Identifying Barriers for Digital Transformation in the Public Sector

The last decade has brought ubiquitous and low-cost digital tools that efficiently solve administrative and commercial functions. As a result, we have observed an acceleration in organizational changes as organizations have adopted new digital technologies to improve their performance. Even though productivity gains from digitalization are equally great in the public sector as in the private, public organizations have been more reluctant to adopt digital technologies. This leaves the question of whether there are idiosyncratic barriers in the public sector that slows digital transformation. This study explores these barriers through the case of the digital transformation of the Norwegian Court Administration using an institutional perspective combined with change management theory. The study finds that, due to interdependencies, public organizations need a sector-wide digital transformation and identifies institutional norms as a strong barrier for organizational change. This, in turn, leads to individual behaviours that hinder digital transformation. A greater multi-disciplinary collaboration across management levels is key to speed up the changes that are necessary to reap the benefits of digitalization in the public sector.