Emergent digital era governance: Enacting the role of the ‘institutional entrepreneur’ in transformational change

Abstract

‘Digital Era Governance’ (DEG) enables electronic networked processes for integrated, holistic public sector delivery through the adoption of contemporary digital technologies. Our study, based within the States of California and Nevada (USA), investigates the logics embedded in DEG and the critical issues involved for transformational change. We draw upon the concept of ‘enactment’ as a lens to provide insights into relevant theoretical issues. These are operationalised through an enhanced Technology Enactment Framework (TEF) to consider reforms to explore the new DEG environment and, specifically, the role of the CIO and e-government policies. Our findings reveal how public sector CIOs adopt the role of an ‘institutional entrepreneur’, who demonstrate a series of initiatives augmented through identified behaviours relating to proactive community mobilisation (leadership, member focus) and legitimisation (discourse, success stories). Furthermore, the characterisation of entrepreneurial enactment appears to be extremely beneficial to the transformation to DEG within any contemporary public sector context.