Resumo

Constant societal changes have been challenging governments worldwide to adapt and transform their relationship with citizens. Citizens are more and more using Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in their day-by-day routine, which demands that public services also be transformed (Webster and Leleux, 2018). Thus, digital government is understood in this research in a view that encompasses digitization, or technology adoption and implementation, and transformation with internal institutional change oriented towards public policy (Janowski, 2015).

Substantial investments in digital government projects have not consistently produced the expected benefits for citizens. In practice, a paradox exists, as despite high investments (Liang et al., 2017), the actual benefits are not impacting citizens as intended (Scholta et al., 2019). This study addresses public value as a way to expand the benefits of digital government. Thus,this study aims to identify the factors that play a role in prioritizing rival value positions and understand how they emerge in governmental decision-making.

The concept of public value has figured large in the literature on public management (Bryson et al., 2017), being used especially to distinguish value studies from other disciplines such as marketing and economics. It seeks to distinguish the public from the private sector by attributing it to a different set of values or a distinct ethos. For example, the profit motive that is common in business is usually replaced by ideas such as serving the public interest and efficient use of resources (Rose et al., 2018).

In a positivist epistemological position, this exploratory-descriptive study adopts a qualitative cross-sectional approach. Data were collected using three focus groups. The study adopted the content analysis method to determine the data categories and frequencies. The analysis identified repeated themes related to the three value positions and categorized them using a coding system developed from the literature review. In the first stage, content analysis was performed by frequency from the statements made by the focus group participants. In the second stage, the tensions and contradictions.

The study finds there is a rivalry between public value positions and that public managers resolve tensions and contradictions by prioritizing public values focused on administrative efficiency, even in projects/cases where the objective is the improvement of public services. Data analysis showed political issues to be the main variable influencing digital government decisions. The political factor is predominant in the three public value positions. Thus, political leadership can be said to be the principal factor/decisive stakeholder driving the choices made regarding digital initiatives.

Based on the analysis and results obtained, it was possible to conclude that the values practiced are different from the public values defended in the rhetoric of political agents. Political issues appear as the main variable influencing decisions regarding digital government initiatives, and only the media, as an external factor, can affect political decisions. Administrative Efficiency appears as the dominant value position, followed by Service Improvement. The lowest frequency was attributed to Citizen Engagement and was the value position most frequently reported as being not important.

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