Digital technology is increasingly embedded in our professional lives, exposing us to various techno-stressors. Based on the Stressor-Strain-Outcome (SSO) model, we developed a holistic perspective on technostress and a research model to investigate how work-related and personal-life-related techno-stressors among employees in public administration organizations impact emotional exhaustion, sickness absenteeism, and turnover intentions. Furthermore, we investigated how psychological resilience moderates the relationship between work-related and personal-life-related techno-stressors and emotional exhaustion. The study was conducted in public administration organizations in Slovenia and included 1191 employees in the study sample. We used structural equation modeling to test the proposed research model. We found that some work-related techno-stressors significantly associated with employees emotional exhaustion. Among the personal-life-related techno-stressors, information overload demonstrated positive association with emotional exhaustion. In addition, emotional exhaustion was positively related to sickness absenteeism and turnover intention. Although no direct association between techno-stressors and sickness absenteeism was observed, our findings demonstrate that techno-stressors are indirectly linked to sickness absenteeism via emotional exhaustion. This study thus provides the first known empirical evidence of the indirect associations between techno-stressors and sickness absenteeism through emotional exhaustion, thereby filling a notable research gap.

The flipped classroom model has recently gained recognition for promoting personalised learning, supporting student-centred and peer-supported instruction, and optimising class time for active learning of higher order thinking skills. However, it requires students to work independently and in isolation, which is particularly challenging in a fully online implementation and in non-STEM courses where group work, discussion and other forms of active learning are essential.The research focused on two flipped online social science courses and involved quantitative analysis of data collected before and after the courses. The surveys examined the perceived and experienced drivers and barriers associated with flipped courses, including the use of video lectures, self-directed learning, self-discipline, social isolation, motivation, and time management. In addition, the study examined the impact of group activities on exam grades, such as discussion, presentations and interpretative assignments relevant to non-STEM courses. Another focus was on the impact of previous experiences with blended learning and online learning.The results showed that although students were not initially familiar with the flipped classroom model, they appreciated the flexibility of learning at their own pace and being able to re-watch video lectures. Despite their concerns about social isolation, students did not express any significant anxiety in this regard. The study also found statistically significant differences between students with blended learning and online learning experiences. The most significant predictor of a good exam grade was weekly participation in an online forum, followed by weekly collaborative group activities such as discussion, presentations and interpretations, which are essential for non-STEM students.

The European Union’s Digital Decade strategy, structured around the Digital Compass, identifies digital skills as a key dimension to ensure that at least 80% of the population possesses basic digital competencies by 2030. According to the DESI 2024 report, only the Netherlands and Finland have already reached this benchmark, while other member states, including Slovenia, lag behind. In 2023, only 46.7% of Slovenian citizens demonstrated at least basic digital skills, highlighting the urgency of addressing the digital divide. Drawing on resource and appropriation theory and digital capital theory, this study investigates the relationship between personal and positional resources, digital skills, and ICT usage. Using data from 2,585 Slovenian respondents in the EU Survey on the Use of ICT in Households and by Individuals (EUROSTAT), we conducted a latent profile analysis (LPA) to identify patterns across the five competence areas defined in the DigComp framework. The analysis produced five distinct digital skill profiles. Results indicate that older individuals are significantly more likely to belong to low-skilled profiles, while income does not exert a strong influence. Conversely, younger and lower-income respondents showed a higher probability of belonging to semi-skilled groups characterized by weak digital design competences and overconfidence in their abilities. These findings provide empirical evidence to guide policymakers in designing targeted interventions to strengthen digital competences across demographic groups. The research also demonstrates an approach that can be replicated across EU member states to support progress toward the Digital Decade’s 2030 objectives.

This study focuses on the development and evaluation of an instrument to measure the perception of collaborative digital transformation (CDT) among young citizens in West Java, Indonesia. As digital transformation (DT) drives the digital society, the government plays an important role in guiding this change and emphasizing inclusive policymaking. Youth are key to this process because of their digital adaptability. This study combines the principles of collaborative governance (CG) with digital transformation and analyzes survey data from a sample of 717 young people. Exploratory factor analysis revealed three different factors: DT priorities, DT success factors, and CG success parameters. Structural equation modeling yielded a strong and correlated three-factorial CDT model that passed several goodness-of-fit tests, including the Root Mean Square Error of Approximation test (RMSEA = 0.62) and the Comparative Fit Index (CFI = 0.963). The results emphasize the importance of inclusive digital initiatives and the important role of youth in promoting a digitally inclusive society.

Students’ motivation to study for exams and their strategies to achieve academic success attract the interest of many university teachers. This paper investigates the relationship between self-perceived approaches to studying and academic achievement. Quantitative analysis involving undergraduate students at the Faculty of Public Administration, University of Ljubljana was conducted. The revised two-factor study process questionnaire was used to measure students’ approaches to studying, together with quantitative analysis of grade point averages. Self-perceived study approaches were found to predict academic achievement. The empirical results reveal a connection between the surface study approach and higher achievement at exams. These findings are counter to many studies suggesting the opposite.

Digital transformation changes how private and public organisations conduct their business, stressing the importance of collaboration with various stakeholders. The public sector, especially local government, is forced by citizens’ demands to change how it operates. This research examines the characteristics of existing literature on collaborative governance and digital transformation and explores the unevenness of digital transformation due to the broad autonomy granted to local governments. Qualitative methods were used, conducting in-depth interviews, advanced observations, and detailed data collection from government agencies, NGOs, and citizens of West Java, Indonesia. The enquiries reveal that governments faces silos and fragmented approaches. The results contribute to the literature, serve as a reference for improving the role of local government in collaborative digital transformation, and provide greater legitimacy in the public policy process. In the context of local government, the success of digital transformation initiatives in West Java can be attributed to effective collaboration and facilitative leadership from implementing the Penta-helix strategy and establishing Jabar Digital Service (JDS) as a dedicated unit for managing digital transformation.

Co-creation has received a growing attention in the public sector as a tool for mobilizing resources, spurring public innovation, and enhancing democratic legitimacy. Reaping the fruits of co-creation largely depends on the attempts made by local leaders to facilitate effective collaboration, overcome emerging problems and obstacles, and cope with the emerging dilemmas and paradoxes. There is limited knowledge about how this is done in practice. Hence, public administration researchers must team up with local leaders of co-creation to jointly test different ways of improving the processes and results of co-creation processes. This endeavour calls for an interactive research strategy where researchers and practitioners work together to conduct design experiments aimed at improving the design of a process by iteratively diagnosing problems and obstacles that prevent goal achievement, seeking to remove the hindrances through targeted interventions, and finally measuring the impact of the interventions vis-à-vis the stated goals. This article serves the dual purpose of producing new context-dependent insights into how leaders of co-creation can tackle emerging problems and obstacles and evaluating the use of design experiments in the field of public administration. It analyses and compares six design experiments conducted in relation to local cases of co-creation that are studied using mixed methods. The main finding is that: (1) the problems emerging in co-creation processes are for the most part manageable; (2) the leadership interventions are relatively undemanding; and (3) the positive impact of most of the interventions finds support in the extant research literature.

Purpose: The article aims to provide an updated and comprehensive overview of academic research in the field of collaborative governance and digital transformation, with an emphasis on the emerging topic of collaborative digital transformation. Digital transformation is a recurrent theme in today’s society, fuelled by events such as the Covid-19 pandemic, global climate challenges, and other crises reshaping the world. As societies increasingly rely on digital platforms and online communication, the prime urge and necessity of the human race – i.e., to communicate and collaborate in tackling these challenges – puts collaborative governance in digital transformation high on the agenda of governments, the private sector, and citizens.Design/Methodology/Approach: To address this topic, we performed a bibliometric analysis using various analytical and visualisation tools to evaluate and visualise existing scientific bibliographic materials. The analysis covers 286 articles published in the Scopus and Web of Science databases over the past two decades in the area of collaborative governance and digital transformation, employing established and innovative bibliometric approaches. Graphical analyses are used to illustrate co-authorship, keywords co-occurrence, research topics evolution, and the network of influential researchers within collaborative governance and digital transformation.Findings: The results show that the relationship between collaborative governance and digital transformation is still limited and needs further study, considering that these two concepts have been emerging trends in public administration over the past two decades. In addition, the findings reveal a significant growth in research of these topics over time, although not specifically focused on collaborative digital transformation.Practical Implications: The article provides a summary of key aspects of collaborative governance and digital transformation research and helps lay the foundations for shaping the future of this evolving field of public administration. Thus, it helps researchers understand the development of collaborative digital transformation research over the past two decades, as collaborative digital transformation is a relatively new field of research characterised by rapid growth and evolution.Originality/Value: The research contributes to the understanding of collaborative digital transformation as a distinct research area within the broader concepts of digital transformation and collaborative governance, which is still seeking its own identity in academic literature, and offers a definition of collaborative digital transformation (CDT).

This article presents an empirical study of influence of the domain-specific factors of trust in the electoral system and administration, trust in technology, citizens' attitudes toward voting, and COVID-19 conditions on the intention to use i-voting. The study examines and assesses the relationships and effects of the various factors that influence the intention to use i-voting. Survey data from 633 adult Slovenian citizens were collected in 2022, when voters were still burdened by the pandemic and needed to visit the polling place at least five times to participate in all scheduled voting. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data and develop the model. The study provides important findings, such as (1) trust in the voting system has a significant impact on voters' intention to use i-voting, (2) fear of COVID-19 does not persuade people to use i-voting, and (3) previous attitudes toward voting do not have a significant impact on voter intention to use i-voting.

Appears in: ICERI2023 Proceedings Publication year: 2023Pages: 403-409ISBN: 978-84-09-55942-8ISSN: 2340-1095doi: 10.21125/iceri.2023.0158Conference name: 16th annual International Conference of Education, Research and InnovationDates: 13-15 November, 2023Location: Seville, Spain

Abstract The renewed 2017 EU Higher Education Agenda expresses the intention to “develop and implement a digital readiness model” to assist higher education institutions, their staff, and students in implementing digital learning strategies and maximising the potential of cutting‐edge technologies such as learning analytics. The anticipated digital transformation will only be successful if higher education institutions and teachers strengthen their digital competences and skills and “become” digitally competent. Many of the incentives for these processes were prompted by the unexpected Covid‐19 crisis, which highlighted the importance of higher education teachers’ digital skills in the need to digitise the higher education environment. The Covid‐19 crisis experience and the accelerating development of digitalisation are changing both the conditions for education and education itself, which is why higher education teachers face the challenging task of lifelong development of digital competences. To complete this task, they must learn about information and communication technology (ICT)/digital technologies and how they can be integrated into the pedagogical process. The challenge for higher education teachers is to develop ICT‐based teaching. This is not about how higher education teachers (and students) master ICT, but about how to make ICT one of the tools for carrying out pedagogical activities in general. The article addresses the development of digital competences among higher education teachers as a critical issue in the renovation of higher education didactics. To that end, various digital competence models and concepts are presented. Among other things, the European Digital Competence Framework for Teachers is highlighted. The case study of activities aimed at developing digital competences of higher education teachers at the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia), and thus higher education teachers working in the field of education for public administration. Based on the analysis of activities, we discover an increased interest in the development of digital competences, which is reflected in various forms of institutional (university) support for educators (e.g. training), as well as an increased interest in the development of digital competences among higher education teachers.

Rapid technological progress and its concomitant need for new skills, ways of working and collaborating, paired with dynamic socio-economic change, have highlighted the main challenge facing Europe's urban municipalities. Being the part of the public sector closest to citizens and their needs, the challenge addresses digital transformation's goals to support and promote broader growth in the digital domain optimally and to realise digital transformation benefits such as user-friendly and citizen-centred services, increased quality of life and better business environments. Urban municipalities must identify local strengths, priorities and needs, including performance and digital maturity assessment, and define strategic goals and implementation roadmaps to implement digital transformation optimally. Furthermore, they must increase city administration, decision-maker and citizens awareness of the opportunities and benefits digitally enabled solutions offer.A comprehensive digital maturity self-assessment is the first step towards successful digital transformation. An example of a framework for such an assessment is the framework of the European Commission's Intelligent Cities Challenge (ICC), the EU's bespoke support programme for coaching, facilitation and inspiration, and successor to its Digital Cities Challenge. Therefore, the objective of our research was to analyse the digital maturity self-assessment results undertaken by eleven Slovenian urban municipalities utilising ICC's assessment methodology framework for government services and social connectivity, which includes indicators sets of digitising public services, digital connectivity and open data. We further focused on the potential impact of municipality population size on its digital maturity. According to the existing research, this is one of the significant potential explanatory factors why municipalities differ in terms of digital transformation implementation and adaptation.One would a priori expect larger municipalities to be digitally more mature than smaller ones because they have more resources at their disposal, however, our results prove that this is not the complete picture. There is, however, a relationship between municipality population size and digital maturity, including indicators of open data sharing and security, but not entirely in the manner expected. Furthermore, our analysis has shown that municipality population size does not influence overall digital maturity but individual digital maturity indicators, highlighting the need to develop more detailed and accurate individual digital maturity indicators. Although the influence of municipality population size on overall digital maturity could not be demonstrated, its partial influence on individual sets is essential when endeavouring to achieve efficient digital transformation.

Digital transformation is trending pursuant to the almost ubiquitous use of digital technology by private and public sectors, and general populations. The disruption caused by advancing technology requires strategic responses to mitigate the negative aspects of such disruption and generate positive change. Other disruption, moreover, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, additionally imposes limitations on what we consider to be normal life, further engendering the utilization of digital technology. Even though the impact of digital transformation can be assessed by means of different metrics, including the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), they do not provide sufficient clarity in terms of pain points and improvement possibilities. The differences in relation to the availability of said technology and the skills necessary for its optimal use, which are closely related to user education level, age, and economic status, are additional parameters governments and policymakers need to consider, and data-driven decision-making is essential to ensure optimal policy-making and investment vis-à-vis digital transformation, such as the EU Recovery and Resilience Facility. This paper analyses Slovenia’s digital transformation between 2018 and 2021, using data collected from more than 5,000 respondents, to detect technology use differences in terms of demographics, focusing on the digital divide and the COVID-19 crisis, and compares Slovenia’s experience with other EU Member States, focusing especially on online public administration services. Our results evidence that the digital divide is the main differentiating factor in Slovenia and that gender is accordingly not of great import, and that Slovenia’s oldest generation and some members of younger generations face problems when endeavoring to digitally integrate. Compared to other EU Member States, Slovenia is average according to DESI, but the findings show that EU Member States should take its specifics into account to address their own DT paradigm.

Fulfilling the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) relies on the proper implementation of various governmental policies, among which are also financial and taxation policies. The current public administration in Slovenia is based on a fully digitalized data management process. Our goal is to achieve new data integrity methods based on state-of-the-art technologies of the ONTOCHAIN software ecosystem. ONTOCHAIN includes technologies to achieve decentralised knowledge graphs, smart oracles, smart contracts, and tokenomics principles that rely on high integrity and trustworthiness. Consequently, we study the possibility to realize flexible incentives and taxation policies that contribute to the seamless achievement of SDGs.

The purpose of this article intended to contribute as a additional reference in the field of public administration and to overlook a concept for the development of digital government transformation that focus on collabrations. This article uses a systematic literature review to explore how collaboration can play an important role in the implementation of digital transformation in local government. West Java Digital Service (JDS) is a digitalbased local government agency in West Java Province, Indonesia has a goal as an accelerator of achieving government targets to break the digital divide for remote communities, improve the efficiency and accuracy of community data policies based on data and technology, to support responsive, adaptive, and innovative policy. Initial findings show that JDS does not originate from the purity of the bureaucracy, but rather an institution that formed specifically according to the needs in the acceleration of digital transformation. This means that not all local governments in Indonesia have these digital-based institutions. This article provides an overview of how Indonesian local government deliver a digital-base policy through joint decisions making, that seek to share power in decision making with stakeholders to develop shared recommendations for lasting solutions to public problems.

In order to create public value and meet the demands of the modern information society, governments and public administrations strongly rely on information technology and e-government, but its acceptance is significantly influenced by the level of citizens' trust in government. This study explores the issue of citizens' trust in government in relation to i-voting in Slovenia, a country with existing interest in i-voting but a low level of trust in government, especially among the young population. The authors analyze how such distrust impacts behavior intention towards i-voting, decomposing trust into a political component and an administrative component, and into local and state levels. Based on a modified version of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology, the results of 194 respondents show that young student voters' trust in politicians and electoral committees does not affect their intention to use i-voting. However, they trust the local level of government more than the state level, and electoral committees more than politicians.

Many researchers have explored instructional use of information communication technology (ICT) in higher education and uncovered several factors that affect its application in teaching. The effect of age on university teachers’ ICT use, however, has attracted much less attention. This study uses quantitative data from a survey of 401 teachers from the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia to reveal any differences in instructional ICT use in terms of age. The results show that age is not a factor in instructional ICT use, although some age-related differences appear in teachers’ personal ICT uses. The findings may inform planning for teacher support along with training and quality assurance at the university’s centre for ICT-supported teaching.

Information communication technology (ICT) that is used in instruction has attracted the attention of researchers with many studies having looked at the factors affecting how university instructors apply it in their teaching. Yet little is known about whether the gender of university teachers can impact their ICT use. This research relies on quantitative data from a survey of 428 teachers at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia to explore differences in pedagogical ICT use in terms of gender. The results show that gender positively correlates with ICT use and that particular ICT tools and their pedagogical uses are more frequent among female teachers whereas males scored higher for certain ICT-related attitudes. This implies that gender may be viewed as a predictor of certain types of and attitudes to ICT use in university instruction.

An increasing number of studies have addressed and proved the positive impact of classroom response systems (CRS) on learning performance in active learning environments but few focus on the parameters for the adoption and use of this technology in the classroom. This paper reviews research that has tested the parameters that influence the acceptance and use of CRS in the higher education context by utilizing the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (Venkatesh, Morris, Davis, & Davis, 2003). The research tested a set of hypotheses that predict the conditions under which CRS technology use was likely to emerge and persist in the active learning environment. The results highlight the importance of students' habit and performance expectancy on CRS use; the added construct of trust also indicates a significant influence on CRS use intention. The findings will better enable educators to effectively use CRS technology to support active learning.

This paper presents the results of the content analysis of 139 Web of Science papers focused on collaborative innovation with external stakeholders of public administration, specifically on co-production and co-creation. The analysis included papers published between 2009 and 2018 and was based on a coding scheme consisting of 12 parameters grouped into four groups: paper descriptors, financial support of the research, methodological framework, and co-creation characteristics. The results reveal a considerable increase in researchers’ interest in co-production and co-creation in the context of public administration in the last few years. This is particularly the case in Northern and Western Europe, where Anglo-Saxon and Nordic administrative traditions dominate. Furthermore, the results show that co-creation is most often placed in the contexts of social policy and welfare, as well as health care. Over the selected period, research seldom addressed companies as a target group in the co-creation of public services—in comparison to citizens and internal users. More than three quarters of the papers observed were empirical and less than 20% were quantitative. In general, a lack of conceptual clarity was often identified through the interchangeable usage of the terms co-creation and co-creation and the low level of international comparison—the majority of the papers focused on case descriptions at a national level, even though collaborative innovation is strongly related to administrative traditions dominating in specific regions.