Strategic Perspectives in Analytics, Technology and Operations (SPATO) Seminar Series

Digital Strategies in the Public Sector

The Analytics, Technology & Operations Department (ATOD) warmly invite you to another Strategic Perspectives in Analytics Technology and Operations (SPATO) seminar. 

Register on Eventbrite

Title of the Seminar :  Digital Strategies in the Public Sector 
 
Abstract :  Governments worldwide are accelerating the digitalisation of their services and operations through digital transformation projects. These initiatives are typically framed in terms of efficiency, innovation, and competitiveness. However, far less attention is paid to how such strategies reshape power, redistribute responsibility, and reproduce digital inequalities.
 
This presentation presents a research programme that over the years has focused on the implications of digitalisation in terms of inequalities. Drawing from several studies at different analytical levels (micro, meso, macro) the research demonstrates that digital transformation is not merely technical change, but rather a process that embeds assumptions about capabilities and risks. Across contexts, digital strategies are shown to shift administrative and care burdens onto individuals, institutionalise asymmetrical risk constructions, and rely on narratives of technological solutionism that often obscure structural disadvantages. While digital tools can expand access and opportunity, their benefits are mediated by social norms, institutional design, and unequal capabilities.
 
During the presentation, I will be presenting a core conceptual contribution through the proposal for a care ethics framework for being responsibly digital. I will argue that we need to move beyond compliance-driven or efficiency-centred models of digital responsibility, and that we instead need to foreground relationality, vulnerability, and responsiveness as principles for crafting digital strategies. I will argue that the critical question is not whether we pursue digitalisation, but how digital transformation can be designed to avoid reproducing inequality and instead foster equitable and responsible public value.

Speaker: Professor Efpraxia Zamani, Durham University Business School 

Bio: Professor Efpraxia Zamani- Durham University Business School