Can Institutionalism Explain Constraints That Are Slowing Down Digital Transformation?

Abstract

The undergoing process of digitalizing public services all around the world is probably the biggest challenge the public sector has encountered this century and at the same time facing serious setbacks and problems in all the countries going through it. No matter if we talk about simple data digitization or actual digital transformation of entire systems and organizations, the digital change comes as a major threat to existing institutions that have been part of the public system for decades and should be addressed not only as a matter of resources and access to digital tools, but also as a phenomena that affects most of the rules and norms that public servants have been following so far, causing organizational change. This article wishes to address the topic of digitalization in the public sector from an institutional point of view, trying to understand if the already existing norms might pose as a setback for organizational change and if taking them into consideration might contribute to a faster, easier and more efficient process, explain and prevent certain possible setbacks. The first chapters will present a small theoretical introduction regarding digitalization, institutionalism and organizational change as main concepts, along with examples relevant for the present discussion, followed by a short description of interviews conducted with public servants in Romania, in an attempt to understand what main difficulties are they experiencing in the process of digitalizing public services and how much of their reluctancy comes from the existing sets of norms and habits, or from actual educational or resource related problems.