Digital Transformations of Public Sector Organizations’ Organizing

The article discusses digital transformation of public sector organizations by looking at the way that these organizations’ organizing frames change as these have to accommodate an increased demand to develop digital technologies. To discuss this, we present a detailed qualitative case study of the way that Data and Analysis, an IT sub-unit in the Danish Tax Authority, has adapted and works with agile methods. Theoretically, we draw on translation theory and the institutional perspective on digital transformation. The study shows that the agile methods—with their intricate organizational set-up—extend into intra-organizational collaboration and influence the remaining organization’s organizing as novel actors, structures and values emerge as the agile methods get adopted. Our study is the first to report a detailed qualitative study of how the adaption of agile methods—in an IT unit—creates transformations over and beyond the IT unit whereby the core of how the tax authority organizes starts to change. Having knowledge about these change processes enables us to make an important contribution to the literature on digital transformation of public sector organizations as we move the existing focus from looking at specific digital technologies and their effects to looking at how digital technologies are developed and how this development requires fundamental new organizing frames in the affected organizations.