Why do they keep calling? Single parents’ Domestication of mandatory e-government self-service channels

The Danish Digitization strategy 2011-2015 made e-government channels mandatory within multiple areas, including public benefits. Although most Danes have adopted the e-government channels, many keep using traditional channels. Moreover, some have their own ways of interpreting and using the e-government channels, or getting around the mandatory requirements. This thesis explores citizens’ interactions with public authorities following the deployment of mandatory self-service applications. It presents a mixed-method longitudinal case study of single parents, who interact with public authorities and each other, to claim economic benefits. The thesis positions itself within channel choice studies in the e-government research field. It contributes to this literature by studying citizens’ actual use of e-government and traditional channels in a post-adoption and mandatory setting. It applies Domestication theory, as a theoretical lens, and follows a social constructionist research tradition.

As an Industrial PhD project, the thesis offers multiple recommendations for practitioners on how to improve the efficiency of public sector administration. The thesis’ primary recommendation is that public authorities should not only seek to increase the share of citizen-initiated online interactions, but simultaneously strive to reduce the total volume of traffic. Public authorities can pre-empt and reduce traffic by improving the quality and quantity of their mass communication channels based on results from user studies and classification of citizen-initiated requests on traditional channels.

The thesis consists of a cover and five papers: Two literature reviews and three research papers. The papers are presented in appendix VI. I advise readers of this thesis to start by reading the papers first.