Digital Government Theory: Development and Application

Description

Digital government, initially referred to as electronic government, has evolved tremendously both as a multi-disciplinary academic field of study and in practice over the last few decades. The Digital Government Reference Library contains more than 11,000 peer-reviewed publications. This multi-, cross- and even inter-disciplinary study domain benefits from researchers and practitioners from diverse fields, including but not limited to public administration, information systems, information science, and political science. As the domain matures, there is a need to further elaborate on and contribute to new theoretical approaches and models with a potential to frame studies in the field. To this end, several key questions emerge:

• Given the applied nature of digital government, what can be the role of theories?
• What are the fundamental theoretical contributions to or from the digital government discipline, if any?
• Does the field have any foundational theoretic frameworks? Given its multi-, cross- and even inter-disciplinary nature, does the field need to develop its own set of theories and in that case which and how?
• What is the appropriate balance of theory and practice in this domain of study? What are the reference disciplines for digital government, if any?
• Does digital government have, or shall digital government have, a “home” (anchor) discipline?
• Is digital government (can, or shall, it evolve into) its own discipline?
• What relevance does the digital government body of knowledge have to practice?
• What are the roles of values and norms in the development of Digital Government Theories?
• How locally contextualised processes affect development and application of Digital Government theories?

The overall purpose of this mini-track is to explore the role of theory development in the field of digital government. We welcome submissions with diverse views on the role of theory development in digital government to promote critical discussion of the current status and future trajectory of the discipline. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Fundamental Digital Government Theories
• The Future of Digital Government Research
• Digital Government Theory Development
• The Role of Theory Development and Theory Integration in Digital Government
• The Status of the Digital Government Domain (discipline, or not?)
• Digital Government Research Methodologies
• Digital Government Reference Disciplines, if any
• Multi-disciplinary studies in digital government
• Inter-disciplinary studies in digital government
• Normative theoretical approaches to digital government 

Minitrack Leaders

Elin Wihlborg, holds a position as professor in Political Science at the Department of Management and Engineering, Linkoping University, Sweden. She received her PhD in the inter-disciplinary STS-field. Her research areas of interest cover local and multi-level governance, public administration and digital transformation, digital inclusion and e-democracy. She leads an inter-disciplinary research team on digital government and policies, that offers the SEGRID summer school on digital government for Sustainable e-government, to young professionals in Eastern Europe and Western Balkan.

Magdalena Roszczyńska-Kurasińska, Assistant Professor, an economist and psychologist at the Robert Zajonc Institute for Social Studies, University of Warsaw. Her main research interests focus on the phenomenon of social sustainability, policy implementation, behavioral economics, participation processes, and the role of trust in acceptance of the change. She specializes in the study of complex systems, especially those co-created by people (e.g. in the field of energy, adaptive reuse of built heritage, online communities, or technology transfer).  

Peter André Busch is an Associate Professor in the Department of Information Systems at Agder University. His primary research interests include decision-making (automated, semi-automated, and manual) and the use of discretion in public service provision, meta-questions of the field, and problematic sides of technology use. He has published in journals such as Government Information Quarterly, Information Polity, and Computers in Human Behavior.