Speaker: Sara Hofmann

Abstract: In spite of massive investment and increased adoption of digital services, citizens continue to use traditional channels to interact with public organizations. The channel choice (CC) field of research tries to understand citizens’ interactions with public authorities to make the interaction more efficient and increase citizen satisfaction. However, most studies have been conducted either as surveys of hypothetical services or in experimental settings, leading to a lack of empirical data from actual use contexts. Therefore, in the lunchtime seminar, I will present the results of a sequential mixed methods study which combines observations of citizen-caseworker interaction in a call center, contextual interviews with callers, and a survey classifying topics from 10,000 telephone calls. Specifically, the study explores the multiplex nature of real-life CC and the problems which cause people to call.

Short Bio: Sara Hofmann is an Associate Professor in Information Systems at the University of Agder in Kristiansand, Norway. Her research focuses on digitisation in the public sector and especially its impact on different parts of the society. She received a PhD in Information Systems from the University of Münster where she also worked as a postdoctoral researcher. Afterwards, she was Assistant Professor in Digital Media in the Public Sector at the University of Bremen. Together with Michael Räckers, Sara is head of the Competence Center E-Government at the European Research Center for Information Systems (ERCIS).