Options
Charlotte-Katharina Lekkas
Former Member
Title
Dr.
Last Name
Lekkas
First name
Charlotte-Katharina
Phone
+41 71 224 71 00
Now showing
1 - 6 of 6
-
PublicationBureaucracy meets digital reality: The unfolding of urban platforms in European municipal governmentsThe rise of digital technologies provides an opportunity to study smart cities as new organizational forms. We ask whether and how digital platforms and ecosystems affect the bureaucratic governance of municipal governments. To this end, we offer a multiple case analysis based on rich empirical, longitudinal data of seven European smart cities. We find that the contradicting logic of platform governance creates organisational tensions within the bureaucratic municipal government and at the interface between the municipal government and its external partners. We distil a process that describes how these tensions are resolved through a temporary shift to a non-bureaucratic work mode, and the subsequent formalisation and institutionalisation of those practices as new bureaucratic rules. We make three contributions. First, we contribute to the smart-city literature by outlining an overarching process of how data-driven technologies affect bureaucratic municipal governments. Second, we contribute to the ongoing conversation about the changing nature of Weberian bureaucracy showing how bureaucracy preserves its core while simultaneously adapting to and shaping its environment. Third, we highlight the role of lower-echelon bureaucrats as change agents who devise rules at the intersection of technological and societal development.Type: journal articleJournal: Organization StudiesVolume: 44Issue: 10
Scopus© Citations 3 -
PublicationCircular business model implementation: Design choices, orchestration strategies, and transition pathways for resource-sharing solutions(Elsevier Science, 2021-01)
-
PublicationType: journal articleJournal: Journal of Business Venturing Insights
-
PublicationFIGHTING THE (RIGHT) WINDMILLS: An extended view on business model innovation impediments for the energy transition(R&D Management Conference 2019 - The Innovation Challenge: Bridging Research, Industry and Society, 2019-06-21)
-
PublicationOpenness and Governance of Innovation Platforms in non-traditional Platform Industries(International Society for Professional Innovation Management ISPIM, 2019-06-17)
-
PublicationThe encounter of digital platforms and ecosystems with bureaucratic organizations in smart citiesThe rise of digital technologies provides an opportunity to study smart cities as new organizational forms. Accordingly, smart cities have recently been conceptualized as platforms (Appio et al., 2019) that organize complementors around a municipality-run, platform-based ecosystem to enable technology-driven urban entrepreneurship (Barns, 2016; OReilly, 2010). However, municipal governments face organizational challenges during the implementation of this government as a platform approach (OReilly, 2010, p. 13). These challenges arise because municipal governments exhibit features of Weberian bureaucracy (Weber, 1921/1976). While bureaucracy is based on hierarchical decision-making, official roles, and excluding the public from internal operations, platforms promote openness, transparency and loosely coupled interactions between a heterogeneous group of actors (Gawer, 2014). This dissertation is motivated by calls for more empirical investigations of public organizations (Arellano-Gault et al., 2013) and how decentralized management approaches (such as platforms) alter, replace, or reinforce bureaucratic authority systems (Lounsbury & Carberry, 2005, p. 515). The central research question is: How do municipal governments adapt their bureaucratic governance to accommodate the decentralized governance of urban platforms and their ecosystems? Due to the lack of empirical studies on this phenomenon, I use grounded and inductive methods (Eisenhardt, 1989; Glaser & Strauss, 1967) to cross-examine seven municipal governments in Europe. Between 2018 to 2020, I collected a rich dataset that includes 76 interviews, on-site observations, and undisclosed archival data. These data allow me to explain how municipal government officers resolve organizational tensions by first applying non-bureaucratic governance mechanisms before institutionalizing resulting organizational changes. Contradicting past research, I find that technology does not dictate the organizational structure and governance. Rather, bureaucracy adapts to integrate the government as a platform approach into its existing structures. Further, my process highlights the paradoxical role of lower-echelon bureaucrats who act as both the custodians and change agents of bureaucracy. My dissertation makes original contributions to three research streams. First, I contribute to the smart-city literature by providing detailed empirical insights into municipal governments. Second, I contribute to the ongoing debate about the changing nature of Weberian bureaucracy in the context of smart cities. Third, I make an empirical contribution to the theory on platform governance.Type: doctoral thesis