Government Information Quarterly 40 (2023) 101832

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Government Information Quarterly

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Proactivity in digital public services: A conceptual analysis

Hendrik Scholta a, *, Ida Lindgren b
a
University of Muenster – ERCIS, Leonardo-Campus 3, 48149 Münster, Germany
b
Linköping University, Department of Management and Engineering, 581 83 Linköping, Sweden

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Public organizations are looking for new ways to use digital technologies to increase the efficiency of their in­
Digital government ternal processes and improve their interactions with clients, whether citizens or businesses. In response, scholars
Proactive public service suggest that public organizations be proactive in digital public services such that the organizations approach
Digital service
their clients, rather than the other way around. In the most extreme form of proactivity, clients do not have to do
No-stop government
Administrative burden
anything to receive a public service. Although various examples of proactive public services are in use, how
Public service-dominant logic proactivity changes the conceptual understanding of digital public services remains unclear. Therefore, we derive
the changes that proactivity causes in a conceptualization of digital public service by means of a conceptual
analysis through the lens of a seminal theoretical work on proactivity. The results indicate that proactivity can
ensure equal accessibility to a subset of public services, rely on more comprehensive integration of IT systems on
the back end, and change how value is co-created in the service process. We formulate the changes as propo­
sitions that future work can investigate empirically and discuss proactive digital public services as a way to
reduce clients' administrative burden. We contribute to theory by clarifying the conceptual changes in digital
public services that proactivity invokes and call for joint research by scholars of public administration, infor­
mation systems, and service management to relate the research streams of administrative burden and proactive
digital public service.

1. Introduction
Public organizations are looking for new ways to use digital tech­
nologies to increase the efficiency of their internal processes and
improve their interactions with clients, whether citizens or businesses.
Scholars discuss this trend under the label of digital government. At the
core of digital government are digital public services, which are public
services that are provided to clients using digital technologies (Lindgren
& Jansson, 2013; Lindgren, Melin, & Sæbø, 2021). In these services, the
client's interaction with a public organization is mediated partly or
completely by an interactive Internet-based IT system. Digital public
services vary in complexity and can be used for many purposes (Jansen
& Ølnes, 2016; Lindgren et al., 2021).
In many instances, digital public services enable faster and easier
service delivery for clients (Lindgren, Madsen, Hofmann, & Melin,
2019), but not everyone can access these advantages (Madsen, Hof­
mann, & Pieterson, 2019). Digital public services are often promoted as
a means to reduce clients' administrative burden (Moynihan, Herd, &
Harvey, 2015), but studies also show that they can create new digital
divides and increase some clients' administrative burden, especially that
of those who are already marginalized (Larsson, 2021; Madsen, Lindg­
ren, & Melin, 2022).
To improve public services and increase their use, scholars suggest
developing proactive public services (e.g., Brüggemeier, 2010; Linders,
Liao, & Wang, 2018; Pawlowski & Scholta, 2023; Scholta, Mertens,
Kowalkiewicz, & Becker, 2019), where the public organization ap­
proaches its clients, rather than the other way around (Linders et al.,
2018). In their most extreme form, proactive public services require
clients to do nothing at all to receive them (Scholta et al., 2019). Various
scholars suggest the idea of moving from a “pull” (reactive) to a “push”
(proactive) paradigm in public services by pointing to digital technol­
ogy's potential to simplify clients' interactions with public organizations
(e.g., Klievink & Janssen, 2009; Linders et al., 2018; Scholta et al.,
2019). Proactivity in public services is not new (Brinckmann, Grimmer,
Lenk, & Rave, 1974), but the opportunities for public organizations to be
proactive have increased through developments in digital technology.
However, the role of digital technology in achieving proactivity is not
entirely clear, nor how proactivity changes the concept of digital public

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: hendrik.scholta@ercis.uni-muenster.de (H. Scholta), ida.lindgren@liu.se (I. Lindgren).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2023.101832
Received 29 September 2022; Received in revised form 28 April 2023; Accepted 30 April 2023
Available online 22 May 2023
0740-624X/© 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
H. Scholta and I. Lindgren
services.
A clear understanding of the nature of proactive digital public ser­
vices is essential if digital government scholars are to build on a solid,
commonly agreed-upon theoretical foundation and to obtain impactful
results (Lindgren & Jansson, 2013). A clear definition of concepts is
especially important for research on digital government since it was
criticized for “definitional vagueness of the e-government construct”
(Yildiz, 2007, p. 661). Since receiving this criticism, scholars in this area
have proposed various conceptualizations of public services (e.g.,
Osborne, Radnor, & Nasi, 2012) and digital public services (e.g., Cledou,
Estevez, & Soares Barbosa, 2018; Lindgren & Jansson, 2013). Consid­
erable work on digital public services is based on public administration
research and influenced by service management ideas (e.g., Osborne
et al., 2012; Ostrom, 2005). In these streams of research, the client is a
co-producer of the digital public service process and an important
participant in the assessment of service quality (Lindgren & Jansson,
2013; Osborne et al., 2012). If public organizations' services shift from
“pull” to “push,” we expect substantial changes in how these organiza­
tions deliver their services. If the number of actions required of clients
declines, we expect the roles that clients and digital technology play in
the service process to change. Current conceptualizations of digital
public service do not account for such changes or the specifics of pro­
activity, so they have limited expressiveness for proactive digital public
services. Therefore, an updated understanding of digital public services
that accounts for proactivity is needed.
Since the changes proactivity causes in the conceptual understanding
of digital public services are unclear, we seek to shed light on these
conceptual changes by addressing the research question, how does pro­
activity change the conceptualization of digital public services? To address
this research question, we conducted a conceptual analysis that applies
Jaakkola's (2020) approach to theory adaptation. Answering the
research question contributes to theory building regarding proactive
digital public services. We formulate the changes as propositions that
can be investigated empirically in future work.
We offer two main contributions to research: a conceptual clarifi­
cation of proactive digital public services and a call for shared activities
among scholars in public administration, information systems, and
service management to advance research on proactive digital public
services jointly. Conceptual clarity can facilitate the development of
proactive public services, push this emerging research area forward, and
enable scholars to find additional gaps for future research. Future
research on the effects of proactivity on public organizations, clients,
and society as a whole is urgent, especially research on the role of digital
technology in the context of proactive public services.
The remainder of this article is structured as follows. Section 2
provides an overview of existing research related to digital public ser­
vices and proactivity. Section 3 presents our research design, Section 4
presents the conceptual foundation for our analysis, and the results of
our conceptual analysis are shown in Section 5. Section 6 discusses the
implications of our work for digital public services and administrative
burden, and Section 7 concludes the article.
2. Research background
2.1. Digital public services
Research on the use of e-services in the public sector, also referred to
as digital public services, has been criticized for the imprecision of its
definition of “e-service” (Goldkuhl & Persson, 2006). In response,
Lindgren and Jansson (2013) created a synthesized conceptual frame­
work for the core characteristics of digital public services (referred to in
their article as public e-services). The framework builds on a merger of
concepts from the literatures on public administration, information
systems, and service management. The authors' arguments are similar to
Osborne and colleagues' (Osborne, 2010; Osborne et al., 2012) discus­
sion on the public service-dominant logic, with the difference that
2
Government Information Quarterly 40 (2023) 101832
Lindgren and Jansson (2013) explicitly address the digital artifact and
its influence on the service process. The latter authors argue that a
digital public service must be understood as a three-dimensional phe­
nomenon in which all three dimensions—a service that is being provided
by a public organization through the use of digital technologies—are
equally important.
Other scholars also contribute to discussing and defining this phe­
nomenon. Jansen and Ølnes (2016) conduct a rigorous review of the
literature and present a framework for categorizing the types of digital
public services by differentiating the types of interactions between client
and public organization that are mediated by such services. Bertot,
Estevez, and Janowski (2016) discuss the nature of digital public ser­
vices and separate standard and innovative services, where innovative
services are, for instance, participatory, anticipatory, co-created, and
personalized services. Scholars also investigate how digital public ser­
vices can be characterized along dimensions like the type of service,
level of maturity, type of users, and delivery channel (Cledou et al.,
2018). However, previous work on digital public services does not
analyze the conceptual changes in digital public services that have
resulted or may result from proactivity.
2.2. Proactivity
One way to tailor digital public services to a public organization's
clients is to incorporate proactivity into the delivery process (e.g.,
Ayachi, Boukhris, Mellouli, Ben Amor, & Elouedi, 2016; Erlenheim,
Draheim, & Taveter, 2020; Khasmammadli & Erlenheim, 2022; Kõrge,
Erlenheim, & Draheim, 2019; Kuhn & Balta, 2020; Kuhn, Balta, &
Krcmar, 2020; Kuhn, Buchinger, & Balta, 2021; Linders et al., 2018;
Oude Luttighuis, Bharosa, Spoelstra, van der Voort, & Janssen, 2021;
Scholta et al., 2019; Scholta, Halsbenning, & Becker, 2022; Sirendi &
Taveter, 2016).1 In the case of a public service, proactivity refers to
providing the service or a part of the service without the client's having
to request it (Pawlowski & Scholta, 2023). In contrast, reactive services
require clients to request every part of a service, so proactivity can range
from scenarios in which an organization performs an initiating action
and requires a client's input to deliver a service to scenarios in which a
client does not have to do anything at all to receive the service. The
process can also be triggered by a third party, such as the family
allowance in Austria, where the hospital informs the public organization
about a newborn (Bichler-Wagner, Katzmann, Plank, & Zettinig, 2015)
and the family receives the allowance without having to request it.
The literature on digital government contains models and frame­
works that propose various degrees of proactivity. These degrees of
proactivity indicate what effort a public organization takes over from
the client. Oude Luttighuis et al.'s (2021) framework categorizes services
according to the amount of effort a client must expend to establish
eligibility for a service and in the service-delivery process. The catego­
rizations of both processes are combined to establish the service's degree
of proactivity as fully proactive, moderately proactive, or reactive. Erlen­
heim et al. (2020) introduce a reactivity-proactivity spectrum with
seven degrees of proactivity, the first four of which are atomic (pulled,
informational, interoperable, pushed), and the last three of which are
grouped under life-event-based services (client has to express will, client
does not have to express will but has to approve service provision, and
the service functions in the background). Scholta et al. (2019) differ­
entiate three degrees of proactivity—reactive delivery, proactive delivery,
and predictive delivery—which they use to characterize three stages of
digital government: one-stop shop, limited no-stop shop, and no-stop shop.
Pawlowski and Scholta's (2023) taxonomy contains a purpose of proac­
tivity dimension with five characteristics that constitute degrees of
proactivity: information, offer, delivery, education, and evaluation. Finally,
1
Bertot et al. (2016) refer to anticipatory digital public services to refer to
proactive digital public services.
H. Scholta and I. Lindgren
Brüggemeier (2010) distinguishes the degrees of proactivity as out­
reaching government, attentive government, and no-stop government.
Proactivity in public services can be beneficial to both clients and
public organizations. It can increase the service quality for clients since
they have to do little or nothing to acquire the service, so they are un­
likely to forget to apply for it (Kuhn & Balta, 2020; Linders et al., 2018;
Scholta et al., 2019). A benefit for public organizations is improved data
quality and process efficiency because fewer forms are filled out incor­
rectly and fewer enquiries from clients must be addressed (Scholta et al.,
2019). Proactivity in public services can also increase citizens' benefit­
ting from their rights to receive a public service they are entitled to
(Boost, Raeymaeckers, Hermans, & Elloukmani, 2021), as it will matter
less if they are unaware of the service, do not understand the application
process, are uncertain about the service's output, or feel that their help-
seeking behavior could be seen as a failure (Hernanz, Malherbet, &
Pellizzari, 2004).
While the incorporation of proactivity into public services may have
many benefits, it can also be challenging and can have downsides. To
identify potentially eligible clients and make recommendations to them,
public organizations must be able to integrate their databases and
analyze large sets of data (Bertot et al., 2016; Linders et al., 2018), which
clients might perceive as problematic for privacy reasons (Kuhn et al.,
2020; Murataj & Schulte, 2022). Proactivity might also require changes
in legal regulations (Sirendi & Taveter, 2016) or be perceived as dicta­
torial if clients receive a public service they did not ask for (Scholta et al.,
2019; Scholta et al., 2022). Although proactivity can be incorporated
into all public services to at least some extent, the loss of self-
determination that results from extreme degrees of proactivity pre­
cludes their application in all public services (Pawlowski & Scholta,
2023; Scholta et al., 2019). For public organizations, proactive services
might improve their data quality and process efficiency, but these or­
ganizations must also serve more beneficiaries.
Proactivity in public services is related to the concept of adminis­
trative burden, which is widely discussed in recent works in public
administration and digital government literature (e.g., Baekgaard,
Moynihan, & Thomsen, 2021; Barnes, 2021; Christensen, Aarøe, Baek­
gaard, Herd, & Moynihan, 2020; Heggertveit, Lindgren, Madsen, &
Hofmann, 2022; Heinrich, 2016; Keiser & Miller, 2020; Mack, Ritzel,
Heitkämper, & El Benni, 2021; Madsen et al., 2022; Nisar, 2018).
Administrative burden refers to a client's experiencing the process of
acquiring public services as burdensome (Burden, Canon, Mayer, &
Moynihan, 2012). Moynihan et al. (2015, p. 43) describe administrative
burden “as a function of learning, psychological, and compliance costs”
that clients encounter when they request and obtain services from public
organizations. Learning costs result from the need to identify and un­
derstand a public service in terms of, for instance, its eligibility criteria.
Psychological costs refer to the mental pressure that clients can expe­
rience from receiving a service, such as one that carries a social stigma.
Compliance costs emerge from formal and legal requirements that cli­
ents must fulfill, such as completing the forms and finding the attach­
ments they are required to provide.
The need to reduce clients' administrative burden is one of the main
motivations for developing proactive public services, as proactive ser­
vices and digital technology can play a central role in meeting this need.
By allowing forms to be submitted digitally, public organizations can
facilitate the process of applying for public services for clients, and by
integrating their databases, public organizations can release clients from
having to provide the same data repeatedly (Moynihan et al., 2015).
However, at the same time, digital technology can contribute to new
types of administrative burden, especially for clients who are already at
a disadvantage or marginalized in society (Heggertveit et al., 2022;
Larsson, 2021).
3. Research design
This article is conceptual in nature and follows methodically
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Government Information Quarterly 40 (2023) 101832
Jaakkola's (2020) guidelines for conceptual research. We apply her
approach for theory adaptation, which various other scholars also use (e.
g., Brodie, Fehrer, Jaakkola, & Conduit, 2019; Eloranta, Ardolino, &
Saccani, 2021; Hillebrand, Driessen, & Koll, 2015). We rely on Corley
and Gioia's (2011, p. 12) simple definition of a theory as “a statement of
concepts and their interrelationships that shows how and/or why a
phenomenon occurs.” We follow Gregor (2006, p. 614) in acknowl­
edging that “the word theory will be used here rather broadly to
encompass what might be termed elsewhere conjectures, models,
frameworks, or body of knowledge.” For Jaakkola's (2020) approach for
theory adaptation, a domain theory is distinguished from a method theory,
where the domain theory is the subject of investigation in a research
endeavor, and the method theory is the theoretical lens through which
the domain theory is analyzed and adapted (Jaakkola, 2020; Lukka &
Vinnari, 2014).
Our point of departure and domain theory is Lindgren and Jansson's
(2013) well-established framework for conceptualizing digital public
services. In contrast to other frameworks, this framework covers all
three components of the term digital public service—digital, public, and
service—and is widely adopted as a conceptual foundation for numerous
articles on digital government and digital public services. Other scholars
also contribute to discussing and defining digital public services (e.g.,
Bertot et al., 2016; Cledou et al., 2018; Jansen & Ølnes, 2016), so several
studies characterize them along various dimensions and types, but none
that we know of but Lindgren and Jansson (2013) deals with the core
concept and defines what is meant by digital public service. However,
we recognize that Lindgren and Jansson's (2013) framework is insuffi­
cient when it comes to the specifics of proactivity in digital public
services.
To overcome this shortcoming, we chose a model from the literature
as our method theory that provides supplementary value for the pro­
activity component of the term proactive digital public service. Two
requirements guided our choice: The model must provide core charac­
teristics of proactivity that help us to investigate how proactivity
changes the conceptualization of digital public services, and the model
must contain a manageable number of details and not try to capture all
possible forms of proactivity so we are not distracted from our goal.
These requirements led us to Brüggemeier (2010), a seminal conceptual
work on degrees of proactivity in public organizations, so the Brügge­
meier model fulfills our first requirement. Other models and frameworks
also distinguish degrees of proactivity (Erlenheim et al., 2020; Oude
Luttighuis et al., 2021; Pawlowski & Scholta, 2023; Scholta et al., 2019),
but they are too detailed, present too many degrees of proactivity, and
are more complex in their application than the Brüggemeier model, so
that model is superior regarding our second requirement.
Our theoretical lens tells us the characteristics of the various degrees
of proactivity that we map to the characteristics of digital public ser­
vices. The tensions between these two sets of characteristics reveal the
changes that digital public services make to account for proactivity. To
identify these changes in the Lindgren and Jansson framework, we broke
up the framework's statements into the general components of a theory
that Gregor (2006) defines: constructs, relationships, and scope (Table 3
in the appendix).2 Through the theoretical lens, we looked for additions,
removals, or substitutions of terms in the constructs, relationships, and
scope of the Lindgren and Jansson framework to account for the spe­
cifics of proactivity. We checked the theory components in each row of
the Lindgren and Jansson framework to determine whether they match
the characteristics of the degrees of proactivity in the Brüggemeier
model. For instance, the Lindgren and Jansson framework states that
digital public services always involve “some degree of interaction,”
which contradicts one of the degrees of proactivity that allows no client
activity before service delivery. In this case, we substituted “some
2
We do not consider the means of representation component (Gregor, 2006),
as it remains unchanged.
H. Scholta and I. Lindgren
degree of interaction” with “no interaction” (Section 5 and Table 3).
4. Conceptual foundation
To show how we investigated the changes that proactivity imposes
on the conceptualization of digital public services and how we adapted
Lindgren and Jansson's (2013) digital public service framework using
the model from Brüggemeier (2010), we first introduce the framework
and model at hand.
4.1. The Lindgren and Jansson framework
In Lindgren and Jansson's (2013) framework (Table 1), digital public
services are understood as a three-dimensional phenomenon involving a
service that is being provided by a public organization through the use of
digital technologies. At the core of Lindgren and Jansson's (2013) three-
dimensional framework is the public sector context. Lindgren and
Jansson (2013) highlight a number of characteristics of public organi­
zations and services that have implications for digital services, including
the legal duty to ensure service delivery to all citizens (the public ethos),
the need to ensure comprehensive legal frameworks with various de­
grees of discretion, and the need to balance democratic and economic
values. Discretion refers here to public officials' power to interpret the
legal framework and applicants' information and circumstances in
coming to a decision regarding their eligibility for the service (Lipsky,
1980). When public services are made digital, room for such discretion
shrinks (Busch, Henriksen, & Sæbø, 2018). Many public services are
mandatory for clients (lack of exit) or involve a restricted choice of
service supplier (Lenk, 2002). This characteristic highlights the asym­
metrical relationship between supplier and client, especially in
monopolized or compulsory situations where the client cannot opt out of
the service. The public sector context also entails seeing the clients of
digital public services as citizens with legally enshrined rights and obli­
gations, rather than as consumers (Fountain, 2001). The same applies to
business representatives who interact with public organizations through
digital public services, as this relationship is also regulated by law.
Table 1
Lindgren and Jansson framework (based on Lindgren & Jansson, 2013).
Dim. No. Description
Public A. The public ethos
A1: Need to ensure a comprehensive legal framework with different
degrees of discretion.
A2: Need to balance democratic and economic values by accommodating
principles of equality, responsiveness, availability and social inclusion, as
well as cost-efficiency.
A3: Need to ensure legitimacy and accountability through democratic
decision-making, rule of law, and efficient output.
B. Lack of exit
B1: Need to balance the asymmetrical relationship with citizens, especially
in monopolized or compulsory situations where legitimacy is not based on
choice.
C. Users as citizens, rather than consumers
C1: Need to ensure the individual and political rights and obligations of
citizenship.
C2: Need to ensure access to services for all citizens (accommodate
heterogeneity).
e- D. A technical artifact constituted of
D1: Internet-based technology,
D2: some degree of interaction, and
D3: connections to other information systems, such as back-office systems.
E. Should be evaluated in relation to its intended use and users,
which implies that
E1: A focus on users of technology is necessary.
E2: Accessibility and usability are important aspects.
Service F. Service as a process
F1: Must be perceived as a process in which value is co-created by
consumer and supplier.
G. Service quality
G1: Must be assessed based on consumers' experience of the service.
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Government Information Quarterly 40 (2023) 101832
Therefore, public organizations must ensure clients' legally enshrined
rights and obligations and accommodate their heterogeneity in devel­
oping digital public services.
Lindgren and Jansson's (2013) framework also requires that the
public service be mediated or provided by using digital technology
(although the authors use the term electronically). This technology is
typically Internet-based, interactive, and integrated with processes and
information systems in the supplying organization (Lindgren & Jansson,
2013). The authors also discuss technology in terms of front-office and
back-office technology, differentiating between the technology used to
provide the service and the interface for the client. Similarly, Cledou
et al. (2018) differentiate between the technology used to provide the
delivery channel for the client and the technology the organization uses
to enable the service process.
Finally, turning to the service dimension of the framework, Lindgren
and Jansson (2013) build on the service management literature in
defining service as a process in which the client and the supplier co-
produce the service and co-create value. The client is typically a citi­
zen or business representative, whereas the supplier is a public organi­
zation of some sort, and value is created for both parties. This
understanding of service builds on the service-dominant logic (Grönroos,
2008; Vargo & Lusch, 2004), a perspective of service that reacts to the
more static, transactional, supplier-centric, and product-dominant
perspective that is often seen in managerial research (Osborne et al.,
2012; Tronvoll, Brown, Gremler, & Edvardsson, 2011). According to the
service-dominant view, a service is co-produced by the supplier and the
client, both of whom bring resources to the table to be used and com­
bined in various ways. These resources do not have value in themselves
(Tronvoll et al., 2011), as it is the client's use of the service that creates
value. Hence, value is co-created, so emphasis is on the interplay be­
tween client and supplier, resulting in a process orientation rather than
an output orientation (Edvardsson, Tronvoll, & Gruber, 2011). The
client must add resources and skills to use what the service supplier
offers. If the client lacks the necessary resources, such as knowledge, to
use and consume the service, the service will offer less value than it
would otherwise (Grönroos, 2008). To support value creation, the sup­
plier can influence the client's practices and how the service is
consumed. Therefore, in the service-dominant view of service, service is
seen as a dynamic and interactive process in which value fulfilment for
both client and supplier is the main objective (Grönroos, 2008).
The dimensions Lindgren and Jansson (2013) present provide a
simplified view of digital public services, which can come in many
shapes and forms in practice (Jansen & Ølnes, 2016). We use these di­
mensions as a point of departure in identifying the core features of
digital public services. The dimensions of “public” and “service” in the
framework build on arguments similar to those seen in discussions on
the public service-dominant logic (Osborne et al., 2012). Osborne et al.
(2012) transfer the service-dominant view to the context of public
administration and stress co-production as an important and inherent
component of public services. Co-production is seen as a continuum,
rather than a steady state, as some public services involve more co-
production than others. On this note, Osborne et al. (2012, p. 146) use
digital services as an example that involves co-production to a lesser
extent, as digital public services “do not have the interpersonal imme­
diacy of face-to-face contact between the service provider and the ser­
vice user. Yet even such services do still exhibit co-production from a
services management perspective – even if the co-production of such ‘e-
services’ is essentially minimal and passive (inputting financial data on
yourself or choosing from a list of preset options)”. But what happens to
our understanding of these aspects of public service if the client must do
nothing to receive the service?
4.2. The Brüggemeier model
To go more deeply into the meaning of proactivity in public orga­
nizations, we turn to Brüggemeier's (2010) model, which unpacks
H. Scholta and I. Lindgren
proactivity along three types of government, each with an increasing
degree of proactivity (Fig. 1). The first is the outreaching government,
where public organizations move closer to the client either physically or
virtually. For example, smartphones and tablets allow the client to
approach a public organization quickly from anywhere without much
effort. The outreaching government can act reactively but also proac­
tively. In contrast, the attentive government always acts proactively by
giving the client recommendations. For example, the attentive govern­
ment suggests complementary services, reminds clients of their duties,
or suggests entries in forms by prefilling fields. The no-stop government
ideally delivers services with no client activity required, eliminating the
client's effort. An example is delivery of family allowance after a child's
birth without requiring the parents to submit an application. Of course,
some services, such as marriage, are not suitable for no-stop govern­
ment, but each public service should be evaluated individually to
determine whether it can be delivered through no-stop government. The
fundamental difference between the attentive government and the no-
stop government is that in the former, the client can decline a recom­
mendation and still has to act, whereas in the latter the public organi­
zation delivers a service with no action performed by the client.
Although the term no-stop government and its synonymous denotation
no-stop shop were mentioned internationally for the first time two de­
cades ago (Kampen & Snijkers, 2003), the vision of no-stop services was
sketched as early as 1974 in the German-language literature (Brinck­
mann et al., 1974), when scholars suggested that public organizations
should no longer depend on clients to apply and take action to receive
services. In reactive public services, clients were seen as supplicants, and
distribution of social services for citizens was unbalanced (Brinckmann
et al., 1974). However, the insufficient information-processing capa­
bilities in the 1970s prevented the realization of no-stop government at
that time. Later on, as the necessary technologies became available,
public organizations were encouraged to integrate their data sets to
make obsolete the need for direct interactions with clients (Lenk, 2007)
and to rethink the concept of “service government” (Makolm, 2006)
while also ensuring that clients did not perceive no-stop government as
dictatorial (Parzer & Prorok, 2011).
Whereas the terms no-stop government and no-stop shop are the
dominant terms in the information systems and digital government
literature, the terms auto-enrollment and administrative renewal are used
Fig. 1. Brüggemeier model (Brüggemeier, 2010, translated by the authors).
5
Government Information Quarterly 40 (2023) 101832
more frequently in the public administration discipline to denote a
similar phenomenon. Auto-enrollment refers to reducing the adminis­
trative burden by using “existing administrative data to identify in­
dividuals who meet the eligibility criteria for a public program” and then
enrolling them (Herd, DeLeire, Harvey, & Moynihan, 2013, p. 73).
Public organizations can also perform administrative renewals to keep
clients in a program without their having to provide additional infor­
mation or perform other activities unless their circumstances have
changed (Moynihan et al., 2015). The right IT systems are essential
prerequisites to enabling the data integration and analyses that are
necessary for auto-enrollment and administrative renewal (DeLeire,
Leininger, Dague, Mok, & Friedsam, 2012; Dunleavy, Margetts, Bastow,
& Tinkler, 2005; Herd et al., 2013; Moynihan et al., 2015).
Auto-enrollment and administrative renewals, both important com­
ponents of a no-stop government, deal with regular programs that run
over a longer period of time. However, no-stop government is even
broader, and it can also deal with unique and non-reoccurring public
services, such as issuing certificates.
Our conceptual analysis addresses digital public services in terms of
the degrees of proactivity in the attentive government and no-stop
government that Brüggemeier (2010) proposes. In attentive govern­
ment, a public organization provides part of a service to clients without
their having to request it but still requires their consent to deliver the
entire service. In contrast, in no-stop government, a public organization
delivers the entire service to clients without their requesting it and does
not rely on their consent. We omitted outreaching government in the
Brüggemeier model since it does not always include proactive action in
interactions with clients.
5. Digital public services and proactivity
This section relates the concept of digital public services to that of
proactivity. Since we aim at theory building regarding proactive digital
public services, we provide propositions and related explanations for
how proactivity will change digital public services. After presenting an
overview of our propositions (Section 5.1), we explain the changes in
each of the three dimensions in more detail (Sections 5.2, 5.3, and 5.4).
H. Scholta and I. Lindgren Government Information Quarterly 40 (2023) 101832

5.1. Changes in digital public services invoked by proactivity—An
overview
Table 2 consolidates our propositions for how proactivity will change
digital public services and describes the characteristics of attentive and
no-stop governments (Brüggemeier, 2010) in terms of Lindgren and
Jansson's (2013) three dimensions digital, public, and service. The table
shows the differences between proactive services and reactive services
and italic letters highlight the differences between the characteristics of
reactive government (Table 1) and attentive government and between those
of attentive government and no-stop government.
5.2. Proactivity and the public sector context
Relating the various degrees of proactivity (Brüggemeier, 2010) to
the three dimensions of digital public services (Lindgren & Jansson,
2013) shows how the public sector context affects the possibilities and
restrictions of using the proactive “push” paradigm for public services.
Linked to the legal duty to ensure service delivery to all eligible
clients, the public ethos (A in Table 1), an aspect of public services in
general, concerns the importance of ensuring a comprehensive legal
framework with different degrees of discretion (A1 in Table 1). To become
reality, no-stop government requires comprehensive adaptions of a
service's underlying legal framework. For example, current laws state
that many public services cannot be delivered to a client without the
client's explicit consent, which is a hindrance to no-stop services, so
lawmakers must reformulate this requirement to facilitate proactivity.
When public services are made digital, the room for discretion in
assessing a client's eligibility and making other decisions shrinks.
Reactive and attentive governments allow for providing services with
some degree of discretion since public organizations' IT systems typi­
cally mediate information that is later handled by a public official who
makes the formal decision. No-stop government can still rely on
discretion in the decision regarding a client's eligibility since the
decision-making process can include manual activities. Considering that
the client does not initiate the service and has little insight into the
decision-making process, the grounds for the decision must be easily
communicated to the client when the service is delivered, and the client
must be given the opportunity to question the decision. Therefore,
discretion is possible in no-stop government, but its arrangement must
be as client-sensitive as it is in reactive government, or even more so.
Since a suitable legal framework must be at hand for attentive and no-
stop governments, and discretion is also realizable to some degree,
proactivity does not change the conceptualization regarding A1.
Another important aspect of public services and the public ethos
relates to the value these services create and the need to balance demo­
cratic and economic values (A2). The attentive government's providing
suggestions for services supports both democratic and economic values
in the sense that the public organization can make clients aware of the
services to which they are entitled or that they are obliged to use.
Therefore, an attentive government can increase equality, responsive­
ness, availability, and social inclusion by reducing the information
imbalance between the public organization and its clients. By providing
pre-filled forms, the attentive government can improve the service
experience for clients, who must fill in fewer fields in forms, while also
improving data quality and decreasing the number of client inquiries,
reducing the organization's costs. In an attentive government, the client
can still forget about or chose not to agree to a public organization's
recommendation, but a no-stop government delivers the service without
a client's consent or initiation. Thus, it not only supports but can ensure
that democratic and economic values are created for services that are
suitable for this degree of proactivity.
Finally, also connected to the public ethos is the need to ensure
legitimacy and accountability through democratic decision-making, rule of
law, and efficient output (A3). The focus of attentive and no-stop gov­
ernments lies on adherence to laws and efficient output, not on demo­
cratic decision-making, since these types of government seek to reduce
clients' required activities, not to increase them by involving them in the

Table 2
Propositions on how proactivity will change digital public services.
Dim. No. Attentive Government No-Stop Government

Public A The public ethos

A1 - No change. - No change.
A2 - Will support democratic and economic values with a special focus on - Will ensure democratic and economic values with a special focus on principles of
principles of equality, responsiveness, availability, and social inclusion, as equality, responsiveness, availability, and social inclusion, as well as cost-
well as cost-efficiency. efficiency.
A3 - Will need to ensure legitimacy and accountability through the rule of law - Will need to ensure legitimacy and accountability through the rule of law
(especially privacy regulations) and efficient output. (especially privacy regulations) and effective and efficient output.
B Lack of exit
B1 - No change. - Will support balancing the asymmetrical relationship with clients but only in
monopolized or compulsory situations or situations that provide no disadvantages to
the client.
C Users as citizens, rather than consumers
C1 - Will support ensuring the individual and political rights and obligations of - Will ensure the individual and political rights and obligations of citizenship.
citizenship.
C2 - Will support ensuring access to services for all clients (accommodate - Will ensure access to services for all clients (accommodate heterogeneity).
heterogeneity).
e- D A technical artifact, constituted of
D1 - No change. - Internet-based technology, which will be necessary for the public organization, not
for the client.
D2 - No change. - No interaction with clients.
D3 - No change. - Connections to other information systems, such as back-office systems, and to
third parties.
E Should be evaluated in relation to its intended use and users, which implies that
E1 - No change. - A focus on users and non-users of technology will be necessary.
E2 - No change. - Accessibility will be ensured by implementation; the public organization will not have
to consider usability.
Service F Service as a process
F1 - No change. - The process will be co-produced exclusively by the supplying organization and possibly
third parties; value will be co-created for both client and supplier through the client's
use/consumption of the service output.
G Service quality
G1 - No change. - No change.

6
H. Scholta and I. Lindgren
political decision-making process. Attentive and no-stop governments
should pay particular attention to privacy regulations since suggesting
and delivering public services proactively to clients require that public
organizations analyze clients' data. The need to make correct decisions
about clients' eligibility for a public service–that is, to create an effective
output—is particularly important for the no-stop government since the
wrong decision about a service a client has not asked for could have even
worse consequences than the wrong decision about a service that a client
has requested. For example, in the case of family allowance, the wrong
decision can be particularly impactful in a no-stop government when a
newborn dies within a few days of birth and the parents receive a family
allowance without applying for it.
The no-stop government highlights the difference between compul­
sory and voluntary public services. This difference relates to the element
in the Lindgren and Jansson framework called lack of exit (B), which
explains the need to balance the asymmetrical relationship with citizens,
especially in monopolized or compulsory situations (B1). The attentive
government can make suggestions about applying for both voluntary
and compulsory services since the client makes the final decision to react
to this suggestion or not, but since a no-stop government delivers a
service without the client's explicitly making a decision to receive it, this
type of government is particularly suitable to monopolized or compul­
sory situations. For example, every client who has an income must
submit a tax return, so tax returns can be implemented in the no-stop
government, whereas marriage is voluntary, so it is not implementable
in the no-stop government. However, the no-stop government can also
be used for a voluntary service, as long as it does not lead to disad­
vantages for clients in the form of duties they have not asked for.
The aspect of ensuring clients' constitutional rights to certain services
is also related to seeing clients as citizens, rather than consumers (C)
and highlights the need to ensure the individual and political rights and
obligations of citizenship (C1) and the need to ensure access to services for all
citizens (C2). By suggesting services to clients, an attentive government
supports fulfilment of a client's rights and obligations and accessibility to
public organizations, whereas a no-stop government ensures the fulfil­
ment of such rights, obligations, and accessibility by delivering services
to all clients who are eligible or obliged to receive them.
5.3. Proactivity and digital technology
The second dimension in the Lindgren and Jansson framework
concerns digital technology (D). Here, the authors highlight that digital
public services are Internet-based (D1) and involve some degree of inter­
action (D2), as well as connections to other information systems (D3). The
attentive government does not change the conceptualization of digital
public services, as it still requires a client activity that must be executed
digitally. However, since no-stop government has no client activity that
could be executed digitally, the role of technology changes.
No-stop government relies on Internet-based technology, but technol­
ogy is necessary only for the public organization internally, not for in­
teractions with clients; a public organization can inform clients about
their eligibility just as well using an offline channel as an online one, so it
does not exclude non-users of the Internet from public service. Con­
cerning these interactions, the Lindgren and Jansson framework differ­
entiates between front-office and back-office technology. The attentive
government relies on digitally mediated interactions between the public
organization and its clients through front-office technology since public
organizations communicate their service recommendation to their cli­
ents, after which the clients send digital applications to the organiza­
tions. However, in the no-stop government, only a transmission of a
public organization's decision regarding a client's eligibility for a service
takes place. The decision can be communicated through various
communication channels and does not necessarily require a technical
user interface for the client. In no-stop government, the front office is
typically absent.
All three types of government—reactive, attentive, and no-
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Government Information Quarterly 40 (2023) 101832
stop—require interconnected information systems in the back office.
However, the interconnection is particularly important to the no-stop
government since it relies on comprehensive data to anticipate clients'
behavior and must have a substitute for clients as data providers.
Therefore, the no-stop government requires powerful IT systems to
gather, store, and analyze data and to recognize clients who are eligible
to receive a service. Current IT systems for processing cases do not
necessarily have to change much to enable no-stop government, but the
systems must be integrated to ensure the necessary data flow and
connection to third parties.
The Lindgren and Jansson framework instructs that a digital public
service should be evaluated in relation to its intended use and users (E),
thus requiring a focus on users of technology (E1), and, logically enough,
accessibility and usability (E2). Reactive and attentive governments pro­
vide services through digital interfaces with their clients, which are
fundamental to digital government in general, while the no-stop gov­
ernment must also consider clients who prefer non-digital channels to
communicate with public organizations. For example, a no-stop gov­
ernment can send postal letters to inform clients that they will receive a
service. It is up to the public organization to choose the appropriate
communication channel based on clients' preferences or store a default
choice of channel. IT systems are still important for data analyses and
decision-making but are not essential for communication with every
client.
Accessibility is ensured in the no-stop government simply by
implementation, as the public organization delivers a service to all cli­
ents who are eligible without their having to do anything. The public
organization does not have to attend to usability since clients are not
involved other than to receive the service and do not have to transmit
information to the organization. In contrast, in the attentive govern­
ment, clients must still indicate their willingness to receive a service
through an interface, such as a pre-filled form, so the interface must be
highly accessible and usable. However, even in the no-stop government,
data must be entered at some point. Perhaps a client submitted data for
delivery of another service in the past, in which case that data can be
used and analyzed for no-stop government. Communication with busi­
ness clients might be conducted through the interfaces of interoperable
systems instead of forms, so the public organization in a no-stop gov­
ernment must maintain such interfaces.
5.4. Proactivity and the service process
Finally, we turn to the service dimension of the Lindgren and Jansson
framework, where a digital public service must be perceived as a pro­
cess (F) in which value is co-created by consumer and supplier (F1).
Our understanding of the service dimension does not change in
relation to attentive government, while it does change in relation to the
no-stop government. Here, we can separate the co-production of the
service process and the co-creation of value as an outcome of the service
process. In no-stop government, clients are not directly involved in the
process of producing the service; they do not co-produce it. Other pri­
vate or public (third-party) organizations may be involved in the co-
production of a public service in no-stop government, but only the
output of this process is directed and visible to the client. Therefore, the
public organization must be able to produce a service without the client's
resources, so it must obtain the necessary data from sources other than
the client, such as data the client submitted in previous interactions with
the organization.
However, we argue that value is still co-created by both the client and
the public organization that supplies a service. All clients who are
eligible for a service will receive it, regardless of whether they perceive a
need for it and decide to use it or not. Ultimately, value is created only
for and through the actions of the clients that use the service. For
example, a concession card for public transportation can be sent to all
clients who have reached the age of 60, but they will receive value from
the card only if they use it. No value is created for recipients of the
H. Scholta and I. Lindgren
concession card who do not use it, nor is value created for the public
organization, which spent time and resources unnecessarily. For this
reason, no-stop government is most suitable for services that clients are
likely to use or when there is little cost to the public organization and
clients if the service is not consumed.
The Lindgren and Jansson framework also indicates that service
quality (G) must be assessed based on the consumers' experience of the
service (G1). Since service quality is still evaluated based on the client's
experience, we predict no changes for attentive and no-stop government
in comparison to reactive government. In no-stop government, service
quality is evaluated based on the client's perception since the client re­
ceives the output of the service process and co-creates the value through
what they choose to do with it. The mode in which the public organi­
zation communicates the service output and its correctness influence the
client's perception of the service, as this communication is the only step
with a handover between the public organization and the client.
6. Discussion
In this section, we discuss the implications of the changes proactivity
can bring to digital public services. First, we combine the results
regarding the individual dimensions of digital public services to provide
a consolidated picture of proactivity's potential impact on these services
(Section 6.1). Then we return to the issue of administrative burden and
how proactive digital public services can help reduce clients' adminis­
trative burden (Section 6.2).
6.1. Proactivity and digital public services
Our conceptual analysis reveals that the degree of proactivity that an
attentive government provides is suitable for most, if not all, digital
public services. For example, helping clients fill in information that is
already available to the public organization is a way to reduce errors.
However, proactivity in a no-stop government is suitable primarily for
public services that have clear eligibility criteria and for which clients'
eligibility can be assessed based on registry data that is available to the
public organization. The public sector context enables proactivity in a
way not seen in the private sector, as public organizations do not
necessarily need clients' consent to push compulsory or universal public
services, whereas private organizations cannot impose their goods and
services on customers without their consent (Pawlowski & Scholta,
2023).
Moreover, the proactivity of no-stop government is suitable for
public services that bring benefits and no disadvantages to the clients.
Since clients do not initiate the service, public organizations must
clearly communicate the reasons for supplying it directly. No-stop
government is also most suitable for services that clients are likely to
use or that entail little cost to the public organization when clients fail to
use them. Therefore, delivering public services through no-stop gov­
ernment requires a public organization to determine the potential value
and losses the services can create for the organization and their clients.
While a public organization can offer a service proactively through no-
stop government, it can also do so reactively for clients who, for
instance, object to any kind of no-stop government.
Concerning the role of technology, with attentive government, the
design of the digital interface with the client is as important as ever, even
when information is auto-filled. However, no-stop government involves
no interaction between the public organization and the client, so IT
systems are important for data analysis and decision-making but are not
essential for communication with every client. Public organizations that
offer services through no-stop government can spend less time on the
design of advanced user interfaces and forms. While public services can
be delivered proactively without the help of advanced IT systems, such
systems that are interconnected and automated can shorten the service
process and reduce the need for manual labor by the public
organization.
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Government Information Quarterly 40 (2023) 101832
Concerning the service aspects of digital public service, scholars
emphasize the client's role in the co-production of service and co-
creation of value (e.g., Giesbrecht, Schwabe, & Schenk, 2017; Knote,
Janson, Söllner, & Leimeister, 2021; Schulz, Gewald, Böhm, & Krcmar,
2020), but at the core of no-stop government is the absence of co-
production. Co-production is often discussed in terms of a continuum,
where the client can be involved to various degrees in the production of
public service (Alford, 2014; Osborne et al., 2012; Whitaker, 1980), but
no-stop government eliminates the client from this process, negating the
client's role as a co-producer of the service. However, value (Edvardsson
et al., 2011) is still co-created by both the client and the public orga­
nization that supplies the service, as value is created through the actions
of clients who use the service. Scholars sometimes employ the term user
to refer to a client who receives a public service, although this term is not
applicable in no-stop government if clients receive services that they do
not use.
Moreover, although no-stop government eliminates clients as co-
producers of public services, they should still be involved or acknowl­
edged in the design of these services. Their involvement could be most
effective at an early stage—perhaps in decisions about what services
should be delivered in no-stop government. However, more research is
needed about the demand side of proactive digital public services to
determine for which public services clients want public organizations to
be proactive and which degree of proactivity they prefer. Whereas no-
stop government might be most convenient for clients, the attentive
government still involves them, and this involvement could help them
understand the service and how to use it. Scholars could also investigate
further the role that clients should play in balancing democratic and
economic values such that clients are still involved in shaping public
organizations and feel a sense of belonging to the state.
Our propositions should be investigated empirically in future work.
Conceptually, proactivity can help to support principles like equality
among clients and accessibility to all. Research provides empirical evi­
dence in favor of our according propositions (A2, C1, and C2). For
example, no-stop government for the Medicaid program in Wisconsin
led to enrollment of 44,000 previously unenrolled clients (DeLeire et al.,
2012; Herd et al., 2013), and an analysis of the Thrift Savings Plan
program for federal employees in the US reveals that especially em­
ployees with low financial literacy benefit from no-stop government
through increased retirement savings (Goda, Levy, Manchester, So­
journer, & Tasoff, 2020).
In contrast, other empirical studies point to problems with proactive
services in practice. For example, Larsson (2021) investigates the Nor­
wegian system for awarding family allowance through no-stop govern­
ment and shows that clients who fall out of the frame of what a typical
parent is have to request the service on their own using application forms
of inferior quality. The study also shows that clients who are in most
need of the family allowance are overrepresented in the group of those
not covered by the no-stop government service. These findings highlight
a challenge of no-stop government services in practice, as they may
require standardization of both the service and its clients, failing to
recognize outliers. It is likely that some clients do not fit neatly into
predefined frames because of atypical life situations and must be
accommodated in other ways (Lindgren, Madsen, Höglund Rydén, &
Heggertveit, 2022). Future studies should address how no-stop gov­
ernments in practice can meet the ideal concept of no-stop government
by serving all eligible clients and how attentive and no-stop govern­
ments can support equity.
Since research does not provide an exhaustive picture of the propo­
sitions presented here, future work can review previous studies through
the adapted conceptual understanding of digital public services and can
conduct new empirical research regarding the propositions offered
herein. For example, will value be co-created through a client's use of a
no-stop service, or will no value be created since clients do not use
services delivered by a no-stop government (F1)?
It is clear from our analysis that proactivity leads to changes in all
H. Scholta and I. Lindgren
three dimensions of digital public services—the digital, public, and
service dimensions—and that the scientific community requires the in­
formation systems, public administration, and service management
fields to combine their expertise and align the research streams of
administrative burden and proactive digital public services.
6.2. Proactivity and administrative burden
We return here to the issue of administrative burden and how pro­
active digital public services can play an important role in reducing
clients' administrative burden. Attentive government decreases
compliance costs by prefilling forms, thus reducing the amount of in­
formation clients must provide. Attentive government can also be used
to inform clients about services for which they are eligible, thereby
reducing clients' learning costs. No-stop government decreases clients'
administrative burden even further than attentive government does
since clients do not have to know anything about the service (learning
costs), do not have to provide any information (compliance costs), and
are less stressed during the delivery process (psychological costs).
Whereas compliance costs can be eliminated completely, learning costs
are reduced in such a way that clients do not have to learn anything to
request a service, although they may still have to learn how to use it.
Psychological costs are not necessarily eliminated in no-stop govern­
ment since the stigma of receiving a service with a negative image and
loss of autonomy can remain.
According to Moynihan et al. (2015), policymakers can reduce or
impose administrative burden as “hidden politics”. This means that the
real intention behind altering administrative burden, such as supporting
or impeding certain services and clients in society, can be kept behind
the scenes by framing these actions as technical fixes or a means to
achieve an honorable aim. As technical fixes they do not require
comprehensive political consultation and are comparatively easy to
implement. An example is the introduction of an additional requirement
to present a proof of identity for a social service. Policymakers can
market the additional proof as a way to oppose fraud, even though their
actual goal is to decrease the number of beneficiaries and shrink the
welfare state. Moynihan et al. (2015) observe that, because of reductions
and increases in administrative burden's inconspicuous nature, govern­
ments use them as political instruments to meet their agendas. The au­
thors conclude that such political decisions can be influenced by private
companies that feel their revenue stream being threatened; for instance,
no-stop tax returns would negate the need for tax return software,
negatively affecting those vendors' business models.
Since attentive and no-stop governments, as ways to overcome cli­
ents' administrative burden, can be used as “hidden politics,” their
realization depends on policymakers' political willingness to do so. No-
stop government is now feasible, but is it also desired? Policymakers
could once refer to limited technological progress when they were
confronted with the no-stop government concept and wanted to reject it,
but the comprehensive achievements of the private sector and some
public organizations regarding proactivity will increase pressure on
decision-makers in a way that proactivity in public services might
require broader political consideration. Opportunities to realize no-stop
government may become so obvious that policymakers can hardly hide
their real intentions behind “hidden politics.” Fraud detection is a
typical argument for justifying additional administrative burden, but
fraud detection may no longer be a valid argument because a client who
is not involved has few opportunities to manipulate no-stop government
or to engage in fraud. No-stop government relies only on internal
governmental data or data from third parties, so a fraudulent client
would have to impair the data that is already in the public sector or
corrupt a third party. Fraud prevention has actually become an argu­
ment in favor of no-stop government and reducing administrative
burden.
Despite the potential merits of no-stop government, some public
organizations implement the opposite of no-stop government and
9
Government Information Quarterly 40 (2023) 101832
increase administrative burden. For example, Madsen et al. (2022)
explain how public organizations use digital public services to transfer
tasks to clients that were previously conducted internally by case
workers, turning the clients into their own “accidental case workers.”
Thus, the administrative burden increases for clients who are not
comfortable using digital services and those who do not understand the
service process and eligibility criteria (Madsen et al., 2022). Nonethe­
less, we foresee that current technological developments will make op­
portunities for no-stop government so clear for some types of services as
to be irresistible by even the most resistant policymaker. Future work
could investigate whether this prediction holds and under what cir­
cumstances. Public administration scholars can bring to such research
endeavors their understanding of “hidden politics” and administrative
burden, and information systems scholars can bring their knowledge
about the technological foundations of a no-stop government
implementation.
7. Conclusion and limitations
This conceptual article aims at theory building regarding proactive
digital public services and addresses how proactivity changes the concep­
tualization of digital public services. To answer our research question, we
applied Jaakkola's (2020) approach to theory adaptation for conceptual
articles. We used the Lindgren and Jansson framework as domain theory
and the Brüggemeier model as method theory in analyzing the concept
of a digital public service through the lens of proactivity. By relating the
particularities of proactivity to the dimensions of digital public services,
we illustrate the possibilities for and constraints to public organizations'
“pushing” services to clients.
This article makes two main contributions to research. First, it ex­
plains how proactivity changes the concept of digital public services and
presents propositions that can be investigated empirically. Its analysis is
built on the view that conceptual analyses provide the “metatheoretic
language” that is necessary for developing theories (Ostrom, 2005, p.
28). Scholars can use our analysis to gain an understanding of proac­
tivity in digital public services and as a vocabulary for communication.
Our work also serves as a stepping stone to further theoretical devel­
opment of the proactivity phenomenon and its impact on future public
services.
Second, we demonstrate the need to align and combine the research
streams on administrative burden (especially auto-enrollment and
administrative renewals) from the public administration discipline with
that on proactive public services from the information systems disci­
pline. Truly interdisciplinary studies in which knowledge from multiple
disciplines is combined are needed to advance our understanding of
proactive digital public services.
Despite its contributions, this article is subject to limitations. Our
work is influenced by our selection of the Brüggemeier model to
differentiate degrees of proactivity. Other models do so in more detail,
but for the level of abstraction in this article, the additional detail would
not add much value. For instance, one could differentiate between a
proactive action that occurs before a life event and one that occurs after
a life event (Pawlowski & Scholta, 2023; Scholta et al., 2019), so a public
organization in a no-stop government could send out concession cards to
seniors either before or after they have reached the age of 60. However,
we do not expect that such a differentiation within the no-stop gov­
ernment concept leads to any new changes in the Lindgren and Jansson
framework, and the purpose of this article is to point to conceptual
changes that are likely to occur. Now it is up to empirical research to
determine under what circumstances and in what shape these changes
occur. We provide propositions to be investigated but do not make
suggestions about how to approach them, leaving these decisions to
future work. Future work can also investigate the boundary between
reactivity and proactivity—that is, the outreaching government—which
we omitted from our analysis. Moreover, we derived some characteris­
tics of public services that are suitable for no-stop government, but these
H. Scholta and I. Lindgren Government Information Quarterly 40 (2023) 101832

characteristics are not exhaustive. Future research could investigate
additional characteristics of such services to deepen our understanding
of no-stop government.
This article sheds light on how proactivity can reduce clients'
administrative burden in receiving public services from attentive gov­
ernment and no-stop government. Digital technologies enable public
organizations to incorporate more proactivity into their services.
Whereas automation of the public sector has increasingly replaced the
public official, proactivity can also eliminate the client from co-
production in the service process. We expect that this change can
fundamentally change how public services are provided and why.
Inspired by this article, more research on proactivity can clarify its
impact on digital public services and their stakeholders in practice.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
original draft, Writing – review & editing. Ida Lindgren: Conceptuali­
zation, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review &
editing.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgment
This article is a revision of the paper ‘‘The Long and Winding Road of
Digital Public Services—One Next Step: Proactivity’’ that was presented
at the International Conference on Information Systems 2019.

Hendrik Scholta: Conceptualization, Investigation, Writing –

Appendix
Table 3
Theory components of the Lindgren and Jansson framework.

No. Type Construct 1 Relationship Construct 2 Scope

A1 RG Public Needs to ensure Comprehensive legal framework with different degrees

organization of discretion
AG
NG
A2 RG Public Needs to balance Democratic values (equality, responsiveness,
organization availability, social inclusion), economic values (cost-
efficiency)
AG Supports
NG Ensures
A3 RG Public Needs to ensure Legitimacy and accountability (democratic decision-
organization making, rule of law, efficient output)
AG Legitimacy and accountability (rule of law (especially
privacy regulations), efficient output)
NG Legitimacy and accountability (rule of law (especially
privacy regulations), effective and efficient output)
B1 RG Public Needs to balance Asymmetrical relationship with citizens Especially in monopolized or compulsory situations
organization
AG
NG Supports to balance Only in monopolized or compulsory situations or
situations that provide no disadvantages to the client
C1 RG Public Needs to ensure Individual and political rights and obligations of
organization citizenship
AG Supports to ensure
NG Ensures
C2 RG Public Needs to ensure Access to services for all citizens
organization
AG Supports to ensure
NG Ensures
D1 RG Technical artifact Is constituted of Internet-based technology
AG
NG For the public organization, not for the client
D2 RG Technical artifact Is constituted of Some degree of interaction
AG
NG No interaction
D3 RG Technical artifact Is constituted of Connections to other information systems
AG
NG Connections to other information systems and to third
parties
E1 RG Public Needs to focus on Users of technology
organization
AG
NG Users and non-users of technology
E2 RG Accessibility and Are important aspects Public organization
usability to
AG
NG Accessibility Is ensured by
implementation
Usability Does not have to be
considered by
(continued on next page)

10
H. Scholta and I. Lindgren Government Information Quarterly 40 (2023) 101832

Table 3 (continued )
No. Type Construct 1 Relationship Construct 2 Scope

F1 RG Process, value Are co-created by Consumer and supplier

AG
NG Process Is co-produced by Supplying organization and possibly third parties

Value Is co-created for Client and supplier

Value Is co-created by Client's use/consumption of the service output

G1 RG Service quality Is assessed based on Consumers' experience of the service
AG
NG
RG = reactive government, AG = attentive government, NG = no-stop government.

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Hendrik Scholta (hendrik.scholta@ercis.uni-muenster.de) is an assistant professor at the
European Research Center for Information Systems (ERCIS) at the University of Münster,
Germany. He received his PhD in Information Systems from the University of Münster in
2018. Hendrik has been involved in several projects funded by national and international
funding organizations that especially deal with the topics digital government, standardi­
zation, and business process management. He has published his work in international
journals such as Government Information Quarterly, Business and Information Systems Engi­
neering, and Information Systems, and presented at conferences such as ICIS and ECIS.
Hendrik's research interests include digital government, business process management,
and conceptual modeling.
Ida Lindgren (ida.lindgren@liu.se) is a senior associate professor of Information Systems
at Linköping University, Sweden. She has a multidisciplinary background and conducts
research on how digitalization of public services is interpreted and manifested in public
organizations. She is particularly interested in how digitalization and automation of work
in public organizations affects, and is affected by, different stakeholders in society. Her
work is published in the leading journals on digital government and in proceedings from
conferences, such as ECIS, EGOV, and dg.o. She is Associate Editor of Government Infor­
mation Quarterly and engaged in the organization of the IFIP WG 8.5 on information sys­
tems in public administration, as well as involved in the organization of the conference
series of IFIP WG 8.5 and the Digital Government Society (DGS).