Managing the paradoxical tension between digital and IT

Digital transformation promotes an innovative, agile, and user-centric approach, which is contrasted with traditional government-centric information technology (IT). This distinction is also reflected in organizational design, with emerging new roles and units focusing on digital transformation. These new roles and units need to operate in an existing, already complex IT landscape, characterized by interdependent levels of government, each with centralized and decentralized IT departments. This research-in-progress aims to investigate, through an interpretive multiple-case study, how digital government units manage the paradoxical tension between digital and IT. The final study will contribute to an organizational design focus in the 'digital versus IT' debate.Digital transformation promotes an innovative, agile, and user-centric approach, which is contrasted with traditional government-centric information technology (IT). This distinction is also reflected in organizational design, with emerging new roles and units focusing on digital transformation. These new roles and units need to operate in an existing, already complex IT landscape, characterized by interdependent levels of government, each with centralized and decentralized IT departments. This research-in-progress aims to investigate, through an interpretive multiple-case study, how digital government units manage the paradoxical tension between digital and IT. The final study will contribute to an organizational design focus in the 'digital versus IT' debate.C