Digital Government Theory: Development and Application

Description

Digital government, initially referred to as electronic government, has evolved tremendously both as a 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-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, it is useful for scholars and other stakeholders to examine the state of the body of knowledge. To this end, several key questions emerge:

• Given the applied nature of digital government, what is the role of theory?
• 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 interdisciplinary nature, does the field need to develop its own set of theories?
• 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?

The purpose of this mini-track is to explore the role of theory development in this applied discipline. 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:

• 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

Minitrack Leaders

Lemuria Carter is the Head of School of the School of Information Systems and Technology Management at the University of New South Wales. Her research interests include technology adoption, digital government and privacy. She has published in several top-tier journals including the Journal of the Association for Information Systems, European Journal of Information Systems, Journal of Strategic Information Systems, Information Systems Journal and Decision Support Systems. She currently serves as an e-government track for the Americas Conference on Information Systems and mini-track chair for digital government theory at the Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. Her research has been funded by the Institute for Homeland Security Solutions and the Southeastern Transportation Institute in the United States.

Elin Wihlborg, PhD has been a professor since 2013 in Political Science at the Department of Management and Engineering, Linkoping University, Sweden. She received her PhD in Technology and Social change. Her areas of interest cover local and multi-level governance, legitimacy, e-government policies, public administration and digital transformation, digital inclusion and e-democracy. She works in inter-disciplinary research groups on digital government as well as on urban planning and sustainable development. She has initiated a summer school for young professionals on e-government - Sustainable e-government for Resilient and Innovative Democratic Public administration (SeGRID). She is vice head of the department and manager of the inter-disciplinary research school at the department.

Ludwig Christian Schaupp is a Professor in the Department of Accounting in the College of Business and Economics at West Virginia University. His primary research interests include e-government adoption, and website success metrics. He has published in several top-tier journals including Communications of the ACM, Journal of Information Systems, and Information Systems Frontiers.