From IT solutions to citizen benefits : A case study of IT value in a public sector context.

Abstract: While the increase of IT solutions within the public sector is well established, the actual value of IT is still a question of debate. This thesis consists of an interpretive case study focused on how IT is perceived to influence public value creation in a local government. The study was conducted in a strategic IT project department at a local government in Sweden. Our findings show that the IT solution is ignored when assessing the created public value. The created values importance is instead based on subjective opinion and the targeted citizen group despite the acknowledgement that IT resources directly used by the citizen created higher public value. In addition the prioritisation of public value was perceived as more difficult than determining the IT value in itself. Our research show the need of understanding how IT values compare to each other in order to use public resources more efficiently.