Making Digital Transformation Discussable: An Institutional Action Design Research Approach for Municipal Governance

Marcel Patalon ()
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Marcel Patalon: Department of Electrical Engineering, South Westphalia University of Applied Sciences, Lübecker Ring 2, 59494 Soest, Germany

Social Sciences, 2026, vol. 15, issue 3, 1-25

Abstract: Digital transformation in public administration is shaped not only by technology but also by institutional expectations, legitimacy concerns and uneven local capacities. However, existing qualitative instruments rarely support structured reflection on how these conditions influence digital change. This study develops a modular, theory-informed focus group guide designed to help practitioners articulate institutional influences on municipal digital transformation. Using an Action Design Research framework, institutional concepts were embedded into the guide and iteratively refined across six focus groups with municipal actors. Through recursive Alpha and Beta cycles, the artifact evolved via authentic and concurrent evaluation, integrating practitioner feedback, visual scaffolds and accessible translations of theoretical constructs. Results show that the guide enabled participants to identify coercive, mimetic and normative pressures, surface assumptions across administrative roles and externalize institutional relationships. These patterns point to an institutionally dominant mode of artifact development in which interpretive engagement and legitimacy dynamics shape refinement. The study demonstrates that institutional theory can serve as a productive kernel for qualitative instrument design and offers transferable design principles for developing tools that support reflective, inclusive and socially aware digital transformation in public sector contexts. The resulting artifact, referred to as the Modular Institutional Instrument (MII), is made publicly available to support application in similar governance contexts.

Keywords: digital transformation; institutional theory; public administration; Action Design Research; qualitative methods; boundary objects; institutional pressures; reflexive governance; digital equity; socio-technical change (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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