Digital governance in the public sector: challenging the policy-maker's innovation dilemma

In this paper we propose an interpretative framework for the analysis of different configurations of digital Innovation Governance in the Public Sector. The goal is to provide an instrument suitable to support policy analysts challenging what we have identified as the Policy-Maker's innovation dilemma. From a theoretical perspective, our proposal intends to contribute advancing the understanding of the application of innovation and network theories to the governance phenomenon. Moreover, it aims contributing to the current debate on the assessment of the socio-economic impacts generated by ICT-enabled services, and the co-evolution of technological advancement and societal changes. From a methodological standpoint, the interpretative framework, aims to provide a systemic perspective and an instrument to elicit the links between ICT-enabled innovation and public governance, outlining the various challenges that this poses. It in fact attempts to capture those governance changes which are strongly conditioned by historical transformations in society's underlying values and organisational models suggesting to be analysed by looking at the public value drivers that underpin ICT-enabled governance and which include the dimensions of Performance, Openness, and Inclusion.