Breaking the Black Box: the Role of Organizational Support in Driving Outcomes in the Public Sector

This paper examines digital transformation outcomes in public administration, focusing on how the digitalization of information-intensive service processes may generate value for different stakeholders. While existing studies have largely assessed digital transformation outcomes from the end-users' perspective, limited attention has been paid to how digitally mediated information processes affect public administration personnel, particularly front-office employees. To address this gap, this study tests a framework that investigates how organizational support shapes employees’ perceived outcomes of digital transformation, including relational quality, process control, and job productivity. The empirical analysis focuses on student services in Italian public universities, a context characterized by highly standardized and data-intensive service processes. The findings show that organizational support may play a critical role in enabling front-office staff to effectively manage digitally transformed information flows, thereby enhancing perceived process control and service-related performance. These results contribute to information management and digital transformation research by opening the “black box” linking digital systems, organizational support, and employee-level outcomes in public sector service delivery.