The definitions of digitalization and digital transformation are not well-established in administrative research (Haug et al., 2023; Mergel et al., 2019). There is also no widely used definition for digitalization readiness (Muehlburger et al., 2022; Voß & Pawlowski, 2019). Digitalization readiness has also been studied through terms such as digital readiness, e-readiness, digital transformation readiness, digital preparedness, technological readiness, innovation readiness, digital maturity, and agility (García-Mireles et al., 2012; Trenerry et al., 2021; Vial, 2019). Previous organizational research has predominantly focused on the organizational-level factors of digitalization readiness (Bumann & Peter, 2019; Cetindamar & Abedin, 2021; Hausberg et al., 2019). Employee perspective has received less attention (Abdul Hamid, 2022; Voß & Pawlowski, 2019). In addition, research has mainly been conducted in the private sector settings (Maghrifani et al., 2022; Meske & Junglas, 2021; Saputra et al., 2023).

Based on previous research, we conclude that civil servants’ digitalization readiness is composed of interconnected context-dependent individual and organizational factors, which are influenced by external factors outside the organizations, see Figure 1.

Individual-level factors include technical and dynamic skills, the experience of usefulness and ease in utilizing technologies, attitudes, and confidence in using technologies. At the organizational level, relevant factors include the available technology infrastructure and data management, technical IT support, peer support, and a technology-friendly organizational culture. (Cetindamar & Abedin, 2021; Kristensen, 2023; Trenerry et al., 2021.) For example, the functionality and usability of available tools significantly affect individual readiness, and poorly functioning or complex systems can create barriers to adoption and effective use. In municipalities, factors external to the organization, such as mandatory legislation, software vendors, civil servants in other municipalities, and citizens, influence civil servants’ digitalization readiness (David et al., 2023; Meijer & Bolívar, 2016). For instance, Finnish legislation requiring municipalities to deliver zoning maps in data model formats drives the need for new digital competencies among civil servants.

The study of readiness is particularly relevant in the context of continuous digital change in public administration, as readiness indicates both current capabilities and future potential (Gfrerer et al., 2021) for development. This potential can be seen as the intention to use technologies (Venkatesh et al., 2003). However, while digitalization readiness may enable new service delivery approaches, the relationship between digitalization readiness, service quality, and public value creation is complex and contextdependent. Research suggests that while civil servants’ digital capabilities may sometimes improve service delivery (Afrizal et al., 2024; Andersson et al., 2022), digital solutions can also create barriers for citizens or reduce service quality. Therefore, digitalization readiness should be understood as the ability to use digital tools and the capacity to critically evaluate when and how digital solutions can genuinely enhance public service delivery.

Management and leadership roles have been identified as central to successful digital transformation in public organizations (Nuryadin et al., 2023; Ushaka Adie et al., 2024; Yusuf et al., 2023). Managers at different organizational levels should foster employee autonomy and empowerment, particularly in technology choices and professional development opportunities. These managerial practices can enhance employee job satisfaction, productivity, and attitudes toward digital transformation. (Abhari & Solomon, 2020; Heim & Sardar-Drenda, 2021; Maghrifani et al., 2022; Meske & Junglas, 2021.) In remote work contexts specifically, managerial trust, emotional support, and leading by example have emerged as crucial factors for successful implementation (Pensar, 2023). Senior management and HR should create an organizational culture that is positive toward digital transformation, encourages experimentation and innovation, provides resources and is fair, and defines digital goals in its strategy (Çetin Gürkan & Çiftci, 2020; Dhar, 2012; Trenerry et al., 2021).

In the public sector, the organization must provide the necessary technological infrastructure, including devices, software, effective data management, continuous training, a digital-friendly working environment, and the ability to work in teams. Challenges have been identified regarding the usability of existing technological solutions, creating an innovative and experimental climate in the public sector context, and the different teams’ attitudes toward digital transformation and its promotion. (Edelmann et al., 2023; Kristensen, 2023.)

In the municipal context, support has been seen as reducing or removing barriers to digital transformation, particularly concerning digital assets (Lafioune et al., 2023). This has been seen as necessary in the context of municipalities, which are fragmented along sectoral lines. Especially the interoperability of digital assets has been seen as a challenge in municipalities (Bousdekis & Kardaras, 2020). The role of IT is central to the interoperability of technological infrastructure and data sets (Lafioune et al., 2023). The municipal political trust should also play a role, as political support can facilitate resource allocation, prioritize digital initiatives, and legitimize changes required for digital transformation (Kristensen, 2023).

Previous studies have noticed that many public sector-specific aspects hinder the promotion of digitalization in public administration service production. These include regulatory and legislative constraints requiring strict compliance, complex political decision-making processes needing multiple approvals, organizational cultures with long-standing work routines, fragmented service production across sectors complicating integrated solutions, and heightened public accountability requirements demanding greater transparency. (Giest & Raaphorst, 2018; Nair et al., 2024; Syuhaini & Berényi, 2022.)

We integrate three complementary theoretical perspectives to examine how support factors and mechanisms enable civil servants’ digitalization readiness. Firstly, the organizational support theory (Kurtessis et al., 2017; Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2002; Shanock & Eisenberger, 2006) helps understand how civil servants experience and interpret organizational support. Secondly, the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (Venkatesh et al., 2003) helps to explain individual adoption behaviors and attitudes. Thirdly, the organizational learning perspective (Senge, 2006) illustrates how municipality organizations develop collective digital capabilities through individual, team, and organizational learning and shared understanding. From an organizational learning perspective, we apply Senge’s (2006, 139-144) concept of creative tension, which describes how the gap between vision and current reality generates energy for change and learning. We adapt this concept as creative digital tension in the context of digitalization readiness, defining it as the productive tension that emerges when civil servants recognize gaps between their current situation and their desired state. This tension manifests in two primary ways: gaps in individual capabilities (between current and required competencies) and gaps in organizational prerequisites (between available and needed digital tools and support structures). These tensions can emerge through perceived learning needs, inadequate technological infrastructure, or recognition that new technologies and support structures could enhance work practices.

These three theoretical perspectives help analyze how civil servants’ digitalization readiness emerges through individual experiences, organizational support factors, and broader institutional influences in municipal technical services. The framework enables the interpretation of empirical data and explains mechanisms through which organizational support enables civil servants’ digitalization readiness.

In this study, we understand organizational mechanisms as underlying causal or connection patterns that explain how support factors lead or can lead to specific outcomes in specific contexts (Bhaskar, 2008). Mechanisms operate deeper than observable events, helping us understand how support factors enable civil servants’ digitalization readiness (applying Bhaskar, 2008). For example, when an organization provides IT training (a support factor), the underlying mechanism might operate by creating awareness of the gap between current and desired capabilities, which generates motivation for digital learning and change (Edelmann et al., 2023; Oberländer et al., 2020; Senge, 2006). Context-dependent organizational mechanisms can also interact by reinforcing or suppressing effects with each other, potentially strengthening impacts, reducing effects, or creating new potentials (Mountasser & Abdellatif, 2023; Watson et al., 2024).

Finland has 308 municipalities, each maintaining its own technical services sector with distinct structures and resources. Technical services like land use planning and construction supervision significantly impact residents’ and stakeholders’ daily lives, safety, and well-being. Municipal technical services include land use planning (primarily zoning), construction supervision (mainly building supervision and building permits from citizens and organizations), environmental protection, construction of roads and other infrastructure, and water and waste management. The technical sector produces essential public services for society and exercises significant public authority, for example, by processing construction permits. Through zoning maps and guides, land use planning decides where residential areas and roads are located, what kind of homes are built, and where wind power is developed. Construction supervision is responsible for the safety and health of residential and industrial buildings. (Land Use and Building Act, 132/1999.)

Municipal land use planning is carried out through master, detailed, and shore-detailed plans. The master plan outlines the main land-use development directions, determining where residential areas, workplaces, and roads will be located. The detailed plan specifies land use and construction guidelines, considering local conditions, urban aesthetics, and agreed-upon objectives. These planning processes often span several years and involve numerous stakeholders. The tasks of the municipal construction supervision authority include compliance with plans, processing construction permits, and supervising the maintenance and care of the built environment. Job titles in the technical sector include planner, planning engineer, geographic information system engineer, building inspector, permit secretary, and technical manager. In municipal contexts, we refer to ’civil servants’ as all employees in the municipal organization who participate in the service production of land use planning and construction supervision, regardless of whether they have official responsibility. Municipalities in Finland hold a monopoly position in land use planning and construction supervision, as these are statutory tasks. While some services, like the production of zoning plans, can be outsourced to consultants, certain responsibilities (such as approving zoning plans by municipal councils) must be carried out internally. (Land Use and Building Act, 132/1999.)

Digitalization has advanced in many ways in Finnish municipalities’ land use planning and construction supervision processes (Jussila et al., 2016; Nummi et al., 2022). For instance, municipalities are implementing GIS-based planning tools, digital permit processing systems, and digital platforms for public engagement, which require civil servants to learn new technological competencies. In Finnish municipalities, productivity gains through digitalization have also been achieved with improved service quality and coverage without necessarily escalating costs (Jussila et al., 2016). Digitalization in the technical sector is topical because mandatory legislation has recently promoted digitalization (e.g., Act on the Built Environment Information System, 431/2023). Finland will move to a more technologically advanced information model format for preparing and submitting data nationally in land use planning and building permits by 2029. Technological developments and the aim of increasing productivity in the sector have contributed to digitalization in municipalities’ technical sector service production. There is a desire to promote digitalization in national and regional public administrations.

As we aim to increase understanding of the relatively unexplored topic of municipality civil servants’ support in the digitalization context, we chose a qualitative approach. The empirical data for our study was collected by interviewing Finnish municipality civil servants in the technical sectors’ land use planning and construction supervision. We targeted civil servants in expert or planning roles. We aimed to get interviewees from municipalities representing different geographical areas of Finland and municipalities of various population sizes because Finland’s 308 municipalities vary significantly in population size. This variation is analytically relevant as population size is linked with municipal organization size, resources, and support structures. Previous research has shown that larger organization size generally positively influences technological innovation adoption through greater resource availability and economies of scale, though it may also introduce implementation complexities (David et al., 2023; Kristensen, 2023). This size-based variation allowed us to examine how support factors and mechanisms operate under different municipal conditions.

Interview invitations were e-mailed to 35 individuals in mainland Finland between 19.1.2024 and 19.2.2024. We interviewed all those who agreed to be interviewed. In data gathering, we adhered to the research ethics and data privacy (Bhattacherjee, 2012, 137–142). We obtained written consent for interviews from the interviewees and their municipal organizations. The consent accompanied the research announcement describing the background, objectives, methods, data processing, and the interviewee’s rights.

We used the semi-structured interview method (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009). We created the main themes for the interview from our theoretical framework: the participant’s job description; the equipment, software, and digital materials they use in their work; remote work; the support they perceive to receive concerning digitalization; the organization’s work culture and atmosphere around digitalization; digital innovations; professional development; job satisfaction; and employee digitalization readiness.

A total of 11 online interviews were conducted in February 2024, all from different municipalities. The municipalities represented ten provinces from all over Finland – north to south. The population categories for the municipalities were under 4,000 (one interview), 4,001– 10,000 (two interviews), 10,001–50,000 (four interviews), 50,001–100,000 (one interview), and over 100,000 (three interviews). The participants’ job titles included architectural planner, general planner, inspection engineer, land use planner, and licensing clerk. The average duration of the interviews was 67 minutes, and the total duration was about 12 hours. The total transcribed words in the data were about 85,000 (approximately 252 pages). Data saturation began to emerge (Guest et al., 2006) around eight interviews, as new interviews primarily reinforced our understanding of support rather than revealing new insights. We continued interviews with eleven participants to add to our understanding of different municipal contexts.

We analyzed the interview data using thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). ATLAS. ti 24 software was used for data management, but researchers manually conducted coding and category development. The analysis was conducted in stages. We read the transcriptions several times during the analysis to ensure deep familiarity with the data. We set aside the pre-existing interview themes and identified meaningful expressions related to our research question on socio-technical support factors. This process yielded 91 initial codes. We grouped these initial codes into preliminary categories based on their similarities. This process was somewhat iterative, constantly comparing codes and emerging categories. Further analysis refined these preliminary categories into seven main categories (i.e., support factors). This refinement involved merging similar categories, splitting broad categories, and ensuring each main category was distinct and coherent. After establishing the seven main support factor categories, we engaged in a more interpretive analysis to identify underlying mechanisms. This involved examining relationships between categories, considering how they interacted, and looking for patterns that could explain how these support factors operated in practice. We ultimately identified two main underlying mechanisms that encompassed and explained some relationships between the seven support factors and civil servants’ digitalization readiness. This final step involved moving from a descriptive to a more explanatory level of analysis grounded in our theoretical framework, theorizing the underlying mechanisms that could explain enabling conditions for civil servants’ digitalization readiness. Through this theorization, we aimed to add knowledge about how support mechanisms operate in a municipal context.

This study aims not to produce generalizable knowledge but to describe and understand support factors and mechanisms that enable civil servants’ digitalization readiness in municipal organizations. This research data and analysis method produces a preliminary understanding of organizational support in the digitalization context, which can be deepened in future studies using different methodological approaches such as longitudinal studies, discourse analysis, or mixed methods research. Because we use a qualitative approach and interviewed relatively few people (11 civil servants from 11 municipalities in one country), more research is needed to validate our findings in other than municipality technical sector contexts and other countries. The findings are based on the subjective perceived opinion of the civil servants, so more data points are needed in future studies to get a better holistic view. The study relies solely on semi-structured interviews for data collection. While this method is valuable for in-depth exploration, incorporating additional data sources would strengthen the findings. The results may be influenced by the fact that most interviewees had a positive attitude toward digitalization and good IT skills. We interviewed civil servants from both land use planning and construction supervision, and the views of these two specialist groups were similar. Quantitative research could come into question to obtain more reliable and generalizable results. We couldn’t focus on specific factors or underlying mechanisms because we aimed for a holistic view. As a result, our conclusions remain at a descriptive level.

Civil servants primarily perceived support regarding technical IT assistance, training opportunities, and peer support from municipal colleagues. In most cases, civil servants received good, fair, and inclusive socio-technical support for accessing and using hardware, software, digital materials, and remote work in their duties. Support for digital and substantive work was seen as intertwined because the technical sector specialist work in municipalities in Finland is carried out mainly with devices, software, and digital materials: “Without digital systems, getting any work done would be impossible” (P4). The participants also saw that employer organization has a decisive role in civil servants’ digitalization readiness:

The employer must provide support. It can’t just be left up to the civil servant to learn; the employer must organize training and support. This support significantly affects how quickly work can be done. It’s also in the employer’s interest that [we] use all the programs proficiently (P6).

Digitalization readiness was seen as a vital part of specialist work: “[Digital] readiness is an essential part of today’s work. We don’t have a role in which one could function without it” (P4). Municipality organizations’ and civil servants’ digitalization readiness is needed in internal and external operations. For example, civil servants highlighted examples such as following council meetings through the municipality’s website, publishing decision documents in digital format, and visibility on social media. In construction supervision, customer service has mostly moved online, and customers make contact mainly through digital permit systems or email. Municipalities’ processes and capabilities have been lagging behind the readiness of the residents and the private sector. For example, residents’ and companies’ architectural or construction drawing materials have been digital for a long time. In the public administration context, legislation has a direct influence on civil servants and municipal digitalization readiness: “It is found in some law that there must be the capability to receive files in the [digital] format” (P2).

From the interview data, we identified seven main intertwined support factors for civil servants’ digitalization readiness in municipalities (Table 1). We will present our findings in detail in the following chapters.

Based on the interview data and using our theoretical framework, we identified two mechanisms enabling civil servants’ digitalization readiness: (1) organizational resource mechanism, where socio-technical resources (e.g., infrastructure, peer support, IT support, and data management) affect work capabilities, and (2) creative digital tension mechanism, which activates through drivers including peer examples, skills assessments, state legislation, and perceptions of usefulness. Creative digital tension emerges as civil servants recognize gaps between current and desired capabilities, motivating learning and utilization of technologies (Figure 2).

The previous Findings section detailed the findings on the support factors (1) in Figure 2. The socio-technical support provided by an organization, such as available devices, software, and digital materials, is essential for daily operations in municipal land use planning and building permit processes. When civil servants perceive support in their work duties, their job satisfaction improves (Kurtessis et al., 2017).

Through socio-technical support and civil servants utilizing digital tools and materials, customer service has improved in some cases: “[After customer service shifted primarily to digital age] it seems that they are much more satisfied” (P10). With socio-technical support, organizations can achieve enhanced efficiency and productivity as tools and digital resources are utilized by civil servants:

After a tough struggle, we finally got that electronic archive working, and it has now significantly improved work efficiency (P1).

The city is certainly ready to promote these things (P11).

Initiating and driving factors (2) in Figure 2 activate creative digital tension mechanisms, including peer examples, skills assessments, state legislation, social influence, and perceptions of usefulness (Rogers, 2003; Venkatesh et al., 2003). Drawing from Senge’s (2006) concept of creative tension, our analysis reveals how this mechanism manifests in civil servants’ experiences:

Especially if we get some concrete benefits from the programs, people get excited (P1).

That’s quite clear - when the law says [zoning maps] must be done in information model format, then it has to be learned (P8).

I would continue this same approach, keeping the provision of services to residents at the center, specifically through digitalization (P3).

If we want to work sensibly and well and be knowledgeable, then yes, we should have more training (P5).

In the context of constant changes brought about by digitalization, facilitated and self-directed learning emerge as a potentially vital factor in creating civil servants’ digitalization readiness in both mechanisms (Cortellazzo et al., 2019; Höyng & Lau, 2023). Creative digital tension fosters a desire for learning, leading to self-directed or organized educational pursuits. As learning progresses, digitalization readiness can improve, facilitating more efficient utilization of digital solutions, datasets, and remote work capabilities in work duties. When the use of technologies is perceived as both beneficial and easy, creative digital tension intensifies (Venkatesh et al., 2003). This mechanism is intrinsically linked to digital innovations (Rogers, 2003).

Leadership and management were needed in both mechanisms. Strong front-line leadership was a common wish concerning digital transformation efforts and the potential of civil servants’ digitalization readiness to materialize. Some of the interviewees were not satisfied with the leadership related to digitalization. Leadership has an impact on factors such as job satisfaction and improved data security:

It’s always about leadership. And in a way, how people are led or... Well, handled... But perhaps leadership is a better term... There’s room for improvement in that area (P2).

In the end, it’s the supervisor who has to take care of it. It comes from higher up (P7).

About four years ago, the ICT director changed. He’s very innovative. And brought in all kinds of new things. And data security has improved considerably… [From municipal senior leadership positions] I haven’t met a single manager yet who has helped much with these [digitalization] issues (P10).

Our analysis revealed that the two support mechanisms operated bidirectionally, leading to strengthening or weakening cycles in civil servants’ digitalization readiness. In the positive direction, when civil servants received adequate socio-technical support, for example, when they could influence choices about their technical infrastructure and industry-specific software, it enhanced their engagement with digital transformation and improved their digital abilities and preparedness. This positive cycle was self-reinforcing, as increased perceived support led to increased available tools and materials utilization. However, the mechanisms also operated negatively when, for example, civil servants faced excessive waiting times for IT support, when training required too much self-direction, or when software was difficult to use. A clear example of this negative cycle was seen in the remote work context: while supportive remote work policies enhanced both job satisfaction and digital tools and material adoption, restrictive policies actively decreased civil servant’s overall job satisfaction. These findings suggest that socio-technical support is an enabler and a critical sustainer of civil servants’ digitalization readiness.