There is currently an ongoing, global race to develop, implement, and make use of AI in both the private and public sectors. How AI will affect responsibilities and public values to be upheld by government remains to be seen. This paper analyzes how AI is portrayed in Swe-dish policy documents and what values are attributed to the use of AI, based on an established e-government value framework. Statements are identified in policy documents and are coded into one of four value ideals, as well as being either a benefit, a consideration, or a risk. We conclude that there is discrepancy in the policy level discourse concerning AI between the dif-ferent value ideals and that the discourse surrounding AI is overly optimistic. A more nuanced view of AI in government is needed to create realistic expectations.

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is being adapted by public sector organizations as ameans to solve challenges yet new problems and challenges arise. One reason for this may be amismatch between how RPA is portrayed and what it turns out to be. This paper covers the first analysis in a study that compares the portrayal of RPA by vendors by that of public sector.

This paper is part of a research project that investigates and provides guidance regarding the adoption and implications of automation in the Swedish local government. Automation technologies, such as Robotic Process Automation (RPA), are well established in the private and the public sector. In this paper, we discuss whether the adoption of RPA can be seen as migration towards automation. The aim is to evaluate the Push-Pull-Mooring (PPM) framework to understand better what factors influence local government adoption. By analysing RPA suppliers, RPA developers, and local government representatives' perspectives, we have identified push, pull, and mooring factors potentially influencing the decision to adopt, i.e., accepting or rejecting RPA. We, therefore, argue that the PPM framework seems to be a fruitful way of researching factors influencing the adoption of automation and the concept of automation as migration further.

Local government organizations in Sweden are under pressure from policy makers and leading politicians to accelerate digital transformation of administrative tasks, in order to make public service provision more efficient and effective. As part of this digital transformation, local governments are currently investigating and implementing digital technologies that can execute administrative tasks automatically, without involvement of administrative staff. We explore an automation initiative in a Swedish municipality using a qualitative case study. Our analysis is conducted from a stakeholder perspective, investigating (1) how different stakeholders interpret automation as part of the municipality’s ongoing digitalization, and (2) their views on expected outcomes of automation of administrative tasks. Our analysis shows that different stakeholder groups hold different definitions of what digitalization and automation means for their organization, and what outcomes can be expected of automation of administrative tasks in their organization. The analysis further shows that national policy documents encourage local governments to use a specific technical solutions for automation (robotic process automation); however, this technology is viewed as somewhat problematic by the stakeholders working with IT in the organization. Our analysis contributes with an illustration of challenges that municipalities face in their endeavor to find ways of developing automation of administrative tasks, and call for further research on this topic.

Local government organizations (municipalities) in Sweden are encouraged to pursue process automation to face upcoming challenges. In this paper we focus on a case where these recommendations are put into practice and explore the views on process automation held by different stakeholder groups, related to which values they prioritize in their respective area of work. We do this by applying stakeholder theory and the model of value ideals by [1] as a combined theoretical lens. Our results show that different stakeholder groups prioritize different value ideals in their areas of work and that their views on process automation as able to enable these value ideals vary from optimistic, to hesitant to pessimistic. In the studied case, the achievement of process automation is in part reliant on workers themselves seeking it out, meaning that the pessimistic view on process automation poses a problem in that it becomes an obstacle for this to function. We discuss the possible reasons for the differently held prioritized value ideals as well as the differently held views on process automation. We conclude that the studied case shows that implementing process automation includes establishing new structures, roles and responsibilities and comes with certain issues, as those highlighted by our analysis. We found the combination of value ideals and stakeholder theory useful in studying e-government initiatives and make some further recommendations on possible future, related, streams of research.