Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 30th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview WG2: Digital Government Author(s) Petra Vujković University of Ljubljana Ljubljana Slovenia Eva Murko, Faculty of Public Administration, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia Petra Vujković, Faculty of Public Administration, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia Title Smart public governance development at the national level: A conceptual framework File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Petra Vujković Abstract Recent challenges related to globalization and digitalization, further emphasized by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, have revealed several deficiencies in public administration, including public governance. Therefore, implementing smart technologies into public governance may provide effective and efficient support to day-to-day operations and long-term socio-economic challenges and, most importantly, significantly improve public administration performance and consequently public value. Therefore, it is not surprising that the concept of smart public governance is gaining increasing attention among researchers, policymakers, and practitioners worldwide. Therefore, the purpose of the paper is to propose and present a conceptual framework that can act proactively as an enabler and driver of progress towards smart public governance, allowing for citizen centricity and achieving public value. The originality of the framework is based on several improvements, enabling an innovative evaluation of the most relevant (sub)elements related to smart governance, public value and smart environment. A conceptual framework is based on theoretical foundations and supplemented by secondary data obtained from various EU (e.g. Eurostat) and OECD (e.g. Government at a Glance) data sources. Following sophisticated statistical techniques (e.g. factor analysis, index calculation, etc.), a conceptual framework will serve as a basis for examining smart public governance development at the national level. The preliminary results reveal differences in smart public governance development between individual (sub)groups of countries across selected (sub)elements of smart public governance. Moreover, by pursuing citizen centricity approach, smart public governance should enhance public value, which is especially important from the perspective of society. Therefore, a developed conceptual framework is expected to be an effective tool for policymakers to evaluate the current state of smart public governance within the public administration and determine trajectories for further national public administration reforms.
