The great wave: The increasing demand for digital competence within the public sector
Abstract
The increasing diffusion of digital government has led to numerous reports on both significant progress and failure in terms of digital transformation. Previous research highlights the role of digital competence as a pre-requisite for successful digital transformation, yet few studies have addressed the actual state of digital competence demand in the public sector. We study the development of digital competence demand in the Swedish public sector for the period 2006–2020. Utilizing a complete, open dataset of all job postings, we find that the digital competence demand in public sector recruitment has significantly increased. At the same time, the public sector lags behind the private in terms of digital competence demand. These findings are discussed from the perspectives of both the need for further research into human resource-related aspects of digital government and the national digital government policy. We also discuss the potential impact of disruptive events such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2009 financial crisis on digital competence demand.
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Article first published online: August 1, 2023
Issue published: August 2023
Keywords
- Digital government
- digital competence
- recruitment
- NLP
- digital trace data
- pattern surfacingKey points for practitioners:•The demand for digital competence in the public sector is significantly (and unevenly) increasing
- yet still lags behind the private sector•The difference in digital competence demand among various levels of the public sector is an early indicator for the opportunities (and challenges) for digital transformation initiatives•Data-driven analysis using NLP in this study should offer inspiration to managers that strive to understand their organizations’ competence demand as well as policymakers regarding which types of analyses are employed to drive policy.
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