Navigating Public Values: How the Social Construction of Technology among Public Managers Defines the Nature of Public Values: Findings from a Japanese e-Government Project

Abstract

E-government literature has widely investigated how different understandings of technology impact on the trajectory of technology-based policies and projects. Yet, limited attention has been given to the effects that the social construction of technology has on the public values that public organizations aim to achieve through e-government projects. Building on technological frames theory, the paper aims to offer a contribution to public value literature: we show how different understandings of technology within public organizations define the nature of the public values related to policies and projects. The paper relies on the findings of a Japanese government web portal case to illustrate how the different frames of technology forced the public managers to rethink the organization strategy, and how this had an effect on the transformation and change of the public values the e-government project aimed to achieve.