How Do Digital Capabilities Affect Organizational Performance in the Public Sector? The Mediating Role of the Organizational Agility

Abstract

As public sector agencies face rising imperatives to digitally transform citizen services, data systems, and internal operations, questions persist as to whether investments in big data analytics and automation capabilities, evidenced to drive organizational performance in private industry, translate to bureaucratic government contexts. This research quantitatively investigates the link between digital capabilities and organizational performance in the Jordanian ministry of Justice. Survey data collected from 292 public officials assessed capabilities in data-driven decision making, flexible automation, and interactive constituent communications alongside organizational agility and performance indexes spanning efficiency, quality, and satisfaction metrics. Structural equation modeling analysis reveals that digital capabilities relate significantly to heightened agility and all targeted performance areas. Improved agility mediates over half the performance impact attributable to upgraded technical systems, highlighting the vital role of evolving digitally enabled flexibility in realizing returns on analytics and process modernization initiatives. Findings validate the applicability of conclusions on digitization returns formed in corporate environments to public sector contexts, contingent on bundled change management programming enabling both technical and adaptive capacity building across the workforce. As global regions expand e-governance programs premised on harnessing emerging technologies to enhance civic institutions, this research offers generalizable models guiding multifaceted preparations to amplify impact.

Main Challenges of E-Leadership in Municipal Administrations in the Post-Pandemic Context

“…Existing studies on e-leadership in the public sector (Azukas 2022;Raišien ė et al 2023) claim that COVID-19 as a crisis has led to remote work as a major and rapid change in the work organization that provided new opportunities, but also challenges including mental and physical exhaustion and social deprivation of remote workers because of blurred work-home boundaries, increased social isolation, a reduced sense of purpose and fulfillment in their work (Raišien ė et al 2023;Vara-Horna and Espinosa-Domínguez 2023). Leaders in public sector dealt with difficulties in communication, monitoring, and motivation when managing remote teams, therefore, COVID-19 period highlighted the importance of leadership behaviors, such as communication, feedback, trust, support, empathy, and encouragement (Jurníčková et al 2024), but also of supporting organizational climates (Sciepura and Linos 2024;Allgood et al 2024;Atobishi et al 2024). Public sector employees had to look for new strategies to deal with their shifted role towards the entrepreneurial one, while leaders had to look for strategies to optimize the work design and invest in emotional authenticity and competency development to prevent burnout and enhance resilience (van der Meer et al 2024;Barboza-Wilkes et al 2024).…”

Introduction to the special issue ‘Towards a Multi-Level Understanding of Agile in Government: Macro, Meso and Micro Perspectives’

“…Greve et al, 2020) and meso (e.g. Atobishi et al, 2024;Walsh et al, 2002) level perspective, which follows the idea of agile government as a procedural and project management approach (meso) relying on environmental influences and more transformative changes in the public sector (macro). However, agile government is also affected by micro-level determinants and comes with micro-level implications pointing to individual agile practices as well as individual attitudes and motivation regarding agile processes and structures as well as the role of leaders (e.g.…”