Digital Transformation of Local Government: A Case Study from Greece

Digital transformation in the public sector means new ways of working with stakeholders, building new frameworks of service delivery and creating new forms of relationships. However, beyond the availability of consultancy reports, there is little systematic empirical evidence about the way that public administrations are currently defining digital transformation in their day-to-day practices, how they are approaching digital transformation projects, and what the expected outcomes are. Moreover, existing works have focused on the central government; digital transformation in local authorities is an underexplored area. However, municipalities have a daily direct contact to citizens, while the adoption of digital technologies is quite slow. This paper presents a research based on empirical data aiming at identifying the current status and the potential of digital transformation in municipalities. It presents a case study from Greece and based on the results, it identifies the challenges of adopting digital technologies in the public sector, and particularly in local governments, and concludes in the steps to be followed towards digital transformation.