In this paper, we report on a qualitative exploratory case study of a national-level government-led digital transformation. We depart from most studies on government digital transformation that largely focus on improving existing services, bureaucratic processes, or adopting emerging digital technologies. Instead, we analyze the process of a government-led digital transformation aimed at addressing significant institutional voids within a resource-constrained context. Drawing from 60 interviews with stakeholders in the Ghanaian FinTech ecosystem, we theorize the concept of digital branching strategy as an alternative lens to envisage government-led digital transformation that considers the resource-constrained context and characteristics of governments. Our findings show that governments, especially those in resource-constrained contexts pursue digital transformation through exploring frugal innovations and leveraging established resources, structures, and relationships within an ecosystem. We subsequently develop a process model to explain the mechanisms of a national-level government-led digital transformation. Based on the findings and the model, our study offers critical insights to re-imagine government-led digital transformation in resource-constrained contexts by demonstrating how pursuing a digital branching strategy leads to planned and emergent outcomes because of the generative nature of the transformation.

中文翻译：

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政府主导的金融科技生态系统数字化转型


在本文中，我们报告了国家级政府主导的数字化转型的定性探索性案例研究。我们与大多数关于政府数字化转型的研究不同，这些研究主要侧重于改善现有服务、官僚流程或采用新兴数字技术。相反，我们分析了政府主导的数字化转型的过程，旨在解决资源有限背景下的重大制度空白。根据对加纳金融科技生态系统利益相关者的 60 次采访，我们将数字分支战略的概念理论化，作为设想政府主导的数字化转型的替代视角，同时考虑到政府资源有限的环境和特征。我们的研究结果表明，政府，尤其是资源有限的政府，通过探索节俭创新和利用生态系统内现有的资源、结构和关系来追求数字化转型。随后，我们开发了一个流程模型来解释国家级政府主导的数字化转型的机制。基于研究结果和模型，我们的研究通过展示由于转型的生成性而追求数字分支战略如何导致计划中的和紧急的结果，为在资源有限的背景下重新构想政府主导的数字化转型提供了重要的见解。