Guest editorial: Managing the ‘digitalized’ public sector: building communities and creating knowledge around an evolving DNA

In a time increasingly defined by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity and digital predominance (VUCAD), the public sector finds itself at the heart of a critical transformation (Mintrom and O'Connor, 2024). As the world navigates through a poly-crisis era – characterized by overlapping challenges such as economic downturns, pandemics, geopolitical instabilities and acute energy shortages – the capacity of public sector organizations to anticipate, adapt and respond to these multifaceted crises has never been more crucial (Todisco et al., 2024).Many recent grand challenges (digitalization, global crisis and sustainability) are putting organizations under pressure to manage complex issues under different perspectives: social, political, economic and technological. Complex issues require complex processes to be handled and solved. Managing these issues separately may leave many aspects unsolved, while a holistic approach could provide better, and more long-time oriented, solutions (Mergel et al., 2019).We, as authors and guest editors of this special issue titled “Managing the ‘digitalized’ public sector: the struggle between internal assets and external drivers of knowledge”, have sought to encourage this kind of discussion not only in the special issue but also in our experiences as convenors and/or track chairs at conferences on public management issues over (about) the last 10 years. Therefore, in this editorial, we propose a journey in the complex issue of digital transformation in the public sector, guiding the readers through the various steps we made over the last years in different conferences and the related building of a knowing community around the theme of digital transformation in the public sector. In more detail, we trace our decade-long activity of convening academic communities through EGOS and EGPA conferences, conceptualizing these events as pracademic spaces for co-producing knowledge that bridges theory and practice. Using the metaphor of a community's evolving DNA, the editorial illustrates how conferences, dialogues and collaborative practices become potential knowing communities and collectively build a shared understanding of digital transformation in the public sector.Knowing communities are well renowned as able to improve practice (Bellini and Canonico, 2008; Wenger, 1998), and this is even more important for academics willing to provide value added to society as well as practical and effective solutions to current complex challenges (Edelheim et al., 2018).On these grounds, the editorial argues that sustainable digital transformation depends on cultivating communities of practice that foster reflexive, human-centred and anticipatory public sector reforms aligned with broader societal goals. Indeed, the articles included in this Special Issue highlight how digitalization is not merely technological but deeply organizational and societal, requiring holistic approaches that balance innovation, inclusion, and well-being and reshape governance, work practices and organizational culture.In the following section, we review the literature on digital transformation in the public sector, discussing the main trends, dimensions and challenges. In Section 3, we present our methodological approach adopted in this editorial and in the conferences as well, displaying how we framed our community-building intervention. Two sub-sections in Section 3 will then discuss the metaphor of building a community and its DNA as a knowledge creation approach. In Section 4, we discuss the takeaways emerged through the last conferences we convened, providing some theoretical and practical implications useful both for colleagues doing research in the public management field and for public sector practitioners. In this section, we also show the link to the Special Issue and introduce the papers published within the Special Issue.In the final section, we provide some concluding remarks and suggest possible avenues for future research.Over the last years, digitalization has brought many new challenges to organizations and their organizational arrangements (e.g. workflow, teamwork, leadership styles and organizational culture) (Schuster et al., 2020; Välikangas and Lewin, 2020; Palumbo, 2020; Tomo, 2023; Van der Wal, 2020), especially considering the growing use of emerging technologies and new forms of work (Palumbo, 2020; Tursunbayeva, 2019; Todisco et al., 2023).Indeed, digital transformation processes may have intertwined and interconnected effects on the individual (e.g. diversity management, control, leadership, motivation and well-being), organizational (e.g. technology, performance and flexibility) and societal levels (e.g. circular economy impact considering environmental and productivity challenges and benefits due to changing employees commuting and resources consumption habits) (Dabrowska et al., 2022; Iden and Bygstad, 2024; Saura et al., 2022; Tomo and Mangia, 2025).From an internal (micro and meso) perspective, the degree of complexity characterizing digital transformation requires a profound re-evaluation of organizational structures and processes, including workflows, teamwork dynamics, leadership models, cultural paradigms and new human resources management capabilities. Indeed, the process of digital transformation involves more than just adopting technology and designing information systems within organizations. Rather, it encompasses a deep cultural shift towards innovation and citizen-centric governance (Mergel et al., 2019). According to Mergel et al. (2019), digital transformation entails a holistic rethinking of processes, structures and services to meet contemporary societal needs using digital tools.Embracing the holistic perspective of digital transformation processes means understanding that its effectiveness depends on different dimensions, going beyond the mere adoption and use of technology: the introduction of new forms of work, the design of new workplaces, the development of new digital skills and culture and the design of new human resources management practices.For instance, new ways of working (smart, agile, hybrid, remote and telework) represent a revolution in contemporary work environments, especially for the public sector, since they have been accompanied by the acceleration of previously overlooked or not fully implemented, processes of digitalization (Todisco et al., 2023). As a result, there is nowadays a demand and an expectation for employees not only to be flexible and adaptable but also to master such new modes of working in ways that make the organizations more productive than before. This expresses to some extent what Bauman (2000), called “liquid modernity”, aiming at releasing the brakes of deregulation, liberalization, flexibilization and fluidity, marking the erosion of organizational boundaries as well as the breaking of time and space dimensions.Regarding the design of new workplaces, technology and new ways of working implied the re-organization of workplaces for employees working from distance (i.e. from co-working spaces or from their own places – home), but this has also produced effects on public employees' identities and sense-making of their work. In this regard, Tomo and Mangia (2025), starting from the paper by Wilhoit Larson (2021) where the author individuated five practices used by employees to recreate home at work, conceptualized six practices (Wilhoit Larson's five plus a sixth) used by public employees to rebuild a sense of working at home when they are in remote or smart working mode.The article aimed to understand the experiences and work dynamics within an increasingly digitized public administration and how these dynamics could impact the identity of public employees and their way of giving meaning to their role (Wilhoit Larson, 2021; Tomo, 2023; Petani and Mengis, 2021) and the degree of involvement and participation within their organizations (Gnankob et al., 2022; Barbieri et al., 2024). The six practices found by Tomo and Mangia (2025), linked to as many identity strategies (inserted in parentheses) adopted by public employees, were: (1) home worklessness (identity impoverishment and instability); (2) workspace within a private space (identity overlapping, integration or hybridization); (3) home place-making (identity sense-making); (4) creating work at home (identity segmentation); (5) there's no place like work (identity reinforcement) and (6) themed home office (identity enrichment).The use of technology, especially the most radical ones (e.g. artificial intelligence, big data analytics and blockchain), has an influence also on different types of organizational processes: decision-making and communication processes; managerial processes (management of dispersed/virtual teams, new forms of (e-)leadership and control) and operational processes (work dematerialization, enhancement and flexibility). Also, the rise of social-digital communities and new media has led to increasing online interactions and changes in communication due to instant messaging, changes in vocabulary and slang, use of abbreviations, acronyms, emojis, emoticons and avatars.To master this radical change concerning the use of technology, the development of new processes and new modes of communication, there is the need of developing new skills. According to Van Laar et al. (2017), these skills go beyond the mere basic technical skills (IT, ICT and computer literacy). Indeed, they should support employees in higher-order thinking processes and be related to cognitive processes favouring employees' continuous learning. More in detail, according to the authors, these skills are information management, critical thinking, creativity, problem solving, collaboration, communication, technical, self-direction, lifelong learning, ethical awareness, cultural awareness and flexibility.Finally, digital transformation also requires a rethinking of HRM practices. HRM practices are essential to improve employees' well-being (EWB), work-life balance (WLB), organizational citizenship behaviours (OCBs) and to sustain identification and sense-making processes (Chaudhary et al., 2022; Costa et al., 2024; Gnankob et al., 2022; Tomo and Mangia, 2025). In this regard, HRM practices may support the design of “great places to work”, especially considering the need of providing employees with resources and support for more human-centred and ergonomic workplaces when working from distance (i.e. with the new forms of work) (Petani and Mengis, 2021). Activities in this sense might be virtual team-building, regular check-ins with colleagues and encouraging employees to set clear boundaries between work and personal life (Todisco et al., 2023). Additionally, effective communication and conflict management play a crucial role in the success of virtual teams, particularly for organizations with geographically dispersed or remote employees (Klonek et al., 2022). In such cases, organizations must establish an environment conducive to e-leadership development, managing interdependencies and motivating employees (Chaudhary et al., 2022).Again, HRM practices are fundamental in creating the setting and encouraging the development of digital skills and culture (Lopes et al., 2023).However, organizations must be aware of the fact that individual conditions may differ significantly (Tomo and Mangia, 2025). Consequently, the relationship between evolving work models, employee well-being and work-life balance is complex and influenced by how new work environments are structured and supported through organizational policies.On these grounds, given the complexity and intertwined nature of the diverse socio-technical dimensions encompassing digital transformation, it is crucial to understand the challenges brought by this new context (new workplaces, practices and technologies) as well as the connected reforms and the effects they might have, after their introduction, on organizational and managerial practices, on the new forms of work and work environments at rise in the public sector and on the need of balancing internal assets and external drivers of knowledge (e.g. consultants).Indeed, from a macro and/or external perspective, the complexity characterizing digital transformation may require public administrations entrusting such a complex task to individuals or firms with more adequate and updated digital competences. Such consideration highlights the attractiveness to external consultants willing to integrate public administration's (sometimes scarce) knowledge with their expertise to handle the introduction of digital processes.However, this, in turn, may represent another challenge for public administrations, as they must deal with external consulting firms often driven by short-term goals (e.g. profits and influence over decision-making processes), also risking incurring in vendor (consulting) lock-in.In this special issue as well as in the conferences where we acted as convenors and/or track chairs, we sought to address the complexity of digital transformation in the public sector by inviting authors to reflect upon the diverse nuances and levels of impact of this process.Our journey is not just a collection of academic contributions but a living process of knowledge creation carried out within diverse networks of learning societies such as the of of community of and practitioners. networks critical through to our they have a for academics and pracademic knowledge EGOS with its on theory development and organizational while EGPA these within the public management, and governance of public between these community has digital transformation in the public sector from innovation with research has that conferences be not merely as for academic but as living for creativity, and and 2024). of the EGOS how and practices – such as the – as for academic as and This with our of conferences as pracademic spaces for knowledge where and become for both thinking and sustainable where theory and practice meet to to when we a at the EGOS on human resources management in the public sector. 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