Sara Hofmann

• Rydén, Hanne Sara-Maria Höglund & Hofmann, Sara (2024). Frontline workers’ role in digital self-service co-production: Channel promoters, digital helpers, or intermediators. eJournal of eDemocracy and Open Government. 16(2), p. 1–27. doi: 10.29379/jedem.v16i2.919. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  When public services move online, citizens are expected to serve themselves on digital platforms and enrol in public services through self-service procedures. In this digital encounter, many citizens struggle to live up to the “self” in self-services and seek in-person assistance from public professionals. These professional actors play an essential role in enabling the co-production of self-services for citizens who struggle to be truly self-serving. This article explores the frontline workers’ roles in self-service co-production when interacting with citizens seeking help in the service procedures. Service interactions have been studied in two meeting centres of the Norwegian Labor and Welfare Administration. We have conducted observations of office interactions in general and at digital self-service stations in particular. Interviews with public officials have complemented these observations. We use intermediation and co-production theory as analytical lenses in our data analysis. The findings show that the role of frontline workers can be both flexible and narrow in nature and that they take on the role of intermediaries when acting as a bridge between the analogue world and the digital domain. We also see that the intermediating role frontline workers take will vary and is influenced by organisational, personal, and external circumstances that can enable or restrain the co-production of self-services.

• Rydén, Hanne Sara-Maria Höglund; Hofmann, Sara; Andrade, Luiz de & Heggertveit, Ida (2024). Mitigating Administrative Burdens: Understanding the Role of Intermediaries in Co-producing Digital Self-services. In Johannessen, Marius Rohde; Csáki, Csaba; Danneels, Lieselot; Hofmann, Sara; Lampoltshammer, Thomas; Parycek, Peter; Schwabe, Gerhard; Tambouris, Efthimios & Ubacht, Jolien (Ed.), Electronic Participation 16th IFIP WG 8.5 International Conference, ePart 2024, Ghent, Belgium, September 3–5, 2024, Proceedings. Springer. ISSN 9783031708046. p. 31–46. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-70804-6_3. Full text in Research Archive
• Lindgren, Ida; Madsen, Christian Østergaard; Rydén, Hanne Sara-Maria Höglund; Heggertveit, Ida; Hofmann, Sara & Sæbø, Øystein (2024). What Public Services are Suitable for Digitalization? - A Classification of Public Service Characteristics. In Janssen, Marijn; Crompvoets, Joep; Gil-Garcia, J. Ramon; Lee, Habin; Lindgren, Ida; Nikiforova, Anastasija & Pereira, Gabriela Viale (Ed.), Electronic Government. Springer Nature. ISSN 9783031702747. p. 201–217. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-70274-7_13. Full text in Research Archive
• Hofmann, Sara; Sæbø, Øystein & Rydén, Hanne Sara-Maria Höglund (2024). Implications of Digitalised Welfare Services from a Vulnerable Citizens' Perspective. Nordisk välfärdsforskning | Nordic Welfare Research. 9(2), p. 127–141. doi: 10.18261/nwr.9.2.2. Full text in Research Archive
• Schmidt, Michaela Margarethe; Farshchian, Babak Amin & Hofmann, Sara (2023). The digital public encounter. Reports of the European Society for Socially Embedded Technologies. doi: 10.48340/ecscw2023_ws04. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The digitalization of the public sector impacts nearly all aspects of public service provision, including the interaction between citizens and public officials, also known as public encounter. This traditionally face-to-face interaction is being replaced by digital platforms, chat-bots, and self-services. Public encounters can be highly collaborative processes, e.g. in the provision of welfare services, that involve multiple stakeholders. The use of digital tools in these processes poses opportunities as well as challenges to the collaborative process and the public service provision in general. This workshop aims to bring together researchers and practitioners with a common interest in the collaborative aspects of digital public encounter, how public officials and citizens communicate and cooperate through digital tools, and the long-term impact of these technological transformations. Topics include but are not limited to communication and collaboration processes in the digital public encounter, analysis of digital tools in the public encounter and theories and case-studies on how public encounters happen. We invite researchers as well as practitioners to participate in the workshop.

• Rydén, Hanne Sara-Maria Höglund; Hofmann, Sara & Verne, Guri Birgitte (2023). The self-serving citizen as a co-producer in the digital public service delivery. In Lindgren, Ida; Csaki, Csaba; Kalampokis, Evangelos; Tambouris, Efthimios; Janssen, Marijn; Zuiderwijk, Anneke; Pereira, Gabriela Viale & Virkar, Shefali (Ed.), Electronic Government 22nd IFIP WG 8.5 International Conference, EGOV 2023, Budapest, Hungary, September 5–7, 2023, Proceedings. Springer. ISSN 9783031411380. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-41138-0_4. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The promotion of digital self-services has generated a shift within digital government, which has implications for citizens that depend on welfare services. From the policy perspective, users can benefit from better service access, process efficiency and opportunities for citizens to co-produce their public services. These opportunities are accompanied by increasing responsibilities for citizens that are expected to serve themselves to a higher extent. This article analyses how vulnerable citizens engage in self-services and their co-production of public services that play out in the digital public service setting. Data were gathered through participatory observations at a service office at the Norwegian welfare administration (NAV) when citizens visited the office to apply for public welfare services. The article provides a novel theoretical framework for conceptualizing dynamic actor-co-production, showing how co-production preconditions can be understood in relation to the actors involved in the service procedure. From a citizen-centric perspective, the article explores the roles of the human state actor – frontline workers, technology state actor – self-service stations, and the private actor – citizens – in the co-production. It sheds light on how participation can be understood at different levels of abstraction and describes the impact of actors’ roles, motives, actions, and preconditions in the co-production of welfare services. The findings show that most citizens that visit the office are vulnerable in relation to financial circumstances and struggle to independently co-produce their services in the public self-service setting.

• Johannsen, Florian; Mang, Fabian; Fill, Hans-Georg & Hofmann, Sara (2023). Tool-based Codification in Business Process Improvement and the Impact on Problem-Solving. Enterprise Modelling and Information Systems Architectures - An International Journal. ISSN 1860-6059. 18(1). doi: 10.18417/emisa.18.1. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Business process improvement (BPI) is an important task in times of quickly changing customer requirements and evolving technologies. A variety of BPI approaches were developed in recent years, however, the proper codification of results created in BPI projects has not been properly investigated yet. In this respect, the paper at hand examines the impact of tool-based codification approaches on problem-solving in BPI. Moreover, the effect of the design either as a spreadsheet-based or a conceptual model-based tool on user satisfaction is analyzed. For that purpose, we revert to two tools we developed, which both offer the identical functionality but diverge in the techniques of codifying results: spreadsheet templates on the one side and conceptual models on the other side. In our study, the form of codification tremendously affected the perceived user satisfaction whereas the results received for problem-solving did not show a clear preference. Regarding the former issue, the beneficial role of conceptual models for codifying results with the help of software tools could be demonstrated.

• Heggertveit, Ida; Lindgren, Ida; Madsen, Christian Østergaard & Hofmann, Sara (2023). Administrative Burden in Digital Self-service: An Empirical Study About Citizens in Need of Financial Assistance, Electronic Participation. 14th IFIP WG 8.5 International Conference, ePart 2022, Linköping, Sweden, September 6–8, 2022, Proceedings. Springer. ISSN 9783031232138. p. 173–187. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-23213-8_11. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The aim of this paper is to investigate what challenges arise for vulnerable citizens when welfare service provision is digitalized. We analyze the challenges citizens experience in the application process using the theoretical concept of administrative burden., i.e., learning-, compliance-, and psychological costs imposed on the citizen by policy implementation. The financial assistance service provided by the Norwegian Labor and Welfare Administration (NAV) is our empirical example. Our results show that digitalizing financial assistance creates new administrative burdens for vulnerable citizens. While frontline workers offer important help to citizens in the application process, they can also impose additional burdens on the citizen. Our study contributes with empirically grounded insights on the administrative burdens related to digital self-service, which causes citizens to turn to frontline workers for support. We offer a theoretical contribution by linking digitalization and administrative burden.

• Hofmann, Sara & Pappas, Ilias (2021). Understanding Civic Engagement on Social Media Based on Users’ Motivation to Contribute. Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS). ISSN 0302-9743. 12849, p. 27–39. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-82824-0_3. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Socialmediaoffervariousopportunitiesforcivicengagementby,e.g., liking, sharing, or posting relevant content. Users’ motivation to contribute to relevant topics is quite divers and can stem from an intrinsic motivation to do good or external incentives such as being recognised and rewarded by other users. In our study, we adopt self-determination theory, which defines motivation as broad continuum ranging from intrinsic motivation to external regulation. We conducted a quantitative survey with 667 Facebook users to identify how the different kinds of motivation impact the users’ behaviour in terms of reading, liking, sharing, commenting, and posting topics relevant to civic engagement. Our results suggest that social media users are mainly driven by intrinsic motivation while different forms of extrinsic motivation play a less important role.

• Madsen, Christian Østergaard; Pieterson, Willem & Hofmann, Sara (2020). The Relationship Between Outbound and Inbound Communication in Government-to-Citizen Interaction. CEUR Workshop Proceedings. 2797, p. 107–116. Full text in Research Archive
• Flak, Leif Skiftenes & Hofmann, Sara (2020). The Impact of Smart City Initiatives on Human Rights. CEUR Workshop Proceedings. 2797, p. 165–175. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Abstract: A smart city is a phenomenon where municipalities engage with stakeholders to use ICT for increasing efficiency, sustainability, and quality of life for its citizens and city operations. However, smart city initiatives can at times challenge human rights. While particular human rights such as privacy have been subject to analysis in the digital government field, a complete view on human rights in smart cities has so far been missing in our discipline. It is mainly studies from other disciplines that voice comprehensive concerns about potentially negative impacts of smart cities on human rights. However, they often lack the technological background. This paper reports on a pilot study as an initial exploration of the phenomenon in the digital government field. In our research, we studied both the positive and negative effects of smart cities on human rights by conducting qualitative interviews with citizens and municipal employees with central roles in smart city initiatives. Our results suggest that in addition to privacy and security, the human rights of freedom of expression, adequate standard of living, and equal access to public services are likely to be affected by smart city initiatives.

• Hofmann, Sara; Madsen, Christian Østergaard & Distel, Bettina (2020). Developing an Analytical Framework for Analyzing and Comparing National E-Government Strategies. In Pereira, Gabriela Viale; Janssen, Marijn; Lee, Habin; Lindgren, Ida; bolivar, Manuel Pedro Rodriguez; Scholl, Hans Jochen & Zuiderwijk, Anneke (Ed.), Electronic Government. Springer. ISSN 9783030575991. p. 15–28. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-57599-1_2. Full text in Research Archive
• Ogonek, Nadine; Räckers, Michael; Gilge, Steffen & Hofmann, Sara (2020). E-Kompetenzen, Handbuch Digitalisierung in Staat und Verwaltung. Springer. ISSN 9783658236694. doi: 10.1007/978-3-658-23669-4_57-1. Full text in Research Archive
• Madsen, Christian Østergaard & Hofmann, Sara (2019). Multichannel Management in the Public Sector: A Literature Review. Electronic Journal of e-Government (EJEG). 17(1), p. 20–35. Full text in Research Archive
• Hofmann, Sara; Sæbø, Øystein; Braccini, Alessio Maria & Za, Stefano (2019). The public sector's roles in the sharing economy and the implications for public values. Government Information Quarterly: an international journal of information technology management, policies, and practices. ISSN 0740-624X. 36(4). doi: 10.1016/j.giq.2019.101399. Full text in Research Archive
• Lindgren, Ida; Madsen, Christian Østergaard; Hofmann, Sara & Melin, Ulf (2019). Close encounters of the digital kind: A research agenda for the digitalization of public services. Government Information Quarterly: an international journal of information technology management, policies, and practices. ISSN 0740-624X. 36(3), p. 427–436. doi: 10.1016/j.giq.2019.03.002. Full text in Research Archive

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• Johannessen, Marius Rohde; Csáki, Csaba; Danneels, Lieselot; Hofmann, Sara; Lampoltshammer, Thomas & Parycek, Peter [Show all 9 contributors for this article] (2024). Electronic Participation 16th IFIP WG 8.5 International Conference, ePart 2024, Ghent, Belgium, September 3–5, 2024, Proceedings. Springer. ISBN 9783031708046. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-70804-6. Full text in Research Archive
• Hofmann, Sara & Csaki, C (2020). Electronic Participation. Springer. ISBN 9783030581411. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-58141-1. Full text in Research Archive
• Hofmann, Sara; Müller, O & Rossi, Matti (2020). Designing for Digital Transformation. Co-Creating Services with Citizens and Industry. Springer. ISBN 9783030648237. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-64823-7. Full text in Research Archive
• Hofmann, Sara; Csaki, Csaba; Edelmann, Noella; Lampoltshammer, Thomas; Melin, Ulf & Parycek, Peter (2020). Electronic Participation. 12th IFIP WG 8.5 International Conference ePart. Springer. ISBN 9783030581404. 200 p. Full text in Research Archive
• Hofmann, Sara; Müller, Oliver & Rossi, Matti (2020). Designing for Digital Transformation. Co-Creating Services with Citizens and Industry. Springer Nature. ISBN 9783030648220. 480 p. Full text in Research Archive

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• Hofmann, Sara & Sæbø, Øystein (2024). Hva betyr det for offentlig sektor å ta ansvar i en digital tidsalder? Magma forskning og viten. ISSN 1500-0788. doi: 10.23865/magma.v27.1447. Full text in Research Archive
• Rydén, Hanne Sara-Maria Höglund; Hofmann, Sara & Verne, Guri Birgitte (2023). The self-serving citizen as a co-producer in the digital public service delivery. Full text in Research Archive
• Flak, Leif Skiftenes; Vassilakopoulou, Polyxeni; Hofmann, Sara; Lyngstad, Cathrine Pihl & Kongsvild, Ragnhild (2022). Human centered digital transformation. Full text in Research Archive
• Hofmann, Sara; Madsen, Christian Østergaard; Lindgren, Ida & Verne, Guri Birgitte (2021). A citizen-centered analysis of what public services are suitable for digital communication channels. Full text in Research Archive
• Flak, Leif Skiftenes & Hofmann, Sara (2020). The Impact of Smart City Initiatives on Human Rights. Full text in Research Archive
• Hofmann, Sara (2019). Structuring Governments' Success Factors in Social Media. In Bergener, Katrin; Räckers, Michael & Stein, Armin (Ed.), The Art of Structuring. Bridging the Gap Between Information Systems Research and Practice. Springer. ISSN 9783030062347. p. 409–419. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-06234-7_38. Full text in Research Archive
• Madsen, Christian Østergaard; Hofmann, Sara & Pieterson, Willem (2019). Channel Choice Complications. Exploring the multiplex nature of citizens' channel choices. Full text in Research Archive

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