Presentation
While witnessing rapid advancements in digital technologies, we persistently struggle with realizing the benefits of such technologies in public sector digitalization. Many large and ambitious IT projects fail and most public sector organizations remain far from the envisioned goals of utilizing digital technologies to offer improved and more efficient services. In our research, we explore why public sector digitalization remains so difficult. In our talk, we will argue how part of the issue relates to a deeply rooted misconception of digitalization as technical problem-solving. This misconception leads us to apply the same problem-solving methods that we use for technical problems in IT development to the unstructured and “wicked” problems of organizational improvement. We will then present some suggestions for what we consider a more fruitful understanding of digitalization and the implications this has for further research and practice.
Speakers
Magnus Li is a Postdoc in Information Systems at the Department of Informatics, at the University of Oslo. His research interest is in how we can improve digital innovation and digitalization processes with a particular focus on larger public sector organizations. He engages in empirical research in the Norwegian public sector and African and Asian countries within the HISP network.
Alexander Kempton is an Associate Professor in Information Systems at the Department of Informatics, at the University of Oslo. He is a qualitative researcher of socio-technical systems, with a professional background from both digitalization processes and software development. In his research, he primarily studies digitalization projects and digital transformation within healthcare and the public sector.
Program
12:00 – Doors open and lunch is served
12:15 – "Why is public sector digitalization so difficult?" by Magnus Li (Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Informatics) and Alexander Kempton (Associate Professor, Department of Informatics)
13:15 – Mingling (and goodbye)
To participate, please fill out the registration form. This way, we will not be short on food and drinks! (Registration is not binding and you are welcome to join us anyway!)
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About the seminar series
Once a month, dScience will invite you to join us for lunch and professional talks at the Science Library. In addition to these, we will serve lunch in our lounge in Kristine Bonnevies house every Thursday. Due to limited space (40 people), this will be first come, first served. See how to find us here.
Our lounge can also be booked by PhDs and Postdocs on a regular basis, whether it is for a meeting or just to hang out – we have fresh coffee all day long!