Digital leadership in the public sector: a scoping review and outlook

ABSTRACT

In an era characterized by rapidly changing technological landscapes, public sector organizations find themselves in a pressing need to initiate efficient digital transformation programs for digital government. Managing digital transformation initiatives has grown increasingly complex, as leaders are often confronted with a plethora of demands that can be conflicting and, at times, difficult to determine and prioritize, especially if any aspect of the capability to transform is missing. Consequently, it has become vital to gain a clear understanding of digital leadership for both practitioners and academics. In this article, we conducted a comprehensive scoping review of recent studies on digital leadership and the individuals who exemplify it – digital leaders. Our thematic analysis allowed us to categorize our findings into succinct conceptual areas including the definition of digital leadership, the theoretical underpinnings, competencies inherent to digital leadership capabilities, critical success factors, and the role of digital leadership within public sector organizations.

KEYWORDS:

• Digital leadership
• digital transformation
• digital leader
• capabilities
• competencies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Boniface Ushaka Adie

Boniface Ushaka Adie is a PhD candidate at Victoria University of Wellington. He is currently researching digital leadership competencies for digital government. His wider research interests include digital governance, digital transformation, and digital leadership in government. Boni also serves as a Cybersecurity and Privacy consultant to several government agencies in New Zealand – helping these agencies mature their cybersecurity, privacy, and digital transformation practices. He has a Master’s degree in e-Government, two degrees in Theology, and several Industry certifications such as CIPT, CRISC and CISM.

Mary Tate

Mary Tate is an Associate Professor in Information Systems at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Mary has co-authored more than 100 peer-reviewed publications in leading journals and conferences. She is currently co-editor-in-chief of the Communications of the Association for Information Systems journal. Her research focuses on digital service delivery, digital innovation, and digital transformation, with a strong interest in the public sector context. Mary has worked with public agencies in New Zealand and Australia on aspects of their digital strategy. In addition, Mary has made extensive contributions to research methods literature, with a particular focus on literature analysis.

Elizabeth Valentine

Elizabeth Valentine brings a combination of practitioner and academic to her work. She is an award-winning researcher and transformation thought leader. An experienced CEO, CIO and transformation consultant, Lizzie has led the technical, people and capability aspects of some of New Zealand and Australia’s largest industry and organisation transformations, mergers and restructures. Since 2017 she was appointed Adjunct Research and Teaching Fellow at Victoria University of Wellington and in February 2024, was appointed Adjunct Professor (School of Information Management). In her teaching, research, multiple publications and consulting practice, she specialises in transformation strategy, and digital and IT governance capability and competencies. Lizzie graduated Doctor of Information Technology from Queensland University of Technology in 2016 – with the topic Information and Technology Governance Competencies for Boards and Senior Leaders. She also has an MBA from Henley (UK), winning the distance learning prize in her graduating year.