Getting on track for digital work: Digital transformation in an administrative court before and during COVID-19

Abstract

This article analyses organizational change and new ways of working in one of our most institutionalized and professionalized contexts—the courts. Here, digital technologies and the implementation of digital work practices carry great promise as they enable more accessible and qualitative services to be produced more efficiently and effectively. While prior studies have shown that institutionalized and professionalized actors are reluctant to respond to change, attempts to change work practices through digital technologies remain understudied. In particular, we do not know how COVID-19 has influenced the motivation and implementation of digitalized work. This article draws on a large Swedish administrative court and its attempts to digitalize its work starting in 2018. We find that several barriers first inhibited a successful transformation of work practices. These barriers were connected to the institution of the court and the institutionalized profession of judges, which worked together in preventing organizational change. However, COVID-19 radically accelerated the digital implementation of work practices and gave rise to two separate re-assessment processes. The first established new motivations for digitalized work, and the second allowed for a new perception of value in digital work. These processes effectively broke down perceived barriers and substantially facilitated a more successful digital transformation of working practices.

Accommodating Machine Learning Algorithms in Professional Service Firms

“…Determinations are made by the algorithm in ways that professionals cannot always explain and control and which redirect the work of professionals (Anthony et al, 2023(Anthony et al, , p. 1673. Machine learning algorithms might, therefore, be perceived as undermining the autonomy of professionals over decisions about how work is completed and their ability to explain the decision-making that informs professional advice (Björkdahl & Kronblad, 2021;Pachidi et al, 2021).…”

“…These two features recognize the importance to professionals of autonomy over means (how they do their work) and ends (standards of assessment of the quality of work) and result in governance that gives professionals significant control over decision-making. In particular, the partnership model of governance used in what von Nordenflycht (2010) calls ‘classic PSFs’, such as accounting and law firms, makes senior professionals the co-owners of PSFs and gives them the ability to sanction or block change (Björkdahl & Kronblad, 2021; Smets et al, 2017) with consultation and consensus prioritized in decision-making in ways often not seen in corporate hierarchies (Empson & Chapman, 2006).…”

“…Our analysis of accommodating machine learning algorithms contributes to existing debates about professionals and intelligent technologies by responding to calls for greater understanding of the processes that enable or inhibit cooperative adoption in PSFs (Goto, 2021; Kellogg, 2022; Pachidi et al, 2021; Pemer & Werr, 2023). It deepens understanding of the role in adoption of the autonomy of professionals in PSFs (Björkdahl & Kronblad, 2021; Dodgson et al, 2022; Smets, Morris, von Nordenflycht, & Brock, 2017), processes of justifying changes to work, and the enabling role of new task structures (Anthony, 2021; Köktener & Tunçalp, 2021; Wilmers, 2020) and the ‘hiving off’ of work by professionals to other occupations (Huising, 2015). It also provides insights relevant when examining the long-term impacts of intelligent machine learning technologies on professional work and PSFs, these insights being especially important as machine learning algorithms become ever more sophisticated, and the next wave of automation and augmentation emerges.…”

Institutional Perspectives on Digital Transformation

“…For example, Kronblad (2020) found in the context of the Swedish legal industry that legal tech start-ups utilizing digital technologies are questioning the dominant professional logic through value-based or subscription-based pricing; however, many traditional law firms remain reluctant to change. Björkdahl and Kronblad (2021) find in a study of the digitalization of court processes in response to the COVID-19 crisis that judges may be more willing to participate in digitalization processes if court managers not only emphasize efficiency gains but also how digitalization fits judges' professional ethos (i.e., arriving at fair verdicts). This points to an important gap in the literature, namely a more nuanced understanding of the conditions when professions are more responsive to digital transformation and when are they more likely to resist.…”