Digital Government Track

Governments’ increasing use of digital technologies to engage with citizens further raises fundamental questions about privacy, transparency, democratic accountability, and public value. High-profile data breaches, election interference, ransomware attacks, and disruptions to essential services have highlighted the limits of purely technical responses and reinforced the need for integrated policy and governance approaches. Issues such as cybersecurity information sharing, regulatory compliance, institutional resilience, and cross-sector coordination are now central to public policy debates.

This minitrack examines cybersecurity at the intersection of technology, government, and public policy. It focuses on how public authorities design, implement, and govern cybersecurity across information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) environments, with particular attention to the institutional, legal, and regulatory contexts in which security decisions are made. The minitrack not only empahasizes the role of technical systems such as industrial control systems, SCADA, and cyber-physical infrastructures, but it also focuses on the governance frameworks, policy instruments, and organizational capacities that shape cybersecurity outcomes in practice.

A central focus is the governance of critical infrastructure and essential services, in which IT and OT are embedded within multi-level regulatory systems and shared responsibility structures involving governments, private operators, and other stakeholders. Governments’ expanding use of digital technologies to interact with citizens further raises fundamental questions of privacy, transparency, democratic accountability, and public value. High-profile data breaches, election interference, ransomware attacks, and disruptions to essential services have highlighted the limits of purely technical responses and reinforced the need for integrated policy and governance approaches. Issues such as cybersecurity information sharing, regulatory compliance, institutional resilience, and cross-sector coordination are now central to public policy debates.

The minitrack welcomes interdisciplinary contributions from information systems, computer science, public administration, political science, law, economics, and governance studies. Submissions may be empirical, conceptual, design-oriented, or comparative, and may address cybersecurity challenges at the local, national, regional, or transnational level. Research that bridges technical insights with policy and governance analysis is particularly encouraged. This is a broad and inclusive minitrack. Research does not need to be highly technical to be relevant; contributions that advance understanding of how cybersecurity is governed, regulated, coordinated, and implemented in governmental and public sector contexts are strongly welcomed. Topics include, but are not limited to:

• Systems for governments to respond to security events
• Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP)
• Cybersecurity governance and public policy design
• Regulation and oversight of IT and OT in the public sector
• Public–private coordination and accountability in cybersecurity
• Cybersecurity policy implementation and institutional capacity
• Cyber-physical systems and governance challenges
• SCADA and industrial control systems in regulated environments
• Election security and democratic resilience 
• Cybersecurity during crises and emergencies
• Information sharing and inter-organizational coordination
• Economics of cybersecurity and public investment decisions 
• Incident response and crisis management in government
• Insider threats and state-based cyber operations 
• Privacy, transparency, and public trust
• Security management
• Policy, laws, and regulations of IT security
• Security concerns of new technologies
• Legal frameworks and regulatory compliance for cybersecurity 
• Security implications of emerging technologies 
• Disaster recovery, business continuity, and public sector resilience 
• Case studies of cybersecurity incidents and governance responses 
• Information assurance and trusted Computing
• New threats, including insider and nation states
• Digital forensics
• Resilience and governance of interdependent cyber-physical systems

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

Greta Nasi (Primary Contact)
Bocconi University
greta.nasi@unibocconi.it

Philip Menard
University of Texas at San Antonio
philip.menard@utsa.edu

Keith  Harrison
University of Texas at San Antonio
keith.harrison@utsa.edu

Recently, advanced technologies such as big data and artificial intelligence have propelled innovations and advancements in digital government. However, these technologies also raise significant sociopolitical, institutional, legal, and organizational challenges that must be critically examined to ensure that digital transformations contribute to create a better society.

This minitrack aims to provide an opportunity and an open forum for discussion of different technological, socio-political, institutional, legal, and organisational strategies that inform the design, implementation, and management of digital reforms in the public sector, with particular attention to their societal implications. Specifically, this track seeks papers that discuss theories and/or present cases and empirical studies useful to better understand how different digital government policies and/or strategies can lead to successful digital government deployments, or, on the other hand, how different factors may lead to the failure of such projects.

Papers which examine or discuss external or contextual factors that affect or influence digital government, such as the political state; organizational culture; institutional factors or normative arrangements are also invited. By digital government action, we mean both macrolevel institutional design and micro-level collaboration and competition between diverse stakeholders. Contributions may address how these multi-level dynamics influence the ability of digital government initiatives to promote goals that can improve wider societal goals such as accountability, transparency, responsiveness, and social equity.

New and emerging technologies, along with the new perspectives on public administration and governance, often demand new ways of thinking and innovative approaches to frame these deployments. In today’s global society, these new demands become increasingly important. Digital technologies provide in fact new opportunities and challenges for adaptive and agile governance yet also impacted the way by which public administration’s processes and activities are structured and executed. Papers which address these challenges are particularly welcomed this year.

In addition, the minitrack welcomes contributions exploring the issues associated with the design, implementation, and management of policies and strategies that change the nature of the interactions between government and citizens, private sector organizations, and NGOs. They are the crucial determinants of digital government success and failure. And, there are significant variances among different countries and regions in their approach to digital government development. These differences can be understood through the lenses of the design, implementation, and management of policies, and strategies. Moreover, papers that discuss the political, institutional, regulatory, and organisational implications of the deployment of emerging and disruptive technologies are particularly welcomed. Topics of interest include, but not limited to:

• Design, implementation, and management of:
• ICT for development strategies
• ICT related outsourcing and insourcing in the public sector
• ICT for efficiency and effectiveness in government action
• Digital strategies
• Digital transformation in policymaking
• E-Procurement policies and strategies
• ICT mediated co-creation and co-production
• Best practices for design, implementation, and management of digital innovation in the public sector.
• Cases of digital government platforms design, implementation, and management
• The impact of digital technologies on the structure and execution of public administration processes and activities
• The influence of the external and internal context in public administration and government on shaping
• Digital strategies and deployments
• Impact of the digital mindset on governmental strategies and policies
• Global comparisons of digital government strategies
• Narratives, tensions and identification in digital government transformation processes and among policymakers
• Public-private partnerships in digital transformation
• User-centric design in digital government and inclusive digital service
• Performance measurement and evaluation of digital government
• Risk management in digital government
• Government capacity and its building in digital government development
• Sustainability in digital government initiatives
• Digital by default and its implications
• Public health versus privacy concerns
• Socio-political, institutional, organisational, and ethical impacts of disruptive technologies
• Regulatory challenges associated with ICTs deployments
• E-justice and ethics of emerging technologies
• Public policy issues in digital government

We are looking for high-quality conference papers that adopt a wide range of approaches on content, case studies, or practical and theoretical models to advance the knowledge related to the design, implementation, and management of strategies and policies in the digital government context. The papers submitted to this minitrack must be new and unpublished.

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

Francesco Gualdi (Primary Contact)
Regent’s University London
francesco.gualdi@regents.ac.uk

Kristina Lemmer
City University of Applied Sciences Bremen
kristina.lemmer@hs-bremen.de

Yueping Zheng
Sun Yat-sen University
zhengyp8@mail.sysu.edu.cn

Governments at all levels are leveraging digital technologies to transform their engagement with citizens, businesses, and other stakeholders. Through social media, mobile applications, artificial intelligence, and other forms of digital solutions, digital government is reshaping public services (e.g., efficiency, accessibility), policymaking (e.g., data-driven, digitally-ready), government operations (e.g., infrastructure management, emergency response), and citizen engagement (e.g., transparency, crowdsourcing, mobilization).

As digital government initiatives expand and deepen, it is essential to critically examine not only the opportunities and barriers they create for citizens to connect with government, but also broader ethical concerns, diverse citizen responses, and the societal impacts of digital government innovations. Governments must ensure that digital pathways for service provision and engagement are accessible, user-friendly, secure, and inclusive for all citizens.

However, the public digital agenda is often hindered by significant disparities in access to digital government infrastructure, information, and services, as well as the ability to benefit from that access. Both can exacerbate existing social divides. While the number of citizens who can fully participate in an information society and benefit from it is increasing, many are left without the means or skills to do so.

These divides must be addressed by the government to ensure opportunities for citizen engagement with government and associated resources and services. These divides also create different forms of citizen action and social organization that remain important platforms for civic and socio-political engagement. Various forms of responses, including resistance, skepticism, and criticism, have emerged from groups of citizens, civil society organizations, and other actors. These responses may stem from concerns about privacy, surveillance, exclusion, algorithmic bias, or the erosion of traditional forms of civic participation. Understanding these responses and their dynamics is crucial for developing more inclusive, responsive, and accountable digital government practices.

This minitrack invites authors to explore different opportunities, challenges, and paths leading from digital government to a digitally inclusive society. We welcome contributions, including but not limited to the following topics:

• Supporting digital efforts to engage unserved or underserved populations
• The role of digital literacy in the use or non-use of online government services
• Digital inclusion capabilities and strategies of the civil society actors
• Digital government access for people with perceptual, motor, or cognitive disabilities
• Government role in the development and adoption of digital accessibility standards
• The role of community-based organizations or anchor institutions (e.g., public libraries, nongovernment organizations) in fostering digital engagement
• Development and/or implementation of statutes, regulations, or policies related to digital engagement
• Developments in case law and policy related to digital engagement
• Trends in comparative or international law related to digital inclusion
• Trust in institutions vs. the use of digital government by diverse populations
• The impact of digitalized voting on citizen involvement in elections
• Testing digital government services with diverse user populations
• Understanding barriers to digital public service adoption
• Involving diverse populations in the development of digital government services
• Forms and rationales of non-adoption of digital government, e.g., privacy activism, anti-surveillance movements, digital exclusion protests
• Critical perspectives on the impacts of digital government on social inclusion
• Alternative models and grassroots approaches to digital engagement
• Case studies of failed or contested digital government initiatives for social inclusion
• The role of advocacy, activism, and civil society in shaping digital government policies and practices for social inclusion
• Analysis of algorithmic bias, surveillance, and data (in)justice in digital government
• Comparative studies of digital government for social inclusion across countries, regions, cultures, and political or administrative systems

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

Tin-Yuet Ting (Primary Contact)
Hong Kong Polytechnic University
tyting@polyu.edu.hk

Anna Domaradzka
University of Warsaw
anna.domaradzka@uw.edu.pl

Tomasz Janowski
Gdańsk University of Technology
tomasz.janowski@pg.edu.pl

Following the overarching theme of “Digital Government for a Better Society”, this minitrack takes the viewpoint that e-democracy, e-participation and e-voting constitute powerful tools to enable citizens to have a say and design this better society. The traditional contours of democracy are indeed being reshaped by digital innovations, where citizen engagement becomes a dynamic force, and where the very act of voting undergoes a transformative evolution. While different solutions for facilitating citizen engagement are being adopted at very different levels of administration, academia aims to stand at the forefront of this democratic revolution by delving into the nuances of e-democracy and technologically mediated citizen participation with an analytical lens.

Researchers have been focusing already for some time on the adoption and implementation processes of different digital democracy tools, as well as to its impacts on democratic principles and potential for inclusive participation and societal outcomes. Even that, given the evolving nature of technology and the numerous ongoing democratic processes where it is being implemented, the field offers a large number of challenges that are still not covered. Transparency, accountability, security, ethics or trust management represent a shortlist of them. Moreover, the field of digital democracy involves many stakeholders that might influence the outcomes of its digitization process: malicious actors spreading misinformation, decision-makers in need of evidence-based knowledge, activists demanding different forms of political engagement or citizens expecting convenient forms of participation. As a result, this research field has great potential given the amount of open research avenues available and the different theoretical frameworks to tackle.

The governance of digital democracy, hence, appears as one of the hot challenges of our current days and, as the digital threads weave through the fabric of democracy, it is imperative that academics collaborate to address the sociotechnical and ethical considerations that continuously arise. This minitrack aims to provide the necessary room for those debates to happen, paying particular attention to the challenges arising from the different forms in which digital democratic processes are occurring, e.g. social participation and elections. We invite submissions that focus on, but are not limited, to the following topics:

• Relation between societal outcomes and e-democracy, e-participation, and e-voting
• User experience in e-democracy platforms
• Diffusion of e-democracy
• Information accessibility and inclusivity
• (Dis)Information management and consumption in e-democracy
• Digital literacy and citizen empowerment
• Impact of social media on political participation
• Trust and distrust in e-Democracy systems
• Emerging technologies use in e-Democracy (AI, XR, Blockchain, …)
• Human-Computer Interaction in civic engagement
• Cross-cultural studies in e-Democracy adoption
• Impact of information campaigns on political behavior
• Evaluating digital deliberation platforms
• Technological transformation of democracy models
• Collaborative governance in e-democracy
• Governance of e-democracy
• Policy-makers’ use of e-democracy and impact on policy-making
• Novel uses of e-petitioning
• Relations between transparency systems and e-democracy
• Inclusiveness in e-democracy
• Dark side of e-democracy and critical uses (e.g. polarization)

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

Anthony Simonofski (Primary Contact)
University of Namur
anthony.simonofski@unamur.be

Uwe Serdült
Ritsumeikan University and University of Zurich
serdult@fc.ritsumei.ac.jp

David Duenas-Cid
Kozminski University
dduenas@kozminski.edu.pl

Open government has become a central pillar of contemporary digital government agendas, driven by the normative goals of transparency, accountability, collaboration, and co-production and public value creation. Over the past decade, governments worldwide have increasingly relied on digital platforms, open data infrastructures, and participatory technologies to operationalize these principles. While existing research has substantially advanced our understanding of open government frameworks, drivers, and challenges, there remains a need for empirically grounded and theory-informed studies that examine how transparency and collaboration are designed, deployed, enacted and managed in practice across institutional, technological, and societal contexts.

This minitrack responds to this gap by foregrounding the doing of open government, how transparency mechanisms are designed, deployed, enacted and managed, how collaboration among governments, citizens, and non-state actors unfolds, and how these processes translate into tangible outcomes for governance, service delivery, and democratic legitimacy. It aims to:

• Advance theoretical and empirical understanding of transparency and collaboration as operational practices of open government.
• Provide a forum for interdisciplinary dialogue among scholars examining open government from administrative, information systems, political, and sociotechnical perspectives.
• Encourage research that critically assesses both the enabling and constraining effects of digital technologies in open government initiatives.
• Examine outcomes and impacts of open government “in action,” including trust, legitimacy, innovation, and public value creation.

Submissions addressed, but are not limited to, the following topics are welcomed.

• Design and implementation of transparency mechanisms (e.g., open data portals, algorithmic transparency, performance dashboards)
• Digital platforms for collaboration and co-production in governance and public services
• Citizen engagement, participatory governance, and collaborative policymaking
• Inter-organizational and cross-sector collaboration enabled by open government initiatives
• Tensions between transparency, privacy, security, and ethics in practice
• The role of AI, data analytics, and emerging technologies in enabling or constraining open government
• Institutional, organizational, and cultural conditions shaping open government outcomes
• Empirical evaluations of open government initiatives at local, national, and transnational levels
• Comparative and longitudinal studies of open government practices
• Methods and metrics for assessing transparency, collaboration, and public value outcomes Conceptual, qualitative, quantitative, mixed-methods, and design-oriented studies

Papers accepted to this minitrack will be selected based on the quality of their contribution to advancing academic scholarship in the field for a special section in Information Polity titled “Best papers on Digital Government from HICSS 2027.” This provides authors with an exceptional opportunity to extend their conference presentation into a prestigious journal publication.

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

Maria Cucciniello (Primary Contact)
Bocconi University
maria.cucciniello@unibocconi.it

Gregory Porumbescu
Rutgers University
greg.porumbescu@rutgers.edu

Mila Gasco-Hernandez
University at Albany, SUNY
mgasco@albany.edu

Digital transformation has become a central priority for cities and communities worldwide, driven by the need to enhance citizen well-being, strengthen public governance, and improve the effectiveness and legitimacy of public administration and communities. At the same time, smart and connected city initiatives pose significant challenges at the intersection of technology, governance and society. Despite a substantial and growing body of research, the concept of smart cities and communities remains ambiguous due to its multidimensional and multifaceted nature that extends far beyond the deployment of digital technologies and infrastructure. In this regard, technology is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for becoming a smart city or smart community. Digital innovations should be meaningfully integrated with institutional arrangements, governance structures and the natural and built environments to enable and empower citizens and communities in their individual and collective pursuits of well-being, inclusion, and sustainability.

Recent advances in emerging technologies have undoubtedly provided many possibilities for developing smart cities and communities and brought new opportunities for addressing complex urban and community challenges. An increased number of studies indicate that emerging technologies significantly influence social life, catalyzing new needs of citizens and transforming how they are addressed, influencing people’s ability to exercise their “right to the city/community” and affecting social sustainability. While Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) implementation have traditionally dominated the discourse on smart cities and communities, significant challenges remain regarding the governance, digital inclusion, strategic planning, resilience, and social and cultural sustainability of these technological contexts. Issues such as city and community governance, information integration, data quality, privacy and security, institutional arrangements, resilience, inclusion, sustainability, and citizen participation require greater attention to plan human-centered smart solutions and understand their long-term societal implications. The growing popularity of technologies such as artificial intelligence, metaverse, chatbots, open data, big data, blockchain, and so on, have opened new avenues for addressing these issues in the urban and communities’ contexts, but they have also brought some other challenges such as ethical concerns or a new wave of digital divide and/or inclusion of citizens with low-tech skills, which requires continuous research in this area.

This minitrack aims to advance research on smart and connected cities and communities with a strong emphasis on governance, public value creation, and societal outcomes of digital transformation. It seeks contributions that critically examine how smart initiatives are designed, governed, implemented, and experienced, and how new technologies affect decision-making processes, resilience, sustainability, livability and social inclusion at local and regional levels. Areas of focus and interest to this minitrack include, but are not limited, to the following topics:

• Typologies and conceptualizations of smart cities and communities
• Governance models and institutional arrangements for smart cities and communities
• Smart cities and digital government: intersections, complementarities, and tensions
• Impact of smart technologies on citizens, communities, and public value creation
• Smart citizenship, participation, and co-creation
• Emerging technologies in smart cities and communities (e.g., artificial intelligence, big data, open data, digital twins, metaverse, chatbots)
• Elements, prerequisites, and principles of smart governance as the foundation for creating smart urban and regional spaces
• Data governance, privacy, ethics, and accountability in smart urban transformation
• Strategic planning and coordination of ICT-enabled urban transformation
• Smart cities, resilience, and crisis or disaster for disaster risk management
• Social and cultural sustainability in smart cities and communities
• Smart services and public sector service innovation
• Urban-rural dynamics in smart community development
• Building knowledge societies for smart cities and communities
• Digital divide, accessibility, and inequalities in smart cities and community’s contexts
• Community-rooted institutions and their role in smart city initiatives
• Smart cities and communities in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
• Comparative studies, cases, rankings, and critical success factors for smart cities, communities, and regions
• Local and contextual conditions shaping smart city and community initiatives
• Metrics, indicators, and measurement frameworks for smart cities and communities
• Gender perspectives, equity, and inclusion in smart cities and communities
• Digital government for a better society in smart cities and communities

Papers from the minitrack will be selected based on the quality of their contribution to advancing academic scholarship in the field for a special section in Information Polity titled “Best papers on digital government from HICSS 2027.” This provides authors with an exceptional opportunity to extend their conference presentation into a prestigious journal publication.

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

Gabriela Viale Pereira (Primary Contact)
University for Continuing Education Krems
gabriela.viale-pereira@donau-uni.ac.at

Maria Alexandra Cunha
Fundação Getulio Vargas
alexandra.cunha@fgv.br

Ralf-Martin Soe
Tallinn University of Technology
Ralf-Martin.Soe@taltech.ee

The Special Topics in Digital Government Minitrack provides a home for incubating new topics and emergent technologies in Digital Government research. Digital Government as an academic field has evolved and matured over more than two decades. While many subjects have become foundational, the field is also substantially shaped by ever evolving new directions of research and practice. The developments take place at the crossroads of different academic disciplines and in close connection to the practices in governments around the globe.

This minitrack invites papers positioned in relation to the foundations of Digital Government and contributing to the evolution of the field, to clarifications and conceptualizations, or to addressing novel issues, innovative trends, and emerging technologies that support Digital Government for a Better Society along the overarching theme of the Digital Government Track. Submissions must specifically tackle the emerging nature of a technology or a specific topic and how the research presented builds new understanding. Submitted research needs also to relate to the central developments in the field of Digital Government. Topics and research areas include, but are not limited, to:

• Emergent technologies and Digital Government
• Digital transformation and agile government practices
• Digital identity ecosystems in Digital Government
• Data platforms, data trusts and data spaces for sharing sensitive data in digital government
• Technology stacks and GovTech for digital sovereignty
• Digital Twins and other computational models in Government decision-making
• Metaverse in Digital Government
• Design Science in Digital Government
• Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT) in Digital Government: applications, legislation, benefits and risks
• Internet of Things (IoT) in the public sector: applications, regulation, social impact, security and data analytics
• Cross-border Digital Government / Interoperable Digital Government
• Business Process Management (BPM) and Rapid Process Automation (RPA) in Digital Government
• Ethics of Digital Government from theoretical and practical views, privacy concerns, and the right to know
• Potential threats from technology-enabled government, including lack of transparency and digital divide issues, as well as ways to avoid them
• Legal implications towards Next Generation Digital Government
• Digital Government skills and competences
• Cross-organizational collaboration and sharing of sensitive data in Digital Government ecosystems
• Conceptual and practice-based boundaries and foundations of the field of Digital Government
• Other topics as appropriate to the purposes of the minitrack

The papers submitted to this minitrack must be new and unpublished. We welcome papers from different settings and sectors in digital government and look more for innovative and creative analyses than best practices. We also give precedence to strong conceptual and empirical analysis (both qualitative and quantitative) over descriptive cases or opinion pieces.

The Digital Government track will select the most relevant papers for a special section in Information Polity titled “Best papers on Digital Government from HICSS 2027.” Papers from contributing minitracks will be selected based on the quality of their contribution to advancing academic scholarship in the field. This provides authors with an exceptional opportunity to extend their conference presentation into a prestigious journal publication.

Minitrack Co-Chairs:

Andriana Prentza (Primary Contact)
University of Piraeus
aprentza@unipi.gr

Maria Wimmer
University of Koblenz
wimmer@uni-koblenz.de

J. Ramon Gil-Garcia
University at Albany, SUNY
jgil-garcia@albany.edu