ICT and discretion: An “up-to-date” view of what we want to know and how it can be studied

Abstract

The discretion of street-level bureaucrats is increasingly affected by public sector digitalisation. The aim of this study was to provide a scoping review with “state of the art” of research about information and communication technology (ICT) and discretion for the period January 2017–October 2022. The specific emphasis was on the methodologies used in research targeting ICT and discretion to provide ideas for future research. Street-level bureaucrats’ managing and copying, surveys of their attitudes and the more direct influence of ICT on discretion and literature reviews in various contexts often related to public values were common themes in research. A repertoire of research approaches was used: case studies with or without empirical data, more and less structured literature reviews, surveys with or without experiments and document analyses. In contrast to an oft-cited literature review of digital discretion from 2018, the far most common types of technology were artificial intelligence. A number of approaches for describing technology were often based on sociotechnical theories or similar. Few studies provided detailed descriptions of the more specific role of technology. However, inspiring examples were found of how to bring forward aspects of the full decision process or the infrastructure with all the appearing technologies. This result could serve as an inspiration for reflections about what we should describe and what we should want to understand in studies about ICT and discretion, as well as to highlight gaps in research. Important examples are the ´design dimension´ of discretion both in terms of the being specific about the full repertoire of the appearing technologies and the humans that influence the design. A critical mass of studies with more detailed descriptions of technologies is needed to generate a theoretical understanding.