosys-tems influence the integration of social sciences into digital policy. Romania’s case, marked by low institutional trust and historical separation between academia and the state, can serve as a useful contrast to more institutionalized models of interdisciplinary cooperation found elsewhere in Eu-rope.

In sum, this research highlights the need to treat digital transformation not only as a technical pro-ject but as a social one—requiring the co-creation of knowledge between technical experts and so-cial scientists to ensure sustainable, trustworthy, and effective public governance.