Impact of COVID-19 on e-government: a pilot study of Poland

ABSTRACT

Catastrophic events like COVID-19 cause substantial material losses and significant harm to the public. However, such events may also accelerate socioeconomic developments such as increased digitalization of economic and societal activities, including e-government services. These services become especially critical in crisis situations , providing a vehicle for administrative responses and ensuring social and economic functioning. This paper reports on a pilot study on the impact of COVID-19 on the demand for and the provision of e-government services in a municipality in Poland. Interviews with city administrators and technical staff involved in providing e-government services during COVID-19 are the primary data sources. Issues identified relate to changes in work regulations, adjustments to operations, shifts in volume and types of services, and changes in employee attitudes and behaviors. Employing focusing event theory in interpreting the results, this paper contributes to the literature on information and communication technologies, especially e-government in local administrations.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• catastrophic event
• digital government
• e-government
• pandemic
• socioeconomic development

Introduction

Restrictions and regulations enacted in many countries to deal with COVID-19 have had considerable implications for many aspects of daily lives and also substantially affected long-term socioeconomic development. In particular, extensive and long lasting lockdowns in many communities created increased needs and expanded roles for digital technologies (Soto-Acosta, 2020). As pointed out by Qureshi (2021), due to COVID-19 and government imposed lock-downs, daily life revolves more and more around the internet. Wireless connectivity, cloud computing, email, online video conferencing, distance education tools, and online public services have become essential instruments for work, learning, communication, and entertainment.

In this environment, e-government (electronic government) also plays an increasingly prominent role. Based on the discussion by Grönlund and Horan (2005), we define e-government as utilization of information and communication technologies (ICT), and particularly the internet, by central, regional, and local authorities to provide information and various services to the public. Though e-government is focused primarily on offering governmental services to the community, it may also have important implications for democratic quality by better enabling public involvement in societal decision-making (Kneuer, 2016).

Citizen participation in public decision-making is essential to enduring socioeconomic development, where socioeconomic development is defined as ‘a process of changes or improvements in social and economic conditions as they relate to an individual, an organization, or a whole country’ (Roztocki & Weistroffer, 2016, p. 452). The development of an information society with effective utilization of ICT, including e-government services, seems central to anchoring e-participation strategies, i.e. strategies for citizen participation via electronic means in improving social sustainability (Ochara & Mawela, 2015).

E-government is important in socioeconomic development as it compels administrations to serve the public in a more transparent and efficient manner, thus better satisfying the community needs while also saving taxpayers money due to automation of administrative processes (Von Haldenwang, 2004). Despite somewhat mixed outcomes in past e-government implementations (Pedersen, 2017), it is reported that COVID-19 accelerated the digital transformation, including much of public administration (Gabryelczyk, 2020). Due to COVID-19-related restrictions, many public employees ‘were forced to work in accordance with new procedures using new technologies’ (Gabryelczyk, 2020, p. 303). However, despite those claims of accelerated digitalization in public administration and an abundance of anecdotal evidence, there is a lack of empirical research to substantiate this. It is also not well understood how specific circumstances that resulted from COVID-19 have impacted e-government services and general socioeconomic development.

Thus, the purpose of the current study is to explore the particular issues or circumstances related to maintaining and expanding e-government services during and after COVID-19 and their consequences for the community and society. Accordingly, two research questions are investigated:

RQ1. What specific circumstances arose from COVID-19 that may impact e-government services?

RQ2. How do circumstances caused by COVID-19 affect the provision of e-government services?

The pilot study reported here is part of a larger project with the purpose to advance the understanding of e-government delivery and utilization, particularly during catastrophic events. More specifically, this larger project aims to gain a better understanding of how wide-ranging catastrophic events, such as the COVID-19, impact the demand for and the supply of e-government services, and to develop guidelines or a framework for managing and responding to such events so as to help maintain and conceivably improve the informational and transactional services. As observed by Qureshi (2021), the government-imposed lock-downs greatly impeded the ability of individuals and small businesses to operate as usual and most severely affected the least affluent levels of society. Low-income employees and small business owners often lack savings or other backup resources and depend upon daily work for living. They require social aid even after short breaks in employment or work. Many of these individuals, in order to obtain financial aid, rely on government websites for information (e-information) and online applications (e-services).

In investigating the circumstances or settings that arose from COVID-19, and how the newly developed conditions affect the provision of e-government services, our objective also includes learning how ICT may need to be enhanced or changed, and how these new circumstances affect the lives of constituents and thus the overall social and economic development.

The rest of this paper is structured as follows. After providing some background to the topic of our investigation based on existing literature, we describe the research approach and methodology for the pilot study. Next, we report on our preliminary findings and the analysis of these results. We conclude by discussing the outcomes of the pilot study and the next steps in the larger project, as well as the conceivable impact on socioeconomic development.

Background

Pandemics

Catastrophic events are occurrences that cause vast economic damage and/or substantial loss of lives. Catastrophic events may include terrorist attacks, armed conflicts, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, financial crises, animal diseases, and epidemic outbreaks, all of which cause various levels of anxieties and raise fears among the general population (Ehlert et al., 2020).

Frequently, the terms epidemics and pandemics are used interchangeably (Morens et al., 2009), as they both refer to catastrophic events caused by the rapid spread of disease to a large number of people in a given population within a short period of time. A pandemic is generally understood as an epidemic that has spread across a large region, crossing international boundaries (Morens et al., 2009; Shope, 1958). The term pandemic is commonly associated with an upsurge of deadly illness that presents clear danger to humanity and which when not addressed properly may result in substantial depopulation (Morens et al., 2009). Some well-known deadly pandemics of the past include the fourteenth century Black Death or Plague that reduced the population of Europe from approximately 75 million to just about 20 million by some accounts (Getz, 1991) and the 1918 Spanish flu which caused around 50 million deaths by some estimations (Morse, 2009).

There is, however, no general agreement on a formal and precise definition of what constitutes a pandemic (Morens et al., 2009). In general, for an outbreak to be labeled a pandemic it must be an infectious disease that affects a large proportion of the population with widespread geographic extension. Though common perception has been that a pandemic entails widespread illness with substantial overall mortality, many health-related international organizations no longer use severity as a criterion in determining when a particular outbreak should be designated a pandemic. Thus until May 2009, the World Health Organization (WHO) defined pandemics as outbreaks generating ‘enormous numbers of deaths and illness,’ but after May 2009, WHO dropped this phrase describing severity (Cohen & Carter, 2010). Interestingly, in 2011 the WHO reverted back to its previous description of a pandemic, including the reference to ‘enormous numbers of deaths and illness,’ at least for a short while (Teppone, 2023). Teppone (2023)provides an interesting analysis of the changing definition of the term pandemic in WHO documents and websites.

The ambiguity of when an outbreak constitutes a pandemic and when a pandemic starts and ends can lead to uncertainty in the business environment and in social life (Roztocki et al., 2020). This lack of a clear definition of the situation and the, often, extemporaneous government responses may result in strong dissatisfaction with authorities and resistance to crisis management directives. Draconian protective measures such as lockdowns may be perceived as unnecessarily strict by some citizen groups, while at the same time may be criticized as being too relaxed for handling the pandemic by other groups. In general, a pandemic may substantially strain citizens’ trust in the authorities. In such crisis situations, effective communication between government and citizens becomes particularly important, and e-government may prove very beneficial as a tool to facilitate not only indispensable communication, but also provide special services that may be required.

e-Government

The term e-government (for electronic government) emerged in the 1990s (Grönlund & Horan, 2005) and has been defined in various ways (Mustafa & Sharifov, 2018). As stated in the Introduction section, and based on the discussion by Grönlund and Horan (2005), we define e-government as utilization of ICT, and particularly the internet, by central, regional, and local authorities to provide information and various services to the public. Irrespective of variations in definition, e-government in its many forms has become increasingly important for a country or locality in supporting its mission to serve citizens in a transparent, efficient, and fair manner (Carter & Belanger, 2005), and thus it is an important factor in the social and economic evolution in highly developed as well as in developing countries. Suitable e-government initiatives can lead to transformational government (t-government) that will improve the relationship between citizens and government bodies (King & Cotterill, 2007; Sipior et al., 2011). Chohan and Hu (2022) revealed how e-government can strengthen digital inclusion of citizens when appropriate ICT training programs are offered. Besides increased operational efficiency and reduced cost, innovative use of ICT in e-government can lead to greater transparency, and thereby to reduced prevalence of corruption. In addition to more timely processing of citizens’ and businesses’ requests, and more reliable information for politicians, government officials, and other decision makers, e-government technology may provide online fora for direct citizen participation in important policy discussions and thereby change the social dynamics in communities.

e-Government in catastrophic events

Availability and usage of e-government may be of particular consequence during and following catastrophic events such as pandemics, which disrupt the social system and the normal functioning of government services. E-government provides a means for sharing data, communicating information, and coordinating activities when responding to a catastrophic event (Jaeger et al., 2007). Effectual government reaction to catastrophic events must rely on societal compliance with imposed emergency regulations and restrictions, and to achieve societal compliance, efficient communication, such as e-publication, is essential. Providing relevant, timely, and reliable information to the populace may reduce citizens’ anxiety, distrust, and dissatisfaction with authorities, and thus e-publication, i.e. making information available via electronic means, such as the internet, is one of the most important and widespread uses of e-government (Reitz, 2006).

Using the justification of keeping COVID-19 under control, many national governments took special initiatives such as for example, expanding and popularizing health ICT and initiating mobile apps to collect data on numbers and locations of persons who tested positive for COVID-19, were hospitalized for COVID-19, or died due to COVID-19, as well as facilitating, isolating potentially infected individuals. However, ICT policies around the world also caused many complicating issues due to privacy and data protection concerns and resentment by citizens of being tracked and having limits imposed on their customary freedoms (Qureshi, 2021).

Resistance to e-government

Problems with successful e-government implementation exist on both the delivery side of services, as well as on the user side, where there has always been a problem of non-participation by segments of the populace, as a substantial number of citizens or other residents in a country or geographical area do not make use of the e-government services being offered (Bélanger & Carter, 2008). Resistance to participation in e-government services may occur in highly mature economies like Singapore, where after implementation of an e-filing process, the majority of taxpayers still preferred to file on paper (Tan et al., 2007), as well as in less developed economies, like Jordan. In Jordan, a large portion of the public refused to use the e-government services being offered and rather continued to visit the appropriate agencies in person, according to Al-Soud et al. (2014). In another example, reported in a study that examined the use of SMS-based e-government services in Indonesia, Susanto and Goodwin (2013) identified a large group of young college students who for various reasons did not participate in these services. A more recent study conducted by Van de Walle et al. in 2018 (Van de Walle et al., 2018) looked at non-participants in e-government services in Latvia. According to this study, the main reasons for non-participation were inadequate computer skills and competence, and lack of equipment or reliable access.

The reasons given by researchers for non-participation in e-government services by members of the public under normal circumstances are ambiguous and not always supported by systematic research. Non-participation refers to individuals not participating in specific e-government services being offered, for whatever reason. Non-acceptance may imply rejection of e-government in a broader way, possibly for emotional reasons. Non-adoption may indicate a lack of awareness or readiness to participate in e-government, rather than outright rejection. However, some authors use these three terms interchangeably. In the early stages of digitalization, it was presumed that the main reason for some people not participating in e-government was the lack of access to the internet and technology, such as computers, smart phones, and other mobile devices (Ebbers et al., 2016). As digital access improved, mainly due to technological progress and governmental policies, academic research extended the explanations for non-participation to other factors, such as age, education, gender, location, and disability. Jacob et al. (2017) and Jacob et al. (2019) developed a conceptual model for generic e-government adoption, based on the information systems success model of DeLone and McLean (2003) and the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) (Venkatesh et al., 2003). A recent systematic literature review of e-government service adoption by citizens as well as a high-level model of influential factors is provided by Tremblay-Cantin et al. (2023).

However, the effects of wide-ranging catastrophic events with a global reach, such as COVID-19, on participation or non-participation in e-government have not been adequately explored and warrant further investigation. Circumstances or conditions, such as material loss, spread of disease or loss of lives, and other societal consequences arising from catastrophic events may substantially affect prospective participation or non-participation in e-government services. Thus, for example, during catastrophes, as events unfold and new data become available, government officials and decision makers may frequently change their courses of actions, which may affect the public trust in e-government services.

Socioeconomic development

Socioeconomic development can be defined as ‘a process of changes or improvements in social and economic conditions as they relate to an individual, an organization, or a whole country’ (Roztocki & Weistroffer, 2016). Socioeconomic development encompasses both social development and economic development, both processes by which the well-being and quality of life improves. Some key areas in which social development can be observed are government, healthcare, the environment, and education (Qureshi, 2005). Economic development can be propelled through financing, innovation, and the sourcing of materials and services required for production (Qureshi, 2005). ICT are major enablers of the occupational activities, such as e-commerce, online social networks, navigation systems, on-line teaching and training, communication, and e-government, all of which facilitate socioeconomic development (Roztocki & Weistroffer, 2016). Qureshi (2005) proposed a model of information technology for development that shows how ICT affects socioeconomic development through more access to information and expertise, greater competitiveness and access to markets, improved administrative efficiencies, increased learning and labor productivity, and poverty reduction. Based on this model, e-government, by providing enhanced access to information and raising administrative efficiency, can be seen as a driver for socioeconomic development.

Impact of catastrophic events on social systems

Catastrophic events are abrupt and relatively uncommon happenings that are perceived to be extremely harmful at the present and in the future, and frequently, they serve as triggers for major changes in policies (Birkland, 1998). Reorganizing existing procedures, instituting additional regulations, and imposing new restrictions are common and quick responses to catastrophic events. Thus, due to these rapid changes in regulatory systems, catastrophic events, besides causing vast economic damage and substantial loss of lives, may have an enduring impact on social structures and affect long-term socioeconomic development. Furthermore, government responses to catastrophic events or disasters can lead to substantial changes in social and political attitudes in citizens (Albrecht, 2017).

Harrison and Williams (2016) take a systems science approach to study the resilience of social systems in coping with disasters. They argue that natural disasters are not isolated events, but rather repeated, episodic outcomes of natural systems that have existed for millennia, although modern human activities may have exacerbated catastrophic outcomes, for example by propagating contagious diseases through extensive global travel. It is the resilience of a community that allows it to adapt, accommodate, and recover from the effects of a disaster, and grow no matter what stresses and shocks it experiences.

Focusing event theory

DeLeo et al. (2021) examine the policymaking implications of the COVID-19 pandemic through the lens of focusing event theory. Focusing events are sudden, attention-grabbing events, that potentially trigger extensive public policy changes (Birkland, 1998). Focusing events emphasize or highlight challenges that may require policy intervention (Atkinson, 2018). DeLeo et al. (2021) assert that the COVID-19 pandemic has some of the characteristics of focusing events, such as being relatively rare and being harmful and revealing future harm. However, whereas focusing events normally are restricted to a particular geographic area and become known to policymakers and the public at the same time, the COVID-19 impact is global, and it was known to policymakers well in advance before the general public learned about it. DeLeo et al. (2021) suggest that the theoretical understanding of focusing events should widen to account for longer-duration events, such as pandemics, and that policy scientists should consider event duration as an important factor for policy change. Evidently, pandemics and other long duration catastrophic events facilitate multiple windows of opportunity for policy changes (DeLeo et al., 2021).

Building on these theoretical foundations, the study reported on the current paper investigates the impact specifically of pandemics, such as COVID-19, on e-government, which is an increasingly important component of the social system. Changes in what services are provided by e-government and changes in how these services are provided may have long lasting effects on society and socioeconomic development.

Methodology

Research design

As stated earlier, the pilot study described in the current paper serves as preparation for a larger project with the goal of expanding our understanding of e-government during catastrophic events. The research strategy for this larger project is multiple-case design. Case study methodology is appropriate to explore the dynamics of organizations during special situations and for development of theory (Eisenhardt, 1989). The multiple-case design as compared to single-case design is the preferable method for developing a conceptual framework and theory building (Yin, 2014). The single-case pilot study reported on in this paper was conducted in one of the City Halls (or City Administration Offices) in Poland with the primary objective of developing a sound procedure to be followed during the subsequent phases of the larger project. The pilot study provides employee perspectives on the circumstances or conditions that arose from COVID-19 and that may impact e-government services, and also on how these employees perceive the consequences of the activities undertaken by the City Hall to ensure enduring delivery of e-government services during catastrophic events. The semi-structured interviews also provided some insights as to how employees perceive future developments of e-government and their impact on the public and society.

Study context

City Halls (in Polish: Urzedy miasta) offer a wide variety of services to individual residents and to business entities, such as issuing identification documents and driver’s licenses, recording births, marriages, and deaths, registering vehicles and boats, issuing permits to sell alcohol, licensing new business ventures, handling issues related to property taxes, and collecting bids for public tenders. Many of these services are accessible on-line. Thus, City Halls are involved in many e-government initiatives and have abundant experience dealing with the general public, including during COVID-19.

Poland seems to be well suited for investigations about e-government and related concepts such as e-voting and e-democracy and to obtain answers to our two research questions for several reasons. First, Poland can be classified as a double transition level economy according to the classification proposed in 2015 by Roztocki and Weistroffer (2015). A double transition economy is defined as a country that underwent an abrupt change from a centrally planned economic system and one-party controlled political system, to a market-based economy and multi-party governmental system. Thus, in a double transition economy, the transition occurred with respect to both the economic system as well as the political system. This double transition is typically accompanied by a simultaneous emergence of a new class of entrepreneurs and the partial replacement of former political elites. By implication, many free market and democratic mechanisms are less deeply rooted in Poland than in more established free-market democracies. Second, part of the Polish population, in particular the older generation, due to experience under communism, may distrust authorities in general and perceive e-government initiatives with respect to COVID-19 as mechanisms to establish more government control, perhaps even leading to dictatorship.

Employees at City Halls, due to the nature of their work, interact with many individuals across different socioeconomic groups, and are likely to be well able to assess the impact COVID-19 has had on e-government activities. Thus, employees at City Halls appear to be a reasonable group to target for sharing their experiences with various e-government initiatives during COVID-19 and their opinions on how participation or non-participation is affected during and possibly in the aftermath of catastrophic events.

The particular City Hall chosen for the pilot study is responsible for providing public services for almost 200 thousand residents and about 30 thousand business entities (data from 2020 available at bdl.stat.gov.pl). At the time of our study, 240 types of applications could be submitted online (archival data source provided by City Hall). This City Hall was selected mainly because we had already worked with some of its personnel on a different research project, and the management and staff had been unusually congenial and helpful.

Interview questions

An initial set of questions was developed ahead of time to guide the semi-structured interviews. These interview questions, shown in Table 1, were formulated by the authors based on their own observations and reasonings. Measures put in place by the government to handle the COVID-19 pandemic included cancelation of public events, business and school closures, lockdowns, restrictions in local movements, and limitations in international travel. Such constraints were expected to have a substantial impact on the services provided by municipal administrations. In addition, COVID-19 can cause illness and death among employees and their relatives, which may affect staffing and delay the work processes. Moreover, the fear of COVID-19 among employees, even without getting sick, may have an impact on their productivity. Our objective was to formulate interview questions which will likely stimulate a wide range of responses and allow us to obtain the pertinent information that will answer the two research questions.

Table 1. Interview questions.

Interview questions related to RQ1 a) Can you list any specific issues or circumstances caused by COVID-19 or by the lockdown that impacted the e-government services provided by your organization? b) How did new or changed regulations due to COVID-19 affect the e-government services provided by your organization? c) Can you list any specific changes in employees’ behaviors or and attitudes caused by COVID-19 that impacted the e-government services provided by your organization? d) Do you foresee changes in employee’s attitudes that will impact the way e-government services may be provided in the future, post pandemic?

Interview questions related to RQ2 e) Are there specific factors related to COVID-19 that made it difficult for your organization to keep up the e-government service level that you had been providing before the pandemic? f) Has there been an increase in employee absenteeism, resignations, or retirements due to COVID-19 and if so, how did that affect the e-government services provided by your organization?

Interview questions (a) through (d) are aimed at our first research question: What specific circumstances arose from COVID-19 that may impact e-government services? In question (a) we try to get the interviewees to tell us about any general issues or circumstances they encountered that arose due to COVID-19 and due to the mitigation measures and that had a noticeable impact on the services their organization provided. In question (b) we ask specifically about new or changed regulations that came into effect during the time of COVID-19 and that may have affected the services they provided. In question (c) we try to learn about changes in behaviors and attitudes of employees that came about with COVID-19 and that had an impact on the services provided. And question (d) follows up with expected further changes in behaviors and attitudes once the state of epidemic emergency related to COVID-19 is formally revoked and the special regulations put in place are no longer in effect.

Interview questions (e) and (f) are aimed at our second research question: How do circumstances caused by COVID-19 affect the provision of e-government services? Whereas the first research question is intended to learn about all the issues and circumstances that arose during the times of COVID-19, the second research question is intended to gain knowledge and understanding of what effects these issues and circumstances had on the informational and transactional services their organization provided. In interview question (e) we try to get the interviewees to report to us any factors they are aware of that impeded continuing offering of the services that they had been providing before COVID-19. And in interview question (f) we drill down on some specific human-related factors, such as absenteeism, resignations, or retirements due to COVID-19, that may have impacted delivering these services. All the interview questions from Table 1 however only served as general guidelines during the semi-structured interviews, with follow-up questions emerging from the answers given by the interviewees.

Data collection

As stated earlier, the primary data collection was via interviews, which, because of the continuing lockdown, were done remotely using teleconferencing software. Interviews were conducted in Polish by the authors and recorded, then transcribed by professional services and translated into English. Transcripts and translations from Polish into English were randomly checked for accuracy.

However, to minimize bias on the part of the researchers and to improve the trustworthiness of the outcomes, the analyses and findings in this paper are also supported by data from archival sources shared by officials after the interviews and from materials available on the public website of the City Hall. The archival data includes a list of all e-services (with descriptions) provided by the City Hall; a list of interactive electronic forms available to constituents via the City Hall website; statistical summaries of e-services provided in the year before and the year of COVID-19 from selected departments/centers of the City Hall; information on remote management of City Hall meetings using voting support software (e-voting); regulations on internal e-voting on budget matters; and additional information on the dedicated smart phone application for e-voting.

Over a course of three days in May 2021, a total of six semi-structured interviews were conducted, lasting from a minimum of 25 min to a maximum of 65 min. In addition to covering the questions from Table 1, each interview opened with a general clarification of the services that the City Hall provides online, and a brief discussion as to which of these e-services are most commonly used and by whom, as well as any plans for expanding these e-services offerings in the near future. Each interview closed with an open-ended question, allowing the interviewee to add anything he or she deemed relevant.

The interviewees were managers in the City Hall who shared their observations regarding the work of the information technology (IT) department, the tax collection department, the civil registration office, and the land survey office. All departments of the City Hall remained open during COVID-19 and provided uninterrupted services. The interview sessions are summarized in chronological order in Table 2, showing the profiles of the interviewees (P1 means interviewee or person 1) and the duration of each session.

Table 2. Interview sessions.

Code	Profile of interviewee	Duration
P1	Head of the center responsible for geodesy and cartography	43 min.
P2	Deputy director of the department responsible for finance	25 min.
P3	Deputy head of the office responsible for registry	61 min.
P4	Director of the office responsible for IT and telecommunication	55 min.
P5	Deputy director of the department responsible for civic affairs	31 min.
P6	Head of the office responsible for providing public information and tele-informatics	65 min.

Data analysis

To answer the two research questions and to develop an initial conceptual framework in preparation for more advanced theory development in the later phases of the larger project, a preliminary analysis of the interviews was carried out with the use of a computerized coding tool, MAXQDA.

Open, axial, and selective coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) processes were applied to fit the interviewee responses into codes and categories. First, open coding was used to identify specific concepts and their properties and create initial codes based on the textual field data line-by-line. Examples of these initial codes include: ‘Physical offices closed,’ ‘Cash register closed,’ and ‘Changes in work settings.’ Second, axial coding was applied to find the relationships between the initial concepts or codes and create major code categories, such as for example: ‘Physical changes in operations,’ ‘Shifts in volume and types of services,’ ‘Changes in employee attitudes and behaviors.’ Finally, selective coding was used to develop meta-categories, such as ‘Circumstances due to COVID-19.’

As suggested by Yin (2014), a pilot study and the encompassed data analysis can help with refining the data collection plans in regard to both the content of the data and the procedures to be followed in later phases. Thus, the experiences gained from the pilot study preparation, arrangements, and interviews, and the analysis of the transcripts will be used to augment our research questions as well as refine our interview questions for the larger project.

Findings

COVID-19 as accelerator for digitalization

In the interviews, all six managers confirmed what has been reported in other studies (Soto-Acosta, 2020), i.e. that COVID-19 substantially accelerated digitalization, including the demand for e-government services. Many of the currently offered e-services were available via publicly accessible websites even before COVID-19, but they were little used.

COVID-19 markedly speeded up the demand for e-government services, as was corroborated by all of the interviewees. One manager pointed out that the increase in usage of e-services was also dependent on the urgency of the matter under consideration, the age of the applicants, and their ability to use e-government solutions:

 … It is safe to say that the demand for e-services has increased, in particular for certain groups and ages, but it also has been dependent on whether it was something very urgent, or whether it could wait for later, i.e. till the reopening of the office. (interviewee P6)

Circumstances due to COVID-19

We judiciously sifted through and analyzed the six interview transcripts focusing on our two research questions. In answer to the first research question, ‘What specific circumstances arose from COVID-19 that may impact e-government services?’ We identified several specific issues raised by the participating managers. Table 3 lists these issues or circumstances that arose from COVID-19 in the left column, while the numbers in the right column identify which interviewee raised the particular issue.

Table 3. Identified circumstances that arose from COVID-19.

Circumstances due to catastrophic event	Code
Physical changes in operations
Physical offices closed	P5, P6
Cash register closed	P6
Changes in work settings	P1, P6
Inability to sign documents personally	P1, P2
Stricter sanitary requirements	P5, P6
Limited access to non-digitalized archives	P1, P3
Shifts in volume and types of services
Surge in telephone call volume	P6
Surge in traditional mail	P2, P6
Surge in demand for e-services	P1, P2, P3, P4, P6
Surge in e-voting by residents	P6
Increased information needs	P6
Shift in type of services demand	P5
Shortage of well-trained IT specialists	P4
Inadequate IT infrastructure	P4
Changes in employee attitudes and behaviors
Surge in employee absenteeism, including sick leave and care for children and spouses	P2, P3, P5 P6
Employee concerns about health/life	P3, P5, P6
Employee concerns about losing jobs	P6
Changes in regulations and enforcements
Distrust in electronic documents	P1, P4, P6
Increase of imposed fines	P6
Fast changing regulations	P1
Legal restrictions on e-services	P3, P5
Quarantine requirements	P6

The circumstances that came up in the interviews and listed in Table 3 seem to fall into four distinct groups: The first six are mostly related to physical changes in how the City Hall operates; the next eight are about shifts in volume and types of services required; three of the identified circumstances deal with changes in employee behaviors and concerns; and the last five relate to new regulations and stricter enforcement policies.

Physical changes in operations

With respect to the first group, concerning physical changes such as closing of offices and changes to operations, one of the interviewees stated:

 … once the pandemic broke out and the first COVID-19 restrictions just came about, the office was temporary closed to petitioners. (…) So the personal contact that was very important for some people, well, here it was limited. (interviewee P5)

The overall situation caused by COVID-19 required the city authorities and managers to arrange an emergency meeting to reorganize the way in which the City Hall operates. In addition to temporary closing of offices, changes in work settings were necessary to ensure continuity of the services provided by the City Hall. However, many more problems arose, such as access to non-digitalized documents, which were available only in the City Hall offices, and restrictions on providing electronic signatures from outside of the office. As one interviewee maintained:

In my department it's impossible to switch to remote work only (…) because the ministry will not set up a special link at my home to ensure a safe connection and provide the ability to work remotely securely, such as to sign documents electronically. I have to do it on-site in the office. (interviewee P3)

In addition, during three months of repeated closings of the City Hall, new sanitary requirements were introduced, and the city administration offices were reopened to citizens with some limitations. The archival documents show that in the two periods between the three lockdowns, the number of e-services and telephone calls decreased somewhat. Apparently, during the times that the lockdown rules were eased, many citizens preferred face-to-face visits to City Hall. However, the demand for e-services remained higher than it had been the year before COVID-19.

Shifts in volume and types of services

Another group of concerns had to do with shifts in volume and types of services provided by City Hall. In general, it was observed that COVID-19 shifted the ways in which constituents communicate with City Hall, turning away from face-to-face interaction and towards e-services. However, COVID-19 also resulted in overall higher telephone call volume and in an increase in traditional mail correspondence. Interviewees also mentioned the struggle by the older generation with embracing e-services over making personal visits to City Hall, and the high rate of incorrect entries in e-applications that require follow-up calls or even follow-up in-person visits to City Hall. Officials also observed a shift in demand for the different types of services provided by City Hall. Concurrently with these new circumstances, troubles with the adequacy of the existing IT infrastructure became apparent, as well as a shortage of well-trained IT specialists, as noted by one of the interviewees. More specifically, the interviewee stated that:

 … the implementation of e-services caused us additional problems, instead of reducing them, because before the pandemic all e-forms were relatively efficient. During the pandemic, the demand increased and e-forms (…) were often completed incorrectly, requiring repeated contact between the constituent and the city official. (…) This resulted in overloading of telephone lines (…) and repeated sending of the same e-forms, which unquestionably jammed, informally speaking, the Internet connection and information systems processing. (interviewee P4)

Changes in employee attitudes and behaviors

A third group of circumstances due to COVID-19 and brought up by some of the interview participants relates to employees’ behaviors, their health concerns, and fears for their families’ wellbeing and security. A significant increase in absenteeism was noted, often due to employees calling in sick or needing to take care of children during the lockdown, as schools were closed. However, in terms of the impact of these absences on e-services provided by City Hall, responses were mixed, with some interviewees maintaining that there was no significant impact on the continuity of e-services provided.

 … these absences were not on such a large scale that they disrupted the work of the department. (interviewee P5)

Absences were mostly due to illness, childcare, and that's it. (…) we tried to make our absences at work as minimal as possible, because we were aware that if we are not there, the other people in the office will have much more work. (interviewee P6)

Changes in regulations and enforcements

The last group of circumstances that arose from COVID-19 is about regulations and enforcements. Here, the interview participants indicated that a large portion of e-services is strictly regulated by law, and the City Hall is limited in the range of what it can develop or where it can modify requirements. In addition, the frequently changing regulations were spotlighted as an issue, including those related to the mitigation of the negative effects of COVID-19. City officials feel obligated to follow and enforce regulations, especially if new rules introduce new deadlines or penalties. Moreover, a focal issue that arose in the interviews was the question of trust in electronic documents. According to one department head:

I noticed that the problem (…) was on the side of the client who did not have any confidence or belief in electronic documents. (interviewee P1)

 … electronic documents are viewed very distrustfully and only the printouts of electronic documents are taken seriously by the citizens and residents …  (interviewee P4)

Consequences of identified circumstances that arose from COVID-19

In seeking answers to the second research question, ‘How do circumstances caused by COVID-19 affect the provision of e-government services?’ we again analyzed the interview transcripts, matching the circumstances listed in Table 3 to consequences, i.e. specific responses to these new circumstances. Table 4 depicts the particular circumstances identified by the managers in the left column, and the corresponding consequences to these circumstances in the right column.

Table 4. Circumstances due to COVID-19 and consequences.

Circumstances	Consequences
Physical changes in operations
Physical offices closed	Shift to e-services
Cash registers closed	Shift to e-payments
Changes in work settings	Reorganization of work and shift to remote work Shift to e-voting in city council meetings Shift to e-voting for residents
Inability to sign documents personally	Increased use of electronic signatures
Stricter sanitary requirements	Extra expenses
Limited access to non-digitalized archives	Extension of case resolution times
Shifts in volume and types of services
Surge in telephone call volume	Increased workload
Surge in traditional mail	Increased workload
Surge in demand for e-services	Adapting to demand
Surge in e-voting by residents	Adapting to demand
Increased in information needs	Increased workload
Shift in type of services demand	Adapting to demand
Shortage of well-trained IT specialists	Increased workload and delays
Inadequate IT infrastructure	Increased workload and delays
Changes in employee attitudes and behaviors
Surge in employee absenteeism (sick leave and care for children or spouses)	Increased workload and delays
Employee concerns about health/life	Offering work motivation
Employee concerns about losing jobs	Offering work motivation
Changes in regulations and enforcements
Distrust in electronic documents	Printing of documents
Increase of imposed fines	Increased workload
Fast changing regulations	Increased workload
Legal restrictions on e-services	Increased workload and delays
Quarantine requirements	Staff reassignments

As can be seen in Table 4, 14 distinct consequences of COVID-19 to the continuing supply of e-government services were asserted by the interviewees, with the most frequently mentioned ones being increased workload and the resulting delays as well as the need for adapting to demand and offering work motivations. These consequences necessitated modifications in internal rules and operational practices. Thus, using the lens of focusing event theory, we can argue that COVID-19 resulted in policy changes, which at first may have been intended to be temporary, but some of them likely will have a lasting impact even after the official revocation of the state of epidemic emergency related to COVID-19.

Increased use of e-services and e-payments

Temporary closing of City Hall offices, including the cash register, as temporary measures, resulted in increased use of e-services and e-payments, especially by professional clients, as was stated by one of the interviewees:

There is a huge increase in demand [for e-services] in the group of professional users, that is, users who professionally use documents ex officio. So, for example, surveyors, designers, developers, and people in the construction industry, who deal with a large number of issues on a daily basis (…) And now, after launching these e-services, they suddenly realized that without getting up from their chairs, (…) sitting in front of the monitor, it can all be arranged and settled in a moment. So, the client does not waste time and money in commuting, while also saving our time …  (interviewee P1)

Physical changes in the operations at City Hall offices and increased demand for e-services forced employees to quickly improve their skills and qualifications through on-line training and self-learning.

Reorganization of work and shift to remote work

Reorganization of work and shift to remote work were another consequence. At an internal meeting of the city president and the directors and heads of City Hall offices, in response to the changes in work settings due to COVID-19, it was agreed that, where it is possible that employees will be directed to work remotely, and that some internal deadlines for dealing with specific cases will be extended, mainly because of limited access to non-digitalized documents, and that communication with local residents must be improved. This had the effect on e-government services that some clients had to wait longer to get their cases resolved. While these delays are likely to be only temporary, a possibly lasting effect improved communications with clients. One of the interviewees said:

 … e-services with a lower level of maturity required some verification on the part of the employee (…) Well, depending on what week it was, the staff was more complete (…) [there could be delays]. The general rule was that everyone had his/her own second-in-command. This means that if someone is absent, there is a competent deputy. In other words, if in a dramatic situation half of the staff were missing, we would be able to function. Of course, this means working at high speed and also the punctuality suffered, i.e. clients have to wait a little longer. However, we are still within the regulatory deadlines. (interviewee P1)

Shift to e-voting in city council meetings

During COVID-19 it became natural to communicate internally via e-mail and through teleconferencing software, instead of personally, as had been customary. The City Hall officials also required their employees to make use of a new technology platform that had been acquired one year before COVID-19 to organize regular online meetings. In particular, the new technology platform allows e-voting by the members of the city council (in Polish: Rada miasta), a sort of local parliament or legislative body at the city level. Using this option, members of the city council can vote remotely on various issues by using their smart phones or computers.

Overall, the e-voting option was very well received by the members of the city council and considered as trustworthy, as voting is open, and the voting protocol provides precise information on who voted for what. Particularly in response to limitations with respect to personal meetings in City Hall, the platform started to be used more frequently. One of the interviewees stated:

We launched the e-voting system [for voting on city council resolutions] in 2019 as a pilot. (…) … that was the idea, and it actually transformed nicely at a time when the situation changed during … [COVID-19]. Members of the city council who wished to participate in the voting and did not want to come to the office, could vote from home. (interviewee P6)

Shift to e-voting for residents

In addition to the e-voting platform for members of the city council, a different and separate e-voting system for residents had been instituted earlier, before COVID-19, to allow increased involvement of ordinary people in local initiatives and enable direct voting on a civic budget (in Polish: Budżet obywatelski), a form of participatory budget in which residents co-decide on a part of public spending. In essence, a civic budget allows residents to vote on specific projects, such as constructing a new playground, planting trees and shrubs in an existing park, or improving street lighting. The statistics provided, and the observations shared by one of interviewees indicate that during the outbreak the interest in voting on civic budgets increased in general. In particular, using the e-voting platform contributed to a substantial increase in voter participation and reduced the use of the conventional voting method. According to one of the interviewees:

… when it comes to e-voting, in 2019 we had 17,922 votes for the civic budget, including 6,947 votes on paper. In 2020, the total number was 77,510, including 4,300 on paper, and in 2021, just until now [a few months into the year], we already have 60,940 votes, and only 272 on paper. (interviewee P6)

Increased use of electronic signatures

Increased use of electronic signatures was another consequence, as officials became unable to sign documents personally. Employees had already been equipped with qualified electronic signature capability before COVID-19 and now used them much more frequently to sign official, already digitalized documents.

… in fact, all employees in our office have already a trusted profile. (…) I think [officials] will be bolder in the future [in the use of electronic signature]. (…) The situation forces us to get out of this comfort zone a bit, so as not to be afraid. (interviewee P2)

The shift to e-voting and the increased use of electronic signatures are likely to be lasting changes affecting how e-government services are being provided, compatible with focusing event theory.

Extra expenses

One of the biggest challenges for City Hall during COVID-19 was to ensure appropriate funds to keep continuity of the services provided, especially in the face of shortages in the IT market at that time. Unexpected expenses occurred due to limitations in access to traditional forms of services, resulting in a surge in demand for e-services, telephone calls, e-mails, e-voting, etc., which in turn resulted in servers and information systems overload. To resolve the most urgent problems, intervention purchases were implemented.

 … such intervention purchases as we are launching at the moment, or the government is activating to buy the infrastructure that was practically collapsed at the beginning of the pandemic, are important. These purchases allow us to pick it up and stabilize it again. These are huge investments in ICT links, computers, but also security systems etc. (interviewee P4)

What is more, compliance to the new sanitary requirements also resulted in additional public expenses. That was also locally organized.

 … in our city hall, thanks to the organizational department, appropriate disinfection stations and devices were just purchased. (interviewee P4)

Many of these extra expenses due to COVID-19 are, however, most likely temporary, as new operating standards become institutionalized.

Extension of case resolution times

The constraints related to COVID-19 forced rapid work reorganizations on City Halls and unveiled that many processes and documents were not digitalized at that time. As noted above, one of the consequences of new circumstances due to COVID-19 was a shift to remote work, however this shift revealed other problems, such as limited access to non-digitalized archives. The interviewees represented different organizational entities, and they remarked that in some cases extensions of case resolution times had to be implemented.

Well, because we also know that due to the fact that there were these restrictions, certain statutory deadlines were stopped for these two months, but not all of us knew about it from the beginning, so there were questions about the timing of the deadlines and payment obligations. (interviewee P6)

Increased workload and delays

One of the most frequently mentioned consequences by the interviewees was the increased workload. They generally concurred that several circumstances due to COVID-19 significantly increased the range of tasks and the need to acquire additional expertise through training and from consulting officials at other City Halls.

 … I never experienced that the office did not support employees in terms of training and improvement of qualifications. (…) we have such options thanks to the city authorities. Discussion panels with other offices help me a lot. We are in touch all the time. (interviewee P3)

The increased workload was affected not only by the needs of more expertise in IT, but also by circumstances arising directly from COVID-19 infections and temporary inabilities to work by some employees.

Additionally, delays in processing cases were a consequence not only of highly increased demand in e-services, in combination with inadequate IT infrastructure and a shortage of well-trained IT specialists, but also of a surge in employee absenteeism, though opinions on the significance of this were mixed. While some interviewees stated that employee absences led to deferring some cases, others maintained that there was no significant impact on the continuity of e-services provided.

No, because there are substitutes with us. (…) Because it wasn't at that big a scale that these absences disrupted the department's work. (interviewee P5)

 … a lot of employees in my office (…) have small children, (…) and there is a big problem here, because with the expansion of e-services, hardware and software may fail or hang up, and the employees in charge are not available, (…) and so the service time has to be extended. (interviewee P4)

Due to high absenteeism, other employees are suddenly burdened with double the number of tasks. She/he is under total stress. This has an impact on the quality of work. (interviewee P3)

The varied responses with respect to the impact of absenteeism lead to conclude that the system in place for substitution of absent employees led to fairly uninterrupted provision of e-services in some departments, while in other departments the service response times had to be extended. A possibly lasting effect caused by COVID-19 may thus be modified procedures for dealing with staff shortages in at least some departments.

Adapting to demand

In handling the IT problems that arose during COVID-19, the City Hall enhanced its own existing e-services platform in order to expand the volume of e-government services offered, while previously the central government platform for e-services had been used. They also improved the official City Hall website to distinguish the most important information during COVID-19 and they are preparing for deployment of chatbot on this website to improve effectiveness in communication with citizens.

Changes in regulations due to COVID-19 require some time to become familiar with, which creates an additional workload. Also, enforcing penalties requires verification and is time-consuming. One interviewee said:

We have regulations for this, models of different documents. And the office has to respond to that. Legal interest. We also need to take this into account when issuing a document. So, there is another piece of information and another letter to the site. (interviewee P3)

New or enhanced technologies adapted as a result of COVID-19 are likely to have a long-lasting effect on the provision of e-government.

Offering work motivation

The case of work motivation was also a point made during the interviews. It was observed that officials have great intrinsic motivation to serve the community. However, motivation is negatively impacted by concerns about health and even life and concerns about losing jobs, as well as stress connected with high increase in workload and upcoming deadlines. To understand the situation, it needs to be pointed out that in some City Hall offices the employees provide services remotely as well as in-person in the office. One of the interviewees said:

There were especially concerns for health and lives of employees. Since we previously had these positions open one could say, there was unrestricted contact between the applicant and the employee. So here the workers started asking for some protection. (interviewee P5)

Augmented handling of employee concerns that became evident during the times of COVID-19 and applying more work motivation methods may constitute a permanent adjustment to employee relations.

Printing of documents

Another issue raised during the interviews deals with citizen distrust of remote communication and electronic documents. The process of submitting and receiving traditional printed documents are much preferred by many applicants.

Citizens prefer to come to the office and leave these documents, then come for them, call the official, ask what the status of the case is. They prefer this personal contact. (interviewee P5)

During the times of COVID-19, City Hall employees have become more aware of distrust in electronic documents by some clients when trying to transition from paper-based documents. It will be interesting to observe if, with time, people may get used to and become more accepting of this changing environment.

Staff reassignments

The last identified consequence by interviewees is staff reassignments caused by changes in regulations in the scope of quarantine requirements. One of the interviewees explained:

We all had to shift a little, to different tracks. First of all, not all employees were on site, because of (…) quarantine. Remote work [required by governmental restrictions during the quarantine] was organized on a weekly basis, so that employees bypassed each other, that they did not meet and (…) so that the service flow was maintained. For example, to contact a professional employee (…) and obtain information, even if he or she may not be at work, the substitution system had to work efficiently. (interviewee P6)

The lessons learned in reassigning staff during COVID-19 may have a lasting effect, as there may be other circumstances that arise that may also require comparable staff reassignments in the future.

Discussion of results

The purpose of the current study is to gain an understanding of the particular circumstances that arose during COVID-19 related to maintaining and expanding e-government services, as well as the consequences of dealing with these circumstances for the local community and society in general. A better understanding of the COVID-19-related circumstances and consequences and their effects on providing e-services may help in preparing for possible future catastrophic events and also plan for new trends in socioeconomic developments. In particular, we set out to investigate two research questions: What specific circumstances arose from COVID-19 that may impact e-government services, and how do circumstances caused by COVID-19 affect the provision of e-government services? Our findings show that circumstances that arose from COVID-19 center around physical changes in operations, shifts in volume and types of services, changes in employee attitudes and behaviors, and changes in regulations and enforcements. These circumstances resulted in shifts to e-services, including e-payments, reorganization of work with a shift towards remote work, a shift toward e-voting, and increased use of electronic signatures, thus a general shift towards more digitalization and towards an e-society. Though these changes in operational procedures may have been forced by the immediate circumstances (Gabryelczyk, 2020) and some of them may be temporary, it is likely that there will not be a complete return to the previous way of conducting business, and we should rather expect long-lasting transformations in societal communication and interaction.

As to how the circumstances that arose due to the COVID-19 pandemic affect the continuing provision of e-government services and the demands of the public, our findings show increased workload, delays, and adaptations to demand as further consequences due to COVID-19. However, the increased workloads and delays may be short-term, as adaptations not only to demands of the public but also to the changed work environment take place. These adaptations though are likely to have lasting effects, as new rules and operational procedures are implemented, thus confirming the expectations set out by focusing event theory, where certain events potentially trigger extensive public policy changes.

Consequences of changes in regulations and enforcements that accompanied COVID-19 include increased printing of documents due to distrust in electronic documents, further increased workload and delays due to increases of imposed fines and fast-changing regulations as well as legal restrictions on e-services. Furthermore, quarantine requirements resulted in staff reassignments. Many of these measures are likely to be provisional but may indicate the type of responses and measures that arise from disasters. As the move to more digitalization in general continues, and society moves closer to an e-society, distrust in electronic documents and on-line services are likely to lessen, and a new ‘normal’ way of doing business will evolve. It is also possible that for some people, especially less well-off individuals, printing e-documents may not necessarily be indicative of distrust in electronic documents, but rather may be a matter of practicality, as paper copies require no special equipment or access to the internet to be viewed.

Besides the overall accelerated shift to digitalization, perhaps the most significant impact of COVID-19 on e-government and on society in general is the changes in attitudes and behaviors. An immediate response to these changes is a new focus on offering work motivation to employees. Though most people, according to many studies, have intrinsic motivation to perform their jobs well and to do what is best for the community, concerns by employees for physical safety, job security, and the stress of dealing with a changed environment have to be addressed. Long-term, these changes in attitudes and behaviors will likely have a strong impact on the types and formats of services provided through e-government.

The research findings discussed above were obtained from a pilot study as part of a larger research project, which is currently still underway. We expect that our further investigation in this project will give us additional perceptions on the aspects discussed here. Specifically, it should provide us with more insights as to what extent the changes observed are likely to be short-term or long-lasting.

We also understand that our results may be specific to Poland, a double transition economy, as pointed out earlier, and results in other environments, in countries with a longer history of democratic government, market economic system, and higher standards of living, would be different. It is possible that some of the consequences of COVID-19 seen in Poland may already have been common operational practices in other societies.

Concluding observations

Contribution

City Halls and other local authorities play a vital role in sustaining economic and social activities during catastrophic events, such as COVID-19. In general, local authorities have closer contact and are more directly involved with citizens and other residents than central or national government bodies. Even during troubling times, City Halls and other local administrative bodies are expected to continue to provide essential services to individual residents and to business entities, such as issuing identification documents and driver’s licenses, and recording marriages, births, and deaths. Many of these documents, such as birth and death certificates need to be issued and delivered without delay and e-government furnishes a viable means for providing these services promptly.

In our interviews with six managers at a City Hall in Poland, we witnessed their dedication to providing the best possible services to their constituents. In addition, it was apparent that more consultation with the citizenry is wished-for and should be pursued as widely as possible. Current technology makes greater participation by citizens in important matters possible. Participation by electronic means (e-participation) allows members of groups that previously were largely excluded or chose not to participate, to get more involved, changing socioeconomic dynamics.

The study reported in the current paper was conducted as a pilot in preparation for a larger project, with the overall goal of expanding our understanding of e-government during and in the aftermath of catastrophic events. The pilot study was an exploratory study aimed at identifying the noteworthy circumstances that may arise during such events and that warrant further investigation as to their significance for socioeconomic development as well as determine potential measures and technologies that may help address these new circumstances to improve the lives of impacted residents. Based on our experience with the interviews conducted and our document analysis, we will modify and refine our interview protocols, adding several narrower and more precise questions to more directly investigate the already identified circumstances or issues and their consequences to future development. Moreover, the lessons learned from the pilot study will also allow us to develop additional research questions, digging deeper into e-society areas that affect social progress. For example, we will have specific questions focusing on greater involvement by residents in public decision-making through e-participation and voting on civic budgets (participatory budgeting) via e-voting. For the larger project, which is planned as a multiple case study, we will conduct interviews at several City Halls and talk to a larger number of participants, resulting in a larger and broader data set.

We used focusing event theory as a lens in evaluating the data obtained from our interviews, and overall we found that COVID-19 when viewed as an attention-grabbing event (it grabbed everybody’s attention for quite a while, as for example in Poland, the state of epidemic emergency related to COVID-19 lasted for more than three years) has triggered extensive changes, not only in public policy, but also in people's attitudes and behaviors. As asserted by DeLeo et al. (2021), the understanding of focusing events should include longer-duration events, such as pandemics, which facilitate multiple opportunities for policy changes. Thus, our study contributes to academic research in that it demonstrates a wider application of focusing event theory in a research setting that examined the views of people with first-hand experience in dealing with COVID-19, a catastrophic event, and its consequences.

Limitations

Not unexpectedly, our study presented in this paper is subject to some limitations. First, our discussions and results are based on only six decision-makers working at the same City Hall. However, these six decision-makers provided us with rich content and interviewing more participants working at various City Halls in the continuation of this project may provide an even broader and more extensive outlook. Second, we only talked to people who were involved with offering e-government services. We did not obtain views or observations from citizens and residents on their appreciation of the offered e-government services. Third, we did not get input from politicians and other high-level decision-makers who may be instrumental in the implementation of e-services. Politicians’ views, especially from diverse levels, locales, and political affiliations, would provide a different angle on the issues involved. Fourth, we did not interview any businesspeople representing small businesses or executives at large corporations, who, as mentioned by our interviewees, have different attitudes to e-government services as compared to average citizens. Obtaining inputs from all these groups provides further avenues for future research.

Future research opportunities

Our findings point to several additional research opportunities or needs, beyond what may be addressed in our larger project, though our larger project may touch on some of these topics. One such research opportunity is the intensifying drive towards electronic documents and citizens’ acceptance and embrace of such documents.

A related opportunity for future research is the growing practice of e-payments. As mentioned earlier, the temporary closing of City Hall offices, including cash registers, pushed constituents who were used to paying administrative processing fees or taxes in cash, toward making digital payments. However, this may be problematic for clients who do not have bank accounts or are unwilling to participate in financial transactions other than via cash and may also be a strong inhibitor of using e-services when case processing fees are imposed.

Another research opportunity is related to societal changes in the aftermath of COVID-19. As observed by some of the interviewees, citizens are becoming increasingly more demanding and more frequently voice their discontent with the work or services provided by the authorities. In addition, deteriorating economic conditions during the aftermath of COVID-19 often primarily hit the neediest members of society, who may struggle to merely survive.

Harrison and Williams (2016) argue that a system approach to disasters can help develop the tools that support the resilience of communities in dealing with such events and recover by making the necessary adaptations. Focusing event theory has been used in explaining natural disasters, but as mentioned earlier, pandemics may not meet all the characteristics of focusing events (DeLeo et al., 2021). Identifying the new circumstances that arise in catastrophic events and gaining a better understanding of the reactions by individuals, organizations, and communities to such events may lead to new theories that may help explain and deal with future catastrophic occurrences.

More research is also needed on new concepts and tools, such as e-voting, not only for general elections, but also in internal decision-making within organizations and specific committees (Moynihan, 2004). According to Svensson and Leenes (2003), e-voting can be defined as any voting that involves electronic means. As catastrophic events may coincide with local, regional, or national elections, availability of e-voting may allow elections to proceed as scheduled and prevent disarray in governance. However, e-voting poses security risks, including voter fraud, and the mechanism employed for e-voting must include high levels of control and transparency to avoid controversy and distrust. When authorities in charge of election procedures establish a credible and reliable process, then e-voting will likely be perceived with trust by the citizens, as a study from Brazil reports (Avgerou et al., 2009). Apart from the usefulness of e-voting in public elections, that is, citizens electing their representatives, this new technology can also enable members of representative bodies conduct their internal voting in virtual sessions.

Ways to in general facilitate and promote more active participation of constituents in local decision-making via digital means (e-participation) seems to be an interesting and promising further research direction. e-Democracy, e-voting, e-parliament are all interesting topics for future investigations, where e-democracy is defined as the use of ICT in democratic processes (Grönlund, 2003) and e-parliament is defined as the use of ICT in legislative processes (Olasina & Mutula, 2015). In particular, it will be interesting to investigate how COVID-19 which evidently accelerated the digital transformation (Soto-Acosta, 2020), affected the demand and implementation of e-parliaments as the means of e-democracy. As shown in the example of e-voting on the civic budget, COVID-19 accelerated residents’ participation in the democratic process of co-deciding, by e-voting, on public spending in their city. Thus, it is quite plausible that citizens will demand increasingly broader direct involvement in government, i.e. more e-democracy, not limited to budgetary issues at a local level. The interaction of socioeconomic development with the accelerating move towards an e-society, i.e. a society in which digital technology drives most of our daily activities, is another interesting area of future investigation.

Complicating matters further in our current global environment is the necessity for local governments to adapt actions prescribed by national or international organizations to local conditions (Roztocki et al., 2019). These international institutions and global networks are ‘important political forces’ (Navarra, 2010, p. 137) that need to be considered when implementing large computer systems at the national level. This topic clearly deserves future investigation.

Another future research opportunity is related to the settings. As we pointed out earlier, our study was conducted in Poland, a double transition level economy, and we may expect results in other environment with a longer tradition of democratic government and free market economy to be different. It may be interesting to investigate and compare the sociocultural impacts on reactions to catastrophic events in transition and more mature market economies.

For transition economies, it would be interesting to examine if consequences of catastrophic events, such as COVID-19, would act as catalysts for ‘recognition of need for new approaches and models’ (Roztocki & Weistroffer, 2015). According to Roztocki and Weistroffer (2015), this realization phase is typical as a antecedent to closing the gap phase, i.e. before catching up and becoming part of the industrialized and developed sphere

Final remarks

Though primarily serving as a pilot study for a larger project, the analysis of our interview transcripts already produced several interesting findings as to the important circumstances that impact e-government in times of catastrophic events, as summarized in Tables 3 and 4.

To conclude, despite the limitations of our study, which also provide noteworthy ideas for more research, we are very positive that the findings presented in this paper make an interesting and relevant contribution to the existing body of knowledge, and possibly also offer helpful information to managers in other city administrations responsible for delivering e-government services.

Acknowledgement

We would like to express our thanks to all the employees at the City Hall who participated in our interviews and dedicated their valuable time while sharing their first-hand experiences. Their support, suggestions, and remarkably congenial attitude toward our research is not only instrumental for the pilot study described in this paper but also for the larger project that we intend to pursue in the near future. An earlier version of this work was presented at the pre-ICIS workshop of the AIS Special Interest Group on Global Development (SIGGlobDev) in Austin, Texas, in December 2021. We thank the workshop participants for their valuable comments and suggestions for improving the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Polish National Science Centre, Poland, grant number 2020/37/B/HS4/01117.