opengov2021

1. Responsible Digital Transformations
Leif Skiftenes Flak
Professor of Information systems
Director, CeDiT – Centre for Digital Transformation
University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway

2. CeDiT - Centre for Digital Transformation
Informations systems
Political science
Sociology
Urban planning
Arts
Linguistics
Anthropology
History

3. • Background
• Responsible digital
transformations
• What next?

4. Background
• Numerous discussions
with colleagues on DT(s)
• Discussion with IT
industry
• CeDiT strategy process
resulting in explicit focus
on RDTs.

5. Societal concequences of DT
“Not a day passes for me
without seeing the many ways
in which digital technology can
advance peace, human rights
and sustainable development
for all.”
António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations
Even former pillars of
democracy, Britain and
France, are challenged by
forces misusing digital
tools.
NORTON GUSKY
Resource depletion
eWaste
Energy consumption
...

6. Moving Towards Responsible Digital Transformations
Digital transformations actualize
former calls to study e.g.
• If we are making a better world
with ICT (Walsham, 2012)
• The societal implications of
digitalization (Majchrzak et al.,
2016)
• Call for attention to ethics in
DT research (Vial, 2019)
• Practice calls for
responsible development
• Some research areas
sensitive (e.g. AI)

7. Responsible Digital Transformations
Digital transformations
highly influential in societal
development but our
understanding of the
concequences is
inadequate

8. How and where to start
Some shoulders to stand on
• eGov
• Public values, stable structures
• IS sustainability research
• AIS sustainability task force
• AI4SG
• New value propositions
• IS resilience research
• What makes organizations
resilient?

9. Several options with
deadline March, 2022

11. Project discussion
Possible foci
• Digitalization &
sustainabillity
• New angles to
• Digital government
• Smart city
• Digital transformation
• Your thoughts?
• How can students work
with this?
• How can we work
together?
• What can be good cases?
• Do you know of similar
alliances as GoForIT in
other countries?

12. Leif Skiftenes Flak
Leif.Flak@uia.no
Web: https://cedit.uia.no
LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/293
56322