GOVINF-01180; No.

of pages: 11; 4C:

Government Information Quarterly xxx (2016) xxx–xxx

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Government Information Quarterly

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/govinf

Digitally-enabled service transformation in the public sector: The lure of

institutional pressure and strategic response towards change
Vishanth Weerakkody a,⁎, Amizan Omar a, Ramzi El-Haddadeh b, Moaman Al-Busaidy c
a
Business School, Brunel University London, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UB8 3PH, United Kingdom
b
College of Business and Economics, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar
c
Oman Airport Management Company, Oman

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Digitally-Enabled Service Transformation (DEST) projects in public sector institutions are viewed as a choice of
Received 9 February 2016 strategic response towards changes in policy. Such transformation can destruct institutional stability and legiti-
Received in revised form 15 June 2016 macy and result in failure if the complex institutional setting of the public sector is not comprehended in the
Accepted 15 June 2016
change-institutionalisation effort. Through a multiple case enquiry, this study examines how institutional pres-
Available online xxxx
sures contribute towards the emergence of DEST in public agencies and how newly introduced transformation
Keywords:
is implemented and diffused within the institutional setting. The findings highlight that as a form of technology
Public sector driven change, DEST is characterised and shaped dominantly by continuous interplay with institutional elements
Service transformation and the impact of these interactions define the institutionalisation, deinstitutionalisation and re-
Institutional theory institutionalisation of DEST. Ability to recognise such stages and provide the required support will determine a
Digital government public institution's ability to effectively manage DEST and attain its strategic goals.
Organisational change © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction evolving nature of technology often adversely affects DEST by stimulat-

The introduction of digital government services in the mid-late
1990′s has stimulated efforts across public administrations to transform
their services using technology. The internet in particular is seen as a
catalyst for enabling efficient, low cost and transparent services to citi-
zens through integration and sharing of knowledge and resources
(Janowski, 2015; Sivarajah, Irani, & Weerakkody, 2015). Such efforts
have been facilitated by the implementation of digitally-enabled service
transformation (DEST) programs, which have helped improve interac-
tions between public institutions and stakeholders, and changed the
public service delivery landscape (Danneels & Viaene, 2015).
Although DEST has helped public institutions to radically improve
service delivery, transparency and accountability and resulted in re-
duced costs, multitude of challenges throughout the transformation
journey has impeded many DEST efforts from being institutionalised
(Danneels & Viaene, 2015; Dwivedi, Weerakkody, & Janssen, 2012;
El-Haddadeh, Weerakkody, & Al-Shafi, 2013). Ironically, although
DEST is empowered by ICT, the use of technology itself has been identi-
fied as the most significant factor impeding the institutionalisation pro-
cess (Diniz, Birochi, & Pozzebon, 2012). This is because the rapidly
⁎ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: Vishanth.Weerakkody@brunel.ac.uk (V. Weerakkody),
Amizan.MohamedOmar@brunel.ac.uk (A. Omar), rhaddadeh@qu.edu.qa
(R. El-Haddadeh), moaman@omanairports.com (M. Al-Busaidy).
ing unanticipated pressures on the organisation and producing uninvit-
ed outcomes that alter organisation properties (El-Haddadeh et al.,
2013; Heinze & Hu, 2005).
Reflecting on various examples of DEST in the public sector around
the globe, most often the undesirable outcomes have been rooted in
technology related issues. This is due to the reason that most DEST pro-
jects are not viewed as an integrated institutional process of change, but
rather as isolated projects that are implemented, often reactively, to pol-
icy decisions, using private sector thinking without due consideration
for the complex public sector institutional setting (Currie & Guah,
2007; Currie, 2012; Janowski, 2015).
Unlike other institutions, public organisations compete for political
power, institutional legitimacy, as well as social and economic fitness
(Cordella & Tempini, 2015). These organisations are shaped by the in-
teractions between elements within environment that they operate in,
rules and norms imposed on them, behaviours of their internal systems,
and cognitive patterns of their inhabitants (Klievink, Bharosa, & Tan,
2015). As part of the institutional elements, an organisation evolves
through mutual interactions of various sub-institutions such as regula-
tors, society and competitors. In this vein, digital technology is often
used as a catalyst to shape new forms of organisational functions and
in helping the government to increase public sector legitimacy in the
digital-age through integration of various functions between public
agencies. In pursuit of legitimacy, the ‘new functions’ will eventually de-
fine how organisations should evolve, in terms of their structures,

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2016.06.006
0740-624X/© 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article as: Weerakkody, V., et al., Digitally-enabled service transformation in the public sector: The lure of institutional pressure
and strategic response towards c..., Government Information Quarterly (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2016.06.006
2 V. Weerakkody et al. / Government Information Quarterly xxx (2016) xxx–xxx
culture, and systems to achieve the desired goals. Knowing this, imple-
mentation of digital technology should be viewed as an integrated
institutionalisation process of change on an ongoing basis, rather than
a single view of isolated technology implementation case on reciprocal
basis. Therefore, potential challenges, complexities and associated neg-
ative outcomes of DEST should be anticipated and approached accord-
ingly. In addition, the fact that technological change is a complex
social process driven by organisational structure, politics and manage-
ment strategies should be thoroughly understood in order to facilitate
the institutionalisation of DEST (Irani & Kamal, 2015). Therefore, the
central question to this research is:
How is DEST implemented and diffused within public organisations
through the process of institutionalisation, deinstitutionalisation and
re-institutionalisation?
This research question offers the frame of reference to investigate
the factors inflicting institutional pressures and the role of isomorphic
mechanism, which over time embed the Digitally-Enabled services in
working practices of the public agency that undergoes transformation.
As such, the question focuses on deinstitutionalisation and re-
institutionalisation processes of mutual transformation underpinning
the interplay between technology and its hosting organisation. This
focus aims to analyse how Digitally-Enabled services (as structure), is
shaped and shapes its organisational context of use, and how this inter-
play then underpins the institutionalisation of a service in the working
practices of the public agency. In this respect, using a case study ap-
proach and review of the existing literature, the paper examines how
technology institutionalisation occurs in public organisations, and
more precisely how institutional logics relating to technology imple-
mentation are diffused within organisations through three isomorphic
processes i.e. coercive, mimetic and normative. The findings will be
used to extrapolate the challenges and complexities of digital-led trans-
formation from the perspective of public agencies. This study offers a
reference point for practitioners and researchers involved in the new
era of digital-led government transformation projects – such as e-gov-
ernment, enabling them to relate implementation paradoxes and asso-
ciated challenges. The broader aim of the study is to draw lessons from
multiple public agencies on the trajectory of institutionalisation of digi-
tal-led service transformation projects that are aimed at delivering cost
savings for government and improved service outcomes for citizens.
The paper is structured as follows. The next section presents an in
depth analysis of the literature that shapes this research followed by a
discussion of the process of institutionalisation and deinstitutionalisation
of digital-led transformation in public agencies and various dimensions of
it. The proceeding section explains the research framework and approach
driving the study, followed by findings and discussion. The final section
concludes with a discussion of the research contributions, implications
to theory and practice.
2. Literature review
2.1. Digital-led service transformation in public institutions
As a policy instrument, digital initiatives continue to flourish in ex-
pectancy of enhancing the public service delivery system, lowering op-
erational cost and bettering government controls on information and
data as well as transparency and efficiency (Mergel & Desouza, 2013).
However, many Digital Enabled Service Transformation (DEST) initia-
tives have failed to realise such a context due to the complex
organisational structures, as well as homogeneous values and beliefs
among the institutional actors, which often inhibit information sharing
in public agencies (Currie, 2012; Lounsbury, 2008; Lounsbury &
Boxenbaum, 2013). Such issues are further compounded by
unsupportive legislations and use of complicated technology that
demotivate users and stimulates unanticipated pressures towards the
Please cite this article as: Weerakkody, V., et al., Digitally-enabled service transformation in the public sector: The lure of institutional pressure
and strategic response towards c..., Government Information Quarterly (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2016.06.006
organisation which affect outcomes (Baptista, Newell, & Currie, 2010;
Baptista, 2009; Diniz et al., 2012; El-Haddadeh et al., 2013; Mousa,
2013). In this context, the fact that technological changes in organisa-
tions are closely related to a social process, mediated by other formal
or informal institutional structure, political influences and management
strategies, is confirmed (Sharif, Troshani, & Davidson, 2014). Therefore,
digital-led solutions should not be viewed as merely ‘tools’ to produce
and deliver services, but as part of organisation practice that requires
changes in ‘taken for granted activities’, including cognitive abilities to
modify existing culture, sanction of new procedures to reinforce actions
and regulating practices to form new norms (Azad & Faraj, 2011;
Al-Busaidy & El-Haddadeh, 2011; Baptista, 2009).
In this backdrop, it is vital to recognise the events that trigger the
deinstitutionalisation stage in change – a stage which is also known as
‘pre-institutionalisation’ (Tolbert & Zucker, 1999 from Scott, 2014),
which starts the institutionalisation cycle of change. This analysis
should then be followed by a key question that examines how a public
organisation secures a common structure through ‘typification’ events
and what are the mechanisms used to rest the continuity of this
structure.
2.2. Institutional theory and the institutionalisation of change
Several studies adopted Institutional Theory as a potential lens to
study the institutionalisation process of ICT-led changes in the Public
Sector, emphasising that organisations interact with its internal and
external environment to achieve legitimate status, or state of being
widely accepted or institutionalised (see for example Al-Busaidy &
El-Haddadeh, 2011; Diniz et al., 2012; El-Haddadeh et al., 2013;
Panagiotopoulos, Elliman, & Fitzgerald, 2011; Phang, Kankanhalli, &
Ang, 2008; Zucker, 1988). The basic assumption made utilising this the-
ory is that – technology becomes institutionalised in an organisation
when it forms as routines of the organisation's inhabitants, which
then gradually reduces the need for cognitive efforts (Baptista et al.,
2010). Recurring interactions between the technology or structure
and the organisation's inhabitants or actors are required in order to
achieve this status (i.e. routinised actions) over time and space through
different modalities and actions. The interplays, which produce conse-
quences – both intentionally and unintentionally, will later shape new
institutional structure forming organisational routines and eventually
institutionalised practice (Veenstra, Melin, & Axelsson, 2014; Veenstra,
Janssen, & Tan, 2010).
Tolbert and Zucker (1991, quoted from Scott, 2014) further dissected
the institutionalisation process from a micro-level perspective and ex-
plained that a newly introduced invention would undergo stages known
as ‘habitualisation’ and ‘objectification’ before it is institutionalised.
‘Habitualization’ is a stage where new practices (or in this context
known as structure) are produced as the result of a ‘typification’ process,
which is a micro-process where organisational inhabitants give meaning
towards a new innovation or change according to their individual belief.
As actors respond differently using a diversity of evolving approaches, va-
riety of new structures are created and proposed as a solution or response
towards the new innovation or change. According to Scott (2014), the oc-
currence increases vulnerability in the habitualisation stage, thus reducing
the chance of realising a common solution to enable movement to the
next stage, towards institutionalised practice. ‘Objectification’, a stage
after the ‘habitualization’ - is a stage where organisational inhabitants
start to develop consensus among them towards the value of a structure,
to set common agreeable practice (Clegg, Hardy, Tawrence, & Nord, 2006,
p.p. 820). The final stage of the institutionalisation process – known as the
sedimentation stage, involves embedding the common practice that
was derived from the previous stage, as part of organisation culture.
Completion of the three stages ensures institutionalised practice in any
organisation.
Therefore, in the context of institutionalising DEST in the public
sector, an understanding towards both institutionalisation and
 V. Weerakkody et al. / Government Information Quarterly xxx (2016) xxx–xxx
deinstitutionalisation events, as well as underpinning logics that drive
the transformation process is vital. This understanding will provide a
clearer view of the institution's characteristics and behaviour and offer
clues for intervention, thus allowing a desirable institutionalisation pro-
cess in the organisation.
A gap seen in the literature is the lack of discussion about the inter-
play between institutional actors, such as the stakeholders and
organisational structures like technology and policies, and how the out-
comes of these interrelationships affect the institutionalisation of DEST
in public sector organisations (Basettihalli, Kim, Lee, & Noh, 2010;
Currie, 2012; Veenstra et al., 2010), as well as lack of focus given to
the deinstitutionalisation event. Therefore, it is possible to imply from
these arguments that factors associated with institutional pressures, as
well as other institutional elements need new studies to cover today's
rapidly evolving DEST setting.
Hence, this study emphasises the role of cognitive processes (mi-
metic isomorphism) in the development and proposal of new structures
as a response towards newly introduced innovations and change, as
well as the role of regulatory frameworks (coercive isomorphism) and
morale (normative isomorphism) in determining and transmitting the
common, agreeable practice to form an institutionalised behaviour.
Meanwhile, to understand deinstitutionalisation in this context, much
focus is given to the roles of functional and environmental pressures
in forming the trigger points for transformation during the pre-
institutionalisation stage.
2.3. Isomorphism process - a product of deinstitutionalisation
Institutional theory provides explanation of why organisations
operating in a particular sector resemble each other to a certain degree.
The concept of ‘fields’ in institutional theory emerged to draw together
all organisations meeting together to attain the same kind of needs,
rather than simply emerging as the product of the natural interaction
of organisations (Frumkin & Galaskiewicz, 2004). Institutionalisation
process is intimately tied with this concept and organisation fields re-
flect the slow homogenisation and convergence of organisational
forms. Although many factors contribute towards the shaping of this
analogue practice, culture is recognised as the prominent factor affect-
ing the organisation inhabitants' behaviours. Culture, is entrenched in
knowledge and practices that are commonly understood, acted upon,
disseminated, and sediment in the organisation. This process is known
as institutionalisation. When the institutionalised practice or commonly
held model of the individuals or any social organisation is spread to
others and embraced, it will form an institution – a collective environ-
ment that embodies the ‘pre-determined scripts’, which are used as a
lens to make sense of the world. In the context of this research, the con-
cept of ‘pre-determined scripts’ rationalise why public organisations
within the same environment often react and behave similarly despite
of their distinct functions.
According to Scott (2014, p.56) an institution “…comprise regula-
tive, normative, and cultural cognitive elements that, together with
the associated activities and resources, provide stability and meaning
to social life”. Institutions operate in an environment consisting of
other institutions, called the institutional environment. The broader en-
vironment influences every institution. In this environment, the main
goal of the organisations is to survive. Therefore, they need to succeed
both – within the scope of economy and established legitimacy within
the world of institutions. Hoffman (2001) summarised that institutions
are made from three pillars: regulative, normative and cultural cogni-
tive, which form a continuum moving “from the conscious to the uncon-
scious, from the legally enforced to the taken for granted”. In a stable
situation, persistence and reinforced practiced can be observed, as
they are taken for granted, socially validated and regulatory backed.
These pillars provide support to the systems in the institutions, as
well as act as the roots in developing and sustaining institutionalised
behaviour. Aligned pillars result in strength and stability, whereas
Please cite this article as: Weerakkody, V., et al., Digitally-enabled service transformation in the public sector: The lure of institutional pressure
and strategic response towards c..., Government Information Quarterly (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2016.06.006
3
misaligned pillars can cause organisational imbalance and state of ille-
gitimacy, thus motivating different choices and actions to be taken by
institutional actors for different ends (Scott, 2014). This situation is
called ‘deinstitutionalisation’ and is posed as a trigger for institutions
to undergo change where current institutionalised practices become
dysfunctional or unattractive (Scott, 2014). Zucker (1988) associates
this phenomenon with “modification of rules under the pressures of
varying circumstances”, which often starts with symptoms such as ero-
sion of beliefs that finally give rise to the questioning of matters taken
for granted, and depletion of regulative systems that increase the
chances of unfit practices being discontinued. According to Sine and
Tolbert (2006), the change of practice in an organisation projects the
symptom of early deinstitutionalisation stage, and the outright aban-
donment of certain institutionalised practice shows an extreme
deinstitutionalisation case, while the gradual deinstitutionalisation lies
between the two scenarios. Most often, the process is given a myopic
view as institutional pressures.
As institutions work as forces upon individuals and organisations,
they create social pressures and restrictions that set boundaries for
what is accepted and what is not. Resembling the three pillars of an in-
stitution, the three types of institutional pressures are identified as: (1)
Normative pressures or social pressures that entailed the moves of orga-
nisations and its members to conform to certain norms, and most often
associated with professionalisation; (2) Coercive pressures that stems
from political influence and the need for legitimacy, such as regulations
or laws imposed, as well as expectations on organisations such as
achieving certain technical or service standards; and (3) Mimetic pres-
sures that occur resulting from standard responses to uncertainty, as
outlined in Fig. 1. Oliver (1992, as in Scott, 2014) links normative pres-
sures to social pressures which emerge due to differentiation among so-
cial groups that increase fragmentation of common understanding,
causing deviation in practice members of a society or organisation. He
also re-classified coercive pressures into two sub-types of functional
and political pressures, which arise from perceived problems in perfor-
mance levels regarding institutionalised practice, and pressures that are
derived from shift in interest of political power supporting current
institutionalised practice, respectively.
Innovation is often introduced in an organisation as a strategic re-
sponse towards pressures, thus causing the organisation to undergo
an institutionalisation process. The whole process is driven by isomor-
phic mechanism, which is a mechanism where an organisation aims
to resemble others (within the same institutional or service setting)
by having similarity in forms, shapes and structures. When mimicking
the pressures, there are three types of isomorphism: (1) coercive iso-
morphism – compliance by expedience through indicators of rules
and sanctions; (2) normative isomorphism – which cautions towards
social obligations through indicators of certifications and accreditations;
and (3) mimetic isomorphism – cautions towards ‘taken for granted ac-
tivities’ through indicators of prevalence. These three mechanisms can
overlap and intermingle, but they tend to derive from different
conditions.
Thus to understand how institutions arise, maintain and
undergo changes, institutional study must encompass both the
deinstitutionalisation and institutionalisation process. This paper
therefore analyses which factors are inflicting institutional pres-
sures causing deinstitutionalisation in public agencies. We draw
upon institutional theory, focusing on the isomorphic mechanism
amidst the institutionalisation stage of digital-led service transfor-
mation in public agencies.
3. Methods
3.1. Research design
This research adopts an interpretive method, as in other IS studies
(Baptista et al., 2010; Currie, 2012; Mergel & Desouza, 2013). The
4 V. Weerakkody et al. / Government Information Quarterly xxx (2016) xxx–xxx
Fig. 1. Pressures that contribute to deinstitutionalisation. Source: Oliver (1992). The antecedents of deinstitutionalization.
paradigm allows theories to be organised according to the degree to
which social phenomena is presumed to exist independently and to
be discovered through own understanding, which then can inform
other situations rather than seeking generalisations (Elbardan, 2014;
Guba & Lincoln, 1994). An inductive approach is used with the applica-
tion of qualitative methods, involving a systematic literature review and
case study.
The initial stage of the research begins with a systematic literature
review process conducted on Scopus and Web of Science. The search
discovered over 300 articles published between the year of 2000 to
2010 with the presence of “Public Sector”, “Government”, “Digital”, “Im-
plementation Challenges”, “Institutionalisation” “ICT” and “institutional
theory”, in tittle, abstract, and key-words of papers. The final review
after filtering the papers focused on 21 key papers, which were selected,
analysed and profiled according to the relevance of their titles, research
aim and questions, research methodologies employed, research limita-
tions, future research avenues, theoretical lens utilised and research
context. The intention was to establish a deep understanding of issues
surrounding the implementation of DEST in the public sector and asso-
ciated research gaps. Results of the analysis revealed three themes of re-
search, categorised as ‘factors affecting institutionalisation of DEST in
PS’, ‘managing institutionalisation process of DEST in PS’, and ‘chal-
lenges in institutionalisation of DEST in PS’.
The first theme of research confined the focus of their studies on the
factors triggering, facilitating and impeding institutionalisation of DEST
in PS. For example, Luna-Reyes and Gil-Garcia (2014) revealed that co-
evolution of various factors - technological, organisational, and institu-
tional components were impeding the e-government institutionalisation
process. Al-Busaidy and El-Haddadeh (2011) named economic, political,
social and technological evolution as pressures forcing Omani Govern-
ment to implement e-government systems, and El-Haddadeh et al.
(2013) corroborate these findings in their study of e-government
institutionalisation in Qatar.
The second theme was constrained within practices, where the re-
search focused on identifying exemplary management practices that fa-
cilitate the DEST institutionalisation process through analysis of cases.
For instance, Veenstra et al. (2010) had discovered that the factors caus-
ing discrepancies in e-government implementation performance in the
Netherlands were rooted in managerial practices of hierarchical struc-
ture and decision making process. In addition, Diniz et al. (2012)
highlighted the importance of intervention mechanism such as educa-
tion and training in minimising the impact of unintended outcome
throughout the institutionalisation process.
The final theme highlights challenges encountered during the DEST
institutionalisation process. For example, complexity of public institu-
tions (Dwivedi et al., 2012; El-Haddadeh et al., 2013), the anomaly be-
tween policy and political objective (Currie & Guah, 2007; Currie,
2012) and stakeholders' ability to critically learn and adapt the technol-
ogy (Basettihalli et al., 2010) were drawn as major causes for the derail-
ment of DEST projects.
Synthesis from the literature review indicated a significant gap in
the study of DEST institutionalisation process, suggesting further studies
Please cite this article as: Weerakkody, V., et al., Digitally-enabled service transformation in the public sector: The lure of institutional pressure
and strategic response towards c..., Government Information Quarterly (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2016.06.006
should examine how new structures are enacted in organisations when
faced with change (Scott, 2014; Veenstra et al., 2014). This is due to the
fact that many studies which have adopted Institutional Theory as a
conceptual lens have ignored the process by which structures change
and new ones that emerge during DEST implementation. This study
will in particular attempt to recognise the pre-institutionalisation
stage by identifying the triggering factors, and elucidate the reciprocal
interactions between the different elements, which are influential in fa-
cilitating the implementing of a successful transformation process.
In order to create a link between literature and empirical data, the
second stage of the research employed a case study methodology
(Zorn, Flanagin, & Shoham, 2011). Empirical data was gathered through
interviews, besides analysis of policy documents and reports such as
“National IT Strategy” (Information Technology Authority, 2008,
2010), Oman Digital Society Strategy (Information Technology
Authority, 2008, 2010), and United Nations e-Government Surveys
(United Nations, 2010, 2012, 2014) to strengthen the empirical enquiry
for the study (Walsham, 1995; Zorn et al., 2011). The aim of the inter-
views was to explore DEST challenges and resulting paradoxes in the se-
lected public organisations.
The three ministries were selected as they were actively involved in
DEST and comprehensively illustrated the local administration struc-
ture and services within the Omani public services. The interviews in-
volved key officials ranging from top management and middle
management, to operational level staff in the ministries, who were
responsible for DEST. The interviews in the three ministries were
complemented with further interviews with the Omani Information
Technology Authority (ITA) who provided overall infrastructure and
project support to the Omani public sector on DEST. A total of 20 em-
ployees who were involved in ICT-let transformation projects across
the three ministries and ITA were interviewed. Access to the inter-
viewees was gained through personal contacts. In keeping with ethical
protocol, the interviewees were informed about the purpose of the in-
terviews and assured about their right to withdraw from participating
in the process and the anonymity of the response given. All interviews
were recorded with permission from the participants and transcribed
for qualitative analysis. Subsequently, email exchanges and telephone
calls were used more than once to clarify any unclear information
(Yin, 2009; Walsham, 1995). The interviewees were given the
transcripts to check and resolve any discrepancies that may have arisen
and to eliminate any bias (Irani, Love, Elliman, Jones, & Themistocleous,
2005). The mixed nature of interviewees and secondary documents col-
lected allowed the authors to maintain an adequate level of data trian-
gulation which was deemed to be important in tracking the variation
between primary and secondary data and thus improving the accuracy,
interpretation and analysis of the collected data (Mingers, Mutch, &
Willcocks, 2013). This ensured that no bias emerged from either the
participants or the researchers (Zorn et al., 2011).
The interpretation and analysis of data for this study evolved over
several stages, following closely a hermeneutic process, that allowed
the researchers to understand, reflect and improve the interpretation
of the findings over two stages (referring to secondary data analysis
 V. Weerakkody et al. / Government Information Quarterly xxx (2016) xxx–xxx
and empirical data collection) of the research process employed
(Baptista, 2009).
3.2. Empirical study context
The Sultanate of Oman where the empirical study for this research
was conducted is located in the southeast of the Arabian Peninsula. As
one of the six member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Sul-
tanate of Oman is actively promoting DEST to strengthen its economic
and political achievements. However, it was ranked in 48th position
for e-government development by the United Nations among the UN
member states, and is five places behind other GCC states (Bahrain,
United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar) (UN, 2014). Therefore,
it is vitally important for the key ministries in Oman to scrutinise their
DEST efforts and look for insights in order to improve public services
and turn their ICT-led transformation efforts into more successful
outcomes.
Oman has embarked on digital-led transformation journey of their
public services since 1995, with the drafting of an ICT strategic plan by
the Ministry of National Economy (MNE). Among others, the plan in-
cludes a strategy to streamline government services in Oman through
the use of ICT (Al-Busaidy & El-Haddadeh, 2011). A year after the an-
nouncement of the plan, Internet technology was introduced in Oman
by a single Internet service provider. Seeing the potential, Minister of
National Economics pronounced the establishment of a National Com-
mittee in 1998 to execute their strategic plan. The committee then
signed a contract agreement with Microsoft Corporation and Oracle to
standardise the ICT backbones and tools that will be used in the trans-
formation projects across government ministries. Another contract
was agreed with Gartner, the information technology research and ad-
visory company, to provide advice on the capability and readiness of
Oman for DEST projects.
Despite these efforts, little progress was made and in 2003 the ‘Dig-
ital Oman’ Strategy was announced (referred to as eOman) to shape the
development of digital society and digital-government implementation
in the country. Digital-government, from an Omani perspective was
defined as “… the transformation of internal and external public sector
relationships, through ICT in order to optimize government service
delivery and citizen participation”. eOman also focused on the concept
of “digital society” where efforts were targeted towards ensuring the
community was well advanced in the adoption and integration of digital
technology into their daily lives at home, work and play (Sarrayrih &
Sriram, 2015). To support eOman, a digital-governance mechanism
was set-up to develop, deploy and enforce government policies, laws
and regulations necessary to support the functioning of e-government.
Due to slow progress made in the digital services sphere, the Oman
Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (TRA) was established to
govern the country's telecommunication regulatory framework and to
spearhead the implementation of eOman. Bearing three main pillars,
namely, infrastructure, service support and citizen empowerment,
the ITA was assigned to oversee the area of society and human capital
development, digital government and e-services, ICT Industry Develop-
ment, infrastructure development, awareness, as well as Governance,
Standards and Regulations (Information Technology Authority, 2015).
The ITA launched the eOman portal in 2008 providing a single gate-
way for public services, integrating all of the public agencies websites
and payment systems. In 2007, the ITA signed agreements with
MasterCard Worldwide and Bank of Muscat to launch a national e-Pay-
ment Gateway (ePG) (Nath, 2007), followed by training of the civil ser-
vants and launching of the single e-payment gateway for government
services. In the same year, ITA executed 14 projects, mainly basic infra-
structure related, to prepare public agencies for digital-led service trans-
formation. However, by 2010, only two Internet Service Provider
companies were operating in Oman, and this was seen as a huge chal-
lenge for public organisations in their efforts to reach citizen through
Please cite this article as: Weerakkody, V., et al., Digitally-enabled service transformation in the public sector: The lure of institutional pressure
and strategic response towards c..., Government Information Quarterly (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2016.06.006
5
digital-led services. The evolution of events influenced by ICT-led trans-
formation of the public sector in Oman is outlined in Table 1.
Against this backdrop, our study explored how the three govern-
ment ministries that acted as the backbone of this grand plan attempted
to implement digital-led service transformation and the challenges they
faced in institutionalising the ensuing changes within their institutional
environment. Our first case study is the Ministry of Man Power (MOMP)
in Oman. The main function of the ministry is to propose and implement
general policies relating to manpower in line with the State's economic
and social objectives. The Ministry prerogatives among others include,
ensuring labour market and training sector stability in Oman, and over-
coming the challenges faced in the sector through establishing partner-
ships with private sector and citizens. The ministry was chosen as a
research sample as it is one of the pioneering public agencies that
have applied digital-led initiative through its digital services. To com-
pare, we opted for a case study in a second ministry, the Ministry of
Higher Education (MOHE) in Oman. MOHE is concerned with governing
higher education and in meeting the national demand for sustainable
development, including providing scholarships to those eligible.
MOHE introduced digital-led services in 2006, integrating information
and databases from all local higher institutions and the Ministry of
Education in Oman. However, MOHE faced major challenges in
institutionalising the digital-led service transformations and made little
progress in diffusing its digital services and enticing stakeholders to
adopt them compared to MOMP.
In providing better triangulation, the Ministry of Interior (MOI) was
chosen as the third case study. MOI is the governmental body in the
Sultanate of Oman responsible for supervising administrative issues
in the various dimensions of the country's public services such as
dealing with tribal issues, overseeing the election process, governing
affairs of government in the capital and the affairs of Immigration and
Nationality/Passports. It is the largest local government authority in
Oman, providing services across the county from different regional
offices and handles around 1000 enquiries and face-to-face contacts
daily. With the need to automate their services, in 2006 MOI started
its ICT-led initiative. However, despite the ICT-led transformation ef-
forts, MOI's digital government services were seen as underperforming
in comparison to both MOMP and MOHE.
Table 1
The evolution of events influenced by ICT-led transformation of the public sector in Oman.
Year Events Reference
1995 Ministry of National Economy (MNE) develops Ministry of Education
an ICT strategy for Oman (2008)
1998 MNE formed a National Council (NC) to Ministry of Education
monitor the implementation of ICT strategy (2008)
2003 Digital Oman Strategy is launched Ministry of Education
(2008)
2005 United Nation recognises the lack of legal UN (2005)
framework and guidelines concerning
digital-government implementation in Oman
2006 Information Technology Authority (ITA) is Ministry of Education
established as an affiliation of MNE to govern (2008);
the implementation of eOman after failure of
NC to perform its responsibilities. ITA bears 3
pillars: infrastructure, service support and
citizen empowerment
Telecommunication Regulatory Authority Telecommunications
(TRA) is formed to govern the country's Regulatory Authority
telecommunication regulatory framework (2010)
2007 ITA signs agreements with Microsoft Nath (2007)
2008 ITA develops 14 basic projects to enable Telecommunications
eOman implementation and launches eOman Regulatory Authority
Portal (2010)
2009 Internet subscribers in Oman increases to 1.4 Oxford Business Group
million people (2016)
2010 TRA reports that the two existing ISP Telecommunications
companies are unable to provide coverage to Regulatory Authority
all towns and cities in Oman (2010)
6 V. Weerakkody et al. / Government Information Quarterly xxx (2016) xxx–xxx
Given the disparities in the institutionalisation of the ICT-led trans-
formation efforts in the three public ministries, Institutional theory is
employed as the analytical lens to examine the forces influencing
change. In specific, the theory helps to recognise arising pressures that
triggered service transformation in the three ministries, and challenges
impeding the institutionalisation of new practice following the transfor-
mation events. Three main institutionalisation elements are believed to
have influence and impact over the institutionalisation process. They
are identified as: (1) Broader institutional environmental factors that
cause the organisation to undergo the deinstitutionalised state, such
as political will, governance and economy; (2) Logic that shapes the
value of the organisational inhabitants, which influence the infusion of
new organisational practice such as the perceived benefit of the trans-
formation process and outcome; and (3) Mechanism that is used to con-
trol the impact of uninvited outcomes due to the institutionalisation
process and reinforcement of the desired behaviours, such as formation
of new rules, modification of existing regulations, morale support from
organisation's leaders, as well as recognition of good practice.
The first element can be observed by contextualising events pro-
ceeding changes in the institutional environment, such as change in
government policy or directions, change in economic orientation, emer-
gence of new practice globally and cultural change in the society. On the
other hand, the next two elements are observable by understanding the
values upheld and culture in the organisation – particularly their per-
ceived benefit and motivations, as well as emerging structures following
the introduction of new organisational practice. These elements provide
the roots of isomorphic mechanism conceptualisation, which determine
how the organisation would behave to resemble the targeted outcome
and achieved an institutionalised stage.
4. Findings and discussion
4.1. Pressures, deinstitutionalisation and isomorphism
The vision of transforming Oman into a sustainable knowledge
based economy was started in 1995 and revitalised in 2003 with the en-
dorsement of Digital Oman (eOman) Strategy (as outlined in Table 1).
The eOman strategy in particular focused on the simplification of gov-
ernment processes by adoption of technology in daily operations and
for online or digital-led service delivery. The three ministries identified
in this research – Ministry of Man Power (MOMP), Ministry of Higher
Education (MOHE) and Ministry of Interior (MOI) are not an exception
to the strategy and for that reason, all three transformed most of their
services by making them available online.
Varied result between the ministries indicated that institutionalisation
of digital-led service in public agencies is not a linear and stand-alone
process. Multitude of challenges inflicted the transformation journey,
thus requiring corrective actions at all stages of recursive interactions
between institutional elements. The internal and external pressures that
rooted from three different sources: conformity to norms, conformity to
rules/laws/sanctions and conformity to ‘what is perceived right by the
culture / society’ – triggered changes in the organisations, and caused
the deinstitutionalised stage.
As a strategic response towards these pressures, the public agencies
produced innovation by transforming their face-to-face and manual busi-
nesses to digital-led services. The traditional organisational practice was
then destructed with the introduction of a new practice to support the in-
novation, and the journey of adapting and instilling the practice to be part
of the organisations' normal functions started. This process falls under
three different categories: coercive, mimetic or normative, and known
as isomorphism, which is a mechanism to stabilise the organisation pillars
through institutionalisation of the new practice (Barley & Tolbert, 1997;
Powell & DiMaggio, 1991; Scott, 2014). Therefore, this study explores
how these institutional pressures — that is, being subject to regulations
and political interference (coercive isomorphism); remaining convergent
to a cluster of organisations (normative isomorphism); and looking at the
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and strategic response towards c..., Government Information Quarterly (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2016.06.006
performance of other organisations (mimetic isomorphism)—plays its
role in shaping a new form of public sector organisation after the imple-
mentation of digital-led services.
4.2. Regulative pressures: coercive isomorphism
Scott (2014) explained that regulative pressures are the uninvited
outcome of imposed regulations or laws towards an organisation. He
suggests that expectations over the organisation's performance or stan-
dards by the stakeholders could also lead to these pressures. In the case
of MOMP, MOHE and MOI, besides the impact of the introduction of
eOman as the government's new strategic policy, government expecta-
tions over public service performance created coercive pressures. More-
over, the need to diversify Oman's economy from one that is heavily
reliant on oil imposed another degree of pressure to all three organisa-
tions. In a report by GulfBase (2015),1 Oman's economic performance
was strong between periods of 2003 to late 2008, due to sustained
high oil prices. However, in avoiding the risk of plummeted oil prices,
Oman decided to pursue an economic diversification plan by announc-
ing eOman, with the objective of reducing the oil sector's contribution to
GDP to (9%) by 2020 (Gulfbase, 2015). This is a turning point for public
sector institutions in Oman. Six years after the implementation of
eOman, in 2009 Oman was affected by falling oil prices due to the global
financial crisis. This reduced Oman's budget surplus significantly and
slowed the pace of government investment and development projects.
At the same time, public organisations were expected to double their ef-
fort with limited resources, thus, creating added pressure to public
organisations.
The challenging environment in Oman particularly impacted the
MOI. With limited funds and tight deadlines, MOI was urged to provide
resources to support the digital-led service transformation. According to
its IT Director, the ministry was not prepared when the digital-led ser-
vice transformation efforts were introduced through the eOman strate-
gy. Hence, despite claims that the ministry has benefited from the
eOman strategy trough reduction of paper work and increase in em-
ployee productivity, the implementation of digital government systems
faced a multitude of challenges. Among these, top management support
in ensuring the success of the transformation effort was seen as vital. In
MOI, the program was given less strategic focus and priority by senior
management. The IT Director confessed this, stating: “…the dissimilar-
ities of adoption and diffusion of electronic services in Omani public agen-
cies depends on individual approaches and experiences of each
government agency. Importantly, the variations in levels of success
achieved by different agencies means that top management awareness
and understanding is critical if they are to deliver the required strategic di-
rection and resources for projects.” He then highlighted the lack of staff
capabilities, skills, quality of services and public awareness towards ser-
vices offered as key factors impeding the service transformation pro-
gram at MOI. This claim was supported by the feedback gained from
other operational level staff. A junior project manager stated: “In the
context of e-government, the legislation process at MOI is still at its initial
stage in which MOI is yet to identify the relevant features and benefits of
e-services compared to other countries' experiences in the digital govern-
ment field. We need to employ the experts to examine various roles, study
different scenarios to get a true picture of the situation and suggest best
practices to be implemented by the organisation.”
It was suggested that a holistic control and governing mechanism is
needed to resolve this issue. Addressing MOI's legal issues that forbid
the integration of processes and systems with other ministries is one
of the key areas that needed focus, according to the IT Director. He
1
GulfBase is the premier source of detailed financial information on the joint stock
companies in the GCC region (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, State of
Kuwait, Kingdom of Bahrain, Sultanate Oman and State of Qatar), offering up-to-date fi-
nancial information and market data for the countries in the region.
 V. Weerakkody et al. / Government Information Quarterly xxx (2016) xxx–xxx
saw this as critical for improving interactions between stakeholders and
facilitating the institutionalisation of new practice.
In contrast, MOMP has gained significant support in implementing
their digital-transformation initiative. Among others, key areas of sup-
port include necessary advice on legislation issues including authentica-
tion for digital services and e-payments (such as e-signatures), e-
identification and privacy and security issues. Their senior development
engineer claimed that: “…our key success is implementing policies and
procedures for each e-service that covered privacy, security and authenti-
cation. In our case, all new procedures were approved and followed up by
top management, ensuring a successful implementation”. As the ministry
was approached to implement the digital-led service transformation,
the management secured a consensus agreement from employees by
making clear that the project required their long term commitment
and undivided support to be successful and sustainable. The manage-
ment then allocated specific budgets to different projects in the trans-
formation effort, which has played a significant role in its overall
progress. The IT director summarised the situation by stating: “…our
higher administration had an effective role in the application of e-services
and our administration was providing us with continuous financial and
strategic support. We ensured that these resources were allocated to vari-
ous projects that were focused on e-enabling our core services”.
Despite the positive progress made in institutionalising change, the
realignment of existing organisational structures was deemed neces-
sary according to new work functions and digital services. A senior en-
gineer highlighted that the rapid developments and changes in the
organisation environment due to eOman implementation occurred si-
multaneously with the restructuring of MOMP business processes,
thus changes were needed to policies, procedures and business process
ownership within the ministry. There were several new business pro-
cesses that needed to be streamlined with different departments and
ministries that required top management intervention. Furthermore,
the structural changes required amendments to government policies
that were under the authority of the ruling government and beyond
the control of MOMP. In this respect, the issue was depicted as a political
factor that pressured the digital-led service implementation in MOMP.
Earlier on, the feedback received from the interviewees in MOI indi-
cated that the eOman implementation was given less attention by top
management. The top-management commitment towards the transfor-
mation program in MOI however gradually increased due to the politi-
cal influence exerted by the Ministry of National Economy (MNE). In
this context, MNE had formed a committee whose remit was to study
the benefits of digital-led services in the public sector and find ways
to maximise its diffusion across Omani society. The committee was
joined by MOMP, MOI and ITA.
Despite emerging commitment among top leaders in MOI, a senior
engineer suggested that the network links between local agencies and
the ministry, which is vital to support improved ways of working
through collaborative capabilities, was missing. The head of the techni-
cal support department stated “the IT infrastructure at MOI remains the
main challenge that is impending e-services implementation and related is-
sues, such as, information sharing and internal and external integration.” In
addition, the IT director added, “information sharing is certainly amongst
the most important issues hindering digital government implementation
and this indicates the inability of MOI to interact with various databases
and systems in other public agencies”. One of the operational level inter-
viewees commented “since we have not implemented the right IT infra-
structure and standards, we are unable to efficiently support MOI work
processes and this has become a major obstacle for achieving our service
delivery targets”. Furthermore, discussions with the IT director revealed
that the lack of skilled staff required for implementing digital services
within the project team delayed implementation further. Nevertheless,
pushed by the central government and ITA to improve the current range
of digital-led-services offered, MOI continues its plan for various techni-
cal developments including new software implementations. The ab-
sence of online payment in their digital-led services modules had
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and strategic response towards c..., Government Information Quarterly (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2016.06.006
7
resulted in additional workload for employees. This pressure is further
heightened when the ministry has to bear the maintenance costs for
non-integrated IT infrastructure.
In MOMP, the use of open standards for IT infrastructure helped to
facilitate the integration of internal systems with other government
ministries and reduces operational cost during DEST. This was con-
firmed by the Head of Software Development when stating, “digital gov-
ernment has helped reduce the expenditure for setting up large network
infrastructures. In this respect, digital government has helped simplify pro-
cesses and made access to government information easier for both public
sector workers and citizens”. He further added, “when we started our in-
house software development, we decided that using the latest application
software is an initial step. This has reduced standard related problems
and has made upgrades and integration with other agencies' applications
easier. This resulted in a convenient environment for any internal and ex-
ternal integration. The standards and protocols established by MOMP
have enabled other government agencies to exchange information efficient-
ly and securely in the context of eOman”.
The IT director added that his team has implemented technology-re-
lated solutions based on certain software and application standard, as
well as producing policies and procedures for all digital services that
they have provided. To support the DEST effort, MOMP appointed a
group IT specialist to select and agree on the development tools. This
role has contributed to improvement in information accuracy, notifica-
tions and tracking status of services, and round the clock availability of
e-services.
4.3. Cultural-cognitive pressures: mimetic isomorphism
The cultural-cognitive dimension centres on sense-making includ-
ing the scripts and belief systems that organisational members con-
struct and use for everyday practice. It stresses the central role played
by the socially mediated construction of a common framework of mean-
ings (Scott, 2014). In the present study, it centres on government
leaders', public servants', and the government stakeholders' schema
for understanding key aspects of their work including service delivery,
service improvement, and socio-economy benefit. For example,
schemas for understanding government's performance may be pre-
dominantly ability-based or effort-based and, depending on which con-
ceptualisation prevails, have a profound influence on service delivery
practice as well as efforts to improve that practice.
The cultural-cognitive elements primarily lie in the diffusion process
(Powell & DiMaggio, 1991). Scott (2014) explains that when a new
form of organisation emerges, the numbers of such kind of organisations
start to build up before eventually tailing off. It provides a meaning that, in
the event when organisational inhabitants regard it as ‘natural way’ to or-
ganise for some purpose, more organisations will emerge to resemble the
‘natural practices’. However as the number increases, organisations will
be competitive and start to invent new things, and eventually dampen
the current practice. This scenario indicates that organisational density
serves as an indicator of its cognitive legitimacy. In this context, the vul-
nerability of the global oil price in early 2000 that affected Omani budget
surplus had induced Oman to explore better practices in diversifying its
economy. Although the MNE had drawn an ICT strategic plan in 1995 as
the basis towards transformation, this plan was underperforming for
several years before the announcement of eOman. Conceptually,
this type of dormant period is termed by Cole (in Scott, 2014) as ‘sense-
making’, which describes a period where little consensus is developed
to support new policy, thus resulting in the absence of supporting norma-
tive and regulative structures to implement and diffuse strategic plans.
During the interviews, some of the employees across the ministries
claimed that they were not provided with clear directions and support
to implement the digital-led services, thus leading them to find their
own solutions and imitate the practice of others. In an interview with
the General Director Of Infrastructure and E-Services at ITA, he stated
“…the ITA has developed a government standard to manage digital
8 V. Weerakkody et al. / Government Information Quarterly xxx (2016) xxx–xxx
government initiatives and projects, however, the reasons behind differ-
ences or delays in the integration process between various government
agencies and ITA systems are due to four main reasons, namely a) the
wrong advice from middle management (IT managers) to top manage-
ment, b) the availability of a good IT team, c) sometimes, but not always
the budget, and d) not renewing the organisation's business processes.”
Nevertheless, the CEO of ITA explained that “…participation de-
pends on leadership - I think this step needs strong support from top
management. Additionally, we need in each agency, at the initial
stage, a thinker or thinking team with the ability to produce thoughtful
plans and exact information requirements from other government
agencies, with support from top management, not only the implemen-
tation team.” In this perspective, it was evident that for the public agen-
cy to move out from the deinstitutionalised state, a ‘sense-making
process’ should occur where the organisational inhabitants should be
informed of the ‘rationale to change’, and the strategy should be formed
as a ‘script’ to guide the change process. All of these were absent during
the initial stages, thus resulting in different performance among the
ministries in respect to DEST.
The varying performance between the ministries was further
outlined by the ability of the ministries' leaders to value the benefit of
the change process. In the interview with the Customer Services Manag-
er at MOMP, he admitted that “…the citizens within the country require
better services at lower costs and greater responsiveness in a dynamic
and continuously changing environment”. Hence, to show their support
towards the demand, MOMP has made innovative use of ICT in deliver-
ing a number of services. For instance, SMS messaging is used to com-
municate with Omani jobseekers helping them to complete the
registration process and share data between different public agencies.
The web application manager stated, “The nature of MOMP's work is to
inform job providers and jobseekers of various supports and opportunities
that are appropriate for their needs.”
According to MOMP, the key success factor motivating their perfor-
mance in implementing the digital-led services was the adoption of the
services by citizens, which was driven by awareness, simplicity and
availability of the system and change of internal practices. In this respect
MOMP has adopted a proactive engagement strategy with citizens to
promote and motivate the use of their digital services. The Head of
Web Applications reported: “Usually after implementing a new technolo-
gy, we provide a video tutorial showing how to use these services. Those
videos are uploaded on our website for additional support. We also provide
details about the use of e-services in newspapers, radio interviews and tele-
vision interviews. Our brochures are distributed among the public through
our offices and through our website to illustrate and maximise the benefits
of e-services among our society”. Additionally, two Senior Development
Engineers and the Customer Services Manager agreed that the digital
government implementation awareness strategy of MOMP was used
as a plan to empower citizens to use different services and capture
their opinions to achieve a robust system. From an operational perspec-
tive, one MOMP employee stated: “In order to communicate with the out-
side community, you must understand their scientific, practical and cultural
background. Our way of stimulating citizens to deal with online services
was a key to complement the digital government plan. This helped to con-
vince the public to use e-services for their daily transactions with the gov-
ernment.” The customer services manager concurred that digital
government implementation in MOMP is used as a tool to ultimately in-
crease and control the quality of its services and improve customer sat-
isfaction as well as transparency through the various feedback
mechanisms used by the ministry, such as online polls and complaints
hotlines.
In contrast, the strategy to engage citizen in DEST was absent at MOI.
One of the operational level staff argued that “…while other public
agencies are using all possible media and means to advertise their digital
government services, MOI is still in its initial stage of implementing digital
government and therefore marketing efforts are constrained.” However,
senior staff assured that MOI was working on a strategy to ensure a
Please cite this article as: Weerakkody, V., et al., Digitally-enabled service transformation in the public sector: The lure of institutional pressure
and strategic response towards c..., Government Information Quarterly (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2016.06.006
more proactive engagement with media, including exploiting television,
publications and leaflets to promote the current services and educate
citizens on how to use these services. The central logic for these prac-
tices are the ability to make-sense of the depriving situations by
rationalising what is appropriate, followed by the efforts to strive for
the demanded solutions effectively through scripts of appropriate
actions.
4.4. Normative pressures and isomorphism
Scott (2014) argued that the normative system encompasses both
values and norms. In one hand, values refer to the conception of the de-
sirable together with the development of standards and benchmarking
of the existing structures and behaviours. On the other hand, norms de-
fine how things should be done legitimately to achieve the desired sta-
tus. Hence, a normative system not only draws the ultimate objective
for an organisation, but also specifies appropriate means to attain it.
Therefore, the system imposes constraints on behaviour and at the
same time empowers actions, by conferring among others - responsibil-
ities and duties. Imparting the logic of appropriateness, normative pres-
sures set the orientation of patterns for action by prioritising conformity
towards norms (Scott & Meyer, 1994). According to Scott, norms are
spreadable within an organisation due to various factors, particularly
professional or collegial networks, interlocking directorates, as well as
support provided by external parties through informal ties.
When examining the effects of government influence in all three
ministries, it was evident that the ‘weak-leadership roles’ within the
ministries was resulting in their inability to set clear directions and
failure to provide managerial support during the implementation of
digital-led services. This resulted in the government having to form
a separate committee to oversee the transformation work in the
ministries. In this scenario, the leaders' role in eliciting change was
overshadowed and augmented by the government's interest in collec-
tively crafting a normative justification that created a rationale for the
conformity for change. This scenario is evidenced by Dobbin's (2009
cited in Scott, 2014) argument that the diffusion of new practice or
norms through professional relationship is more efficient than spread-
ing of norms through changes in regulatory policies. This argument
is justified by the progress made by MOHE and MOI on post joint
committee implementation of digital-led services.
On the other hand, the case study in MOMP clearly showed that
this ministry has confronted the various institutional factors that have
influenced their digital government initiative and implemented a num-
ber of exemplary services (such as e-payments, smart forms, , e-services
etc.). Given this context, the MOMP web portal is established and
operated as a successful digital government initiative; therefore,
MOMP can be treated as a good practice case for other agencies in
Oman. The progress of MOMP, in comparison to MOI and MOHE, in
implementing the required transformation showed an exemplary
approach towards institutionalising the digital-led services in all aspects
of the agency including people, process and policy, thus setting ‘norms’
to be adopted by other public institutions, including MOHE and MOI.
In particular, the joining of MOMP's key personnel in the special
committee had encouraged the spread of the norms to other ministries
through professional networks.
Normative standards may arise slowly and incrementally over time
but they may also be explicitly established through informal relation-
ships with other entities. By having ITA, Microsoft, TRA, MasterCard
Worldwide and Bank of Muscat as supporting bodies, it allowed the
ministries to draw from good practice and standards and seek advice
throughout the transformation journey. This environment encouraged
new norms to be established in the government agencies through
informal ties. For instance, after a considerable struggle since 1995,
the appointment of Microsoft Corporation, Oracle and Gartner had
somehow provided directions for the government in setting the basic
framework for the eOman project to kick off. In addition, the
 V. Weerakkody et al. / Government Information Quarterly xxx (2016) xxx–xxx
establishment of TRA and ITA was a normative process by itself, aimed
at promulgating high standard for DEST in Oman. The evolution of
DEST and influence of its various milestones on the institutionalisation
of digital government is depicted in Fig. 2.
5. Discussion and conclusion
This research has attempted to provide an alternative perspective on
the implementation of the digital-led services, grounded in institutional
theory. The relevance of doing so in the context of the public sector is
justified by the complex interrelationships between environmental ele-
ments and various means to maintain legitimacy of ICT led change in
public agencies.
The paper has explored how institutional pressures shape
organisational culture by helping embed changes within its work envi-
ronment. In this respect, our approach goes beyond the relatively sim-
plistic assumptions underpinning current literature on digital-led
service transformation, which has paid less attention to the external en-
vironmental influences and how they shape the institutionalisation pro-
cesses. We hope the arguments presented in this paper will encourage
further empirical inquiries to explore the dynamic characteristics in
the interplay between environmental elements, both internal and ex-
ternal. While institutional theorists have tended to emphasise the adap-
tive nature of organisational behaviour, we recognise the need to
complement this with a view of digital-led service transformation as
an intentional, strategic responsiveness of the organisation towards
pressures impeding their legitimacy in the broader institutional
environment.
Empirical data for the present study was extrapolated from inter-
views and secondary data including policy documents and official re-
ports. Three ministries in the Sultanate of Oman – the Ministry of Man
Power (MOMP), Ministries of Higher Education (MOHE) and Ministry
of Interior (MOI) together with the Information Technology Authority
(ITA) provided empirical evidence on how pressures triggered changes
in the highly institutionalised public sector organisational context, thus
putting them in a deinstitutionalised state of misalignment and threat-
ened their legitimacy. As a strategic response, DEST has been introduced
as a vehicle to regain this legitimate status. Although the three minis-
tries hold the same ground for transformation purpose (as they were
pressured by decisive political will and strong economic goals), the dif-
ferences in logic among the organisational inhabitants and absence of
uniformed control mechanisms in the organisations had led them to dif-
ferent isomorphic roots. This justifies why MOMP was more successful
in the institutionalisation process of DEST, as compared to MOHE and
MOI. The significance of our findings to organisations and public admin-
istration are twofold.
Firstly, institutional pressures do not affect all organisations in the
same way. Despite facing similar socio-economy and politic conditions,
Fig. 2. Pressures shaping the isomorphic mechanism over time.
Please cite this article as: Weerakkody, V., et al., Digitally-enabled service transformation in the public sector: The lure of institutional pressure
and strategic response towards c..., Government Information Quarterly (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2016.06.006
9
the institutionalisation progress between organisations differ due to
multitude of internal challenges. Nevertheless, when exposed to institu-
tional forces, public institutions seemed to adapt and change, seeking le-
gitimacy by conforming to institutional pressures due to the lack of
accountability for performance indicators (in comparison to the private
sector). Therefore, exposure to some institutional pressures may also be
the cause of ‘reinvention’ or deinstitutionalisation. Thus, government
organisations appear to be much more vulnerable to institutional forces.
New thinking of institutional theorists posits that change and stabil-
ity co-exist and frequently give rise to organisational paradoxes. Among
the paradoxes discussed in this paper, it was evident that pro-active
strategic attempts to regain organisational stability through isomor-
phism may induce vulnerability rather than predicted change when
attempting to institutionalise a specific agreeable practice. The rationale
for this is that isomorphism may be seen as an attempt to maintain le-
gitimacy equilibrium of the three pillars – coercive, normative and cog-
nitive, after being disrupted by institutional pressures (Scott & Meyer,
1994). This causes the introduction of new work practices that bring in-
consistency in organisational routine – which then requires common
acceptance by the organisational inhabitants for routine to be instilled
as part of the work functions and embedded as organisational culture
over time. In contrast, the scope for such ‘strategic’ management tactics
is likely to be more limited in situations where change is imposed on or-
ganisations in a more coercive manner (e.g. by announcing the eOman
vision and forcing the ministries to undergo service transformation
without proper engagement, training and constrained resources) over-
arching other approaches. In such circumstances, shifting service-deliv-
ery practices may seem to follow a more deterministic model of change,
which explains that the output of transformation in this context is fully
determined by the efforts put into the program (such as the managerial
support, training, and resources) and the initial conditions (or in this
case ‘readiness’ of the ministries to undergo the transformation pro-
gram). This justifies why the institutionalisation of digital services in
MOMP exceeded pre-determined goals and objectives, while a different
situation was faced by MOHE and MOI.
At an external level, coercive isomorphism was linked to the envi-
ronment surrounding the organisation. Our study confirmed that
when organisations are exposed to outside coercive scrutiny and regu-
lation, they tend to react defensively and are inclined towards isomor-
phic transformation. Mimetic and normative processes on the other
hand were internal and helped explain the spread of roles and struc-
tures. As the pressures from the outside grew, the organisations found
ways to either diffuse or eliminate this pressure by changing their
practices.
Second, it was apparent from the case studies that, right from the be-
ginning, there was no clear norm formally stated for the ministries to
abide. However, as the DEST institutionalisation progress between the
agencies varied, the more successful case had defined certain standard
10 V. Weerakkody et al. / Government Information Quarterly xxx (2016) xxx–xxx
for practice that were turned to by the others as the benchmark, thus
defining new norms for others. This situation resulted in new pressures
and further deteriorated the DEST institutionalisation process. We
learned that government agencies were more bureaucratised by looking
at the centralised decision-making structures, formalised rules and
highly organised structures to perform different government function
(e.g. the formation of NC, ITA and TRA as affiliates of MNE to monitor
eOman implementation). Nevertheless, the exposure to coercive as
well as normative influences made government organisations more ser-
vice or citizen focused and less bureaucratic (e.g. the institutionalisation
of digital-led services in MOMP formed an exemplary practice). Our re-
sults suggest that public sector officials respond to external oversight
and professional norms by finding ways to capitalise on the presence
of these external pressures to move their organisations away from hier-
archy and formalisation. We therefore posit that the presence of exter-
nal influences challenges the internal controls and encourages
structural transformation in public institutions - as presented by the for-
mation of special committee by the MONE that was joined by MOMP,
MOI and ITA to study the benefit of digital-led services and boost the
progress of DEST in their agencies.
In the last decade the Sultanate of Oman has experienced consider-
able growth in e-government with a development index of 0.4576,
0.5944 and 0.6273 respectively (UN, 2010, 2012, 2014). With this,
Oman's world ranking in e-government has increased at a steady
pace, reaching 48th place in 2014 from 82nd in 2010 and the country
was grouped among the top fifty countries in e-participation (UN,
2014). According to UN analysis, such performance has been driven by
various factors that include leadership, availability of supporting regula-
tions, variety of offerings in e-services and availability of open govern-
ment data portals (UN, 2014, p27). Such findings corroborate
evidences for strong government commitment and efforts to improve
the implementation of DEST in their public institutions, after a decade
of struggle in achieving the predetermined digital-transformation ob-
jectives in Oman (Sarrayrih & Sriram, 2015). The empirical evidence in
this study suggests that managerial choice (DEST as the strategic re-
sponse towards organisational pressures) constitutes a useful starting
point for analysing how service-delivery practices change in highly
institutionalised settings, such as the public sector. However, less atten-
tion given to the formation and interpretation of the strategic response
as part of managerial choice made, in line with contemporary social
constructivist thought, is one of the study limitations. Besides, the gen-
eration of conclusions based on the findings gained through the selected
methodology and research strategy used might become another limita-
tion for this study. As the research employed interviews as the main
data collection method, it was suspected that, on occasions, the findings
did not fully reflect the actual scenario of DEST, due to reactive effects
(i.e. interviewees only show what is desirable to the interviewer), or
disability of the interviewees to recall important information (Hollway
& Jefferson, 2000). In addition, despite utilising a multiple-case study
strategy, the fact that this study was conducted in a single country
(Oman) makes generalisation of outcome difficult. One way to over-
come such situation is to design a comparative study between a group
of countries regionally, or across regions.
Thus, further research should explore the rationale for such strategic
approach and to consider the different actors' interpretation of stability
and change in public institutions. To unravel this paradox, empirical in-
quiries should be combined with micro-level institutional analysis, con-
sidering the inherently subjective aspects of interplay between
organisational actors and structures, underlying logics and institutional
constraints. An interpretive and preferably longitudinal case study
approach would thus seem to be a useful research strategy, adding fresh
views to this paper. Even though it may be possible to develop quantifi-
able constructs reflecting the triggering pressures and facilitating factors
between different isomorphic dimensions, these concepts are likely
to be deeply embedded in the complex organisational settings of the
public sector. It has been argued that the properties of institutional
Please cite this article as: Weerakkody, V., et al., Digitally-enabled service transformation in the public sector: The lure of institutional pressure
and strategic response towards c..., Government Information Quarterly (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2016.06.006
environments are difficult to define as priori and need to be identified
through close empirical examination (Powell & DiMaggio, 1991; Yin,
2003). A fruitful research strategy in this respect might be to compare
the implementation of digital-led services between government institu-
tions (or ministries), to allow generalisability of the inflicting factors
and processes involved.
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Please cite this article as: Weerakkody, V., et al., Digitally-enabled service transformation in the public sector: The lure of institutional pressure
and strategic response towards c..., Government Information Quarterly (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2016.06.006