Unit 8

Summary of Key Arguments in this Unit

Argument 1 - Resistance to change in the digital era combines timeless causes with new ones that are specific to modern technologies.

Governments must always strike a balance between being able to change in response to circumstances, whilst also being able to provide security and stability over long time frames (something that requires governments to be able to resist dangerous or chaotic change).

Individual public servants seeking to push change through mature bureaucracies will always find numerous barriers standing in their way: these barriers are at times unjustifiable, and at times in place to ensure professional standards and stability.

When public servants encounter resistance of the less justifiable variety, they need to have a clear analysis of what is driving it. Some causes come from the timeless inertia around rules, regulations and routines that have simply 'always been done this way'. But some causes of resistance to change are specific to the digital era. Some examples include:

• Legacy IT systems often represent critical computer systems that nobody currently employed by a government fully understands, making changes based on updating them impossible or highly risky.

• Lack of the basic understanding of technology and data at the leadership level results in messy procurement, inability to attract talent, costly mistakes and missed opportunities to take advantage of what is possible.

Argument 2 - Digital era change has come to governments through mechanisms most of which were well established long before the digital revolution

At a conceptual level there is little that is truly new about how governments adopt digital change, as compared with other kinds of change. Different types of change can be (and have been) theorised in various diverse ways, from Kurt Lewin's change model (1947) through to Mark Moore's strategic triangle (1995).

Examples of mechanisms that governments have used to bring about digital era change include:

• A government adopts a new policy for political reasons

• A new senior leader is appointed with a personal interest in digital

• An embarrassing government IT failure leads to a 'never again' reform initiative.

These ideas connect with the 'Why now?' content of Unit 1.

Argument 3 - Students who study recent success and failure stories will be able to overcome certain barriers they will likely face in government

There are numerous accounts and studies of attempts to bring about digital era change in governments around the world. It is vital to share these studies with students as they represent some of the most powerful tools that can be deployed when attempting to overcome the range of barriers outlined in the learning outcomes above.

These cases make an ideal complement to theoretical approaches of the sort developed by scholars.

Instructors must be clear that there is no single generalisable model about how to bring about significant digital change in governments. There are competing ideas about 'what matters most', and we are some years away from having clarity on the 'winners' or generalizable insights.

In our teaching breakdowns we share accounts from different national and geographic contexts, based on the location of the professors.