Process Automation as Enabler of Prioritized Values in Local Government – A Stakeholder Analysis

• Published in: ELECTRONIC GOVERNMENT, EGOV 2021 Vol. LNCS-12850; pp. 288 - 300
• Main Authors: Toll, Daniel, Lindgren, Ida, Melin, Ulf
• Format: Book Chapter Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: Cham Springer International Publishing 2021
• Series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science
• Subjects: Automation; Computer Science; Humanities and Social Sciences; Library and information sciences; Municipality; Public sector; Public values; Stakeholder theory; Automation; Stakeholder theory; Municipality; Public values; Public sector
• ISBN: 3030847888; 9783030847883; 9783030847890; 3030847896
• ISSN: 0302-9743; 1611-3349
• DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-84789-0_21

Local government organizations (municipalities) in Sweden are encouraged to pursue process automation to face upcoming challenges. In this paper we focus on a case where these recommendations are put into practice and explore the views on process automation held by different stakeholder groups, related to which values they prioritize in their respective area of work. We do this by applying stakeholder theory and the model of value ideals by [1] as a combined theoretical lens. Our results show that different stakeholder groups prioritize different value ideals in their areas of work and that their views on process automation as able to enable these value ideals vary from optimistic, to hesitant to pessimistic. In the studied case, the achievement of process automation is in part reliant on workers themselves seeking it out, meaning that the pessimistic view on process automation poses a problem in that it becomes an obstacle for this to function. We discuss the possible reasons for the differently held prioritized value ideals as well as the differently held views on process automation. We conclude that the studied case shows that implementing process automation includes establishing new structures, roles and responsibilities and comes with certain issues, as those highlighted by our analysis. We found the combination of value ideals and stakeholder theory useful in studying e-government initiatives and make some further recommendations on possible future, related, streams of research.