Abstract
Digitalization has been a major reform trend in public administration. However, the growing body of literature on barriers and implementation challenges raises questions about inertia in the reform process. This study adapts the concept of organizational inertia to the public sector to analyse how different implementation approaches to digital government reforms impact its emergence. To do so, two advanced digital public services in Germany, the internet-based vehicle registration (bottom-up digitalization) and the electronic tax return (top-down digitalization), are examined. Integrating survey data of public employees (n = 831) and expert interviews (n = 45), the study provides new perspectives for both theory and practice regarding the implementation of digital transformation. First, the study finds that both approaches effectively mitigate different inertial forces, challenging the idea of a generally inert public sector. Second, it emphasizes the need for a more nuanced approach that balances top-down commitment to reduce political inertia at the sector level with bottom-up involvement to address inertia at the individual level. Third, it proposes an adapted conceptual model of organizational inertia that recognizes the public sector’s distinct formal rules.
Keywords
Introduction
As one of the most significant reform trends in public administration in recent years, digitalization has challenged traditional ways of public service provision (Dunleavy and Margetts, 2025; Kuhlmann and Heuberger, 2023). However, both researchers and practitioners have reported substantial hurdles in implementing these reforms (Di Giulio and Vecchi, 2023). While there is growing research on barriers to digitalization, there is a need for a more systematic understanding of the underlying causes of stagnation and change. As studies indicate, these extend beyond technical and operational matters to encompass institutional barriers (Savoldelli et al., 2014), suggesting that institutional arrangements play a pivotal role in digitalization reforms (Fountain, 2001; Tassabehji et al., 2016). On the one hand, locally developed solutions with a bottom-up diffusion process are argued to be more effective, highlighting the socio-technical interaction between people and digital technologies and the importance of acceptance at the operational level (Di Giulio and Vecchi, 2019; Niehaves, 2007). On the other hand, authoritative intervention and central mechanisms are emphasised when adopting digital tools in public administrations (Dunleavy and Margetts, 2025; Hammerschmid et al., 2024a; Scholta et al., 2025). Especially in federal contexts, establishing central structures that provide adequate steering and oversight mechanisms is deemed essential (Rackwitz et al., 2021).
This study aims to address these competing claims by adapting the theoretical notion of inertia, put forth to describe organizations’ stickiness to current processes, to public sector digitalization (Hannan and Freeman, 1984). While the concept has long been addressed in the Social Sciences and has become increasingly influential in analysing technological change in the private sector (Schmid, 2019), its role in the digitalization process of the public sector remains relatively unexplored. This study fills this gap by analysing organizational inertia in digitalization reforms conducted within predominantly top-down versus bottom-up institutional setups. The objective is to evaluate whether the digitalization approach impacts dimensions of organizational inertia differently. Therefore, the research addresses the question: How does the digitalization approach impact inertia in public administration? Specifically, it examines whether a bottom-up or top-down approach to digitalization reforms proves more effective in reducing organizational inertia.
Responding to the growing advocacy for mixed methods research designs in Public Administration, this study adopts a mixed methods approach (Hendren et al., 2018). It surveys the perception of organizational inertia among local government employees during their administrations’ digitalization processes and integrates the results with data from expert interviews. The study adopts a case-comparative design, focusing on two digital public services: internet-based vehicle registration, implemented as a bottom-up initiative by vehicle registration offices fulfilling a local self-government task, and the digitalization of income tax assessment in local tax offices under federal executive administration, classifying as a top-down initiative. The study reveals the emergence of distinct inertial forces in both top-down and bottom-up digitalization reform approaches, emphasizing the need to maintain a careful equilibrium between top-down commitment to reduce political inertia at the sector level and bottom-up involvement to address inertia at the individual level.
In the next section, the conceptual framework is introduced, adapting organizational inertia to the specificities of the public sector. On this basis, the methodological considerations for the survey, expert interviews, and case selection are outlined. The results of the mixed methods data analysis are then presented and contrasted, followed by a concluding discussion on how the digitalization approaches influence different dimensions of inertia and its broader implications.
Conceptual framework
Digital government transformation is a unique kind of administrative reform due to the potentially disruptive nature of digital innovations, which transcend organizational boundaries to affect a diversified group of interconnected actors, organizational sectors, and society (Besson and Rowe, 2012; Kaganer et al., 2023; Vial, 2019). It is defined as a series of socio-technical changes enabled by digital technologies that encompass (infra-)structural, procedural, and cultural modifications, along with shifts in roles and relationships within and across organizations (Tangi et al., 2021). Consequently, digitalization reforms unfold within specific institutional setups, which shape responses to emerging issues and thus serve as pivotal explanatory factors for the adoption of reforms (Fountain, 2001; Kuhlmann and Wollmann, 2019). Historically, incremental bottom-up innovations have been the dominant approach to change in the German public sector (Wollmann, 2000). Especially after reform disillusionment at the end of the 1980s, top-down concepts were criticized (Jann, 1997). In the context of digital government reforms, both centralized and decentralized approaches, as well as a blend of both, are observed (Hammerschmid et al., 2024b; Rackwitz et al., 2021), with recent studies highlighting a reassertion of central steering mechanisms from the top in digitalization reforms (Dunleavy and Margetts, 2025; Hammerschmid et al., 2024a; Lindquist, 2022).
In light of the debate around different implementation styles, this study draws on neo-institutionalism and organizational ecology. Hannan and Freeman (1984) argue that organizations are subject to severe inertial pressures inhibiting their capacities to change due to formal and informal constraints within the institutional context. Scholars have linked inertia to the organization’s deep structure, thought of as the design and rules of the game, which exerts influence on the emergence of inertia through both internal and external environmental pressures (Gersick, 1991). In recent years, scholars have adapted the concept of inertia to digitalization in private sector firms, showing it to be a major barrier to digital transformation due to the creation of path dependencies (Vial, 2019). However, in the context of public sector digitalization, the concept has received limited theoretical attention (with notable exceptions such as Choi and Meyers Chandler (2020)). It is frequently invoked anecdotally, suggesting a general association of the public sector with inertia, often in contrast to a more dynamic and innovative private sector (Sørensen and Torfing, 2011). In this study, inertia is conceptualized in relation to pressures for organizational adaptation triggered by changes in the administrations’ environment – specifically, rising expectations of citizens and the political prioritization regarding digital transformation, evident in digitalization-related legislation. Inertia here does not pertain to the entire organization, but to those units and processes relevant for specific public service deliveries that are implicated in digital transformation. Importantly, inertia is not inherently viewed as a problem that must be overcome, as rigidity in form and functions can also contribute to stability (Kelly and Amburgey, 1991).
This study adapts the framework from Besson and Rowe (2012), which outlines five dimensions of organizational inertia – negative psychology, socio-cognitive, socio-technical, economic, and political –, by introducing legal inertia as a novel dimension. The original framework was developed based on the role of information systems in facilitating organizational transformation within enterprises. For this study, the conceptual refinement incorporates acknowledging the legal complexities and mechanisms specific to public administration. The concept of inertia, as used here, is neither understood as purely individual resistance to change nor as a strictly macro-level or resource-centric perspective on the incapacity of organizational systems to adapt to environmental shifts. Instead, the conceptualization emphasizes its multidimensionality, enabling an integrated, more holistic approach that reflects the complexity of the phenomenon of digital government transformation and aids in understanding how different inertial forces come into play in parallel (Mikalef et al., 2021). This comes with the limitation of a certain degree of abstraction, which does not allow for in-depth treatment of all contributing aspects. Accordingly, the dimensions of organizational inertia should be considered in relation to neighbouring concepts, as scholars employ different terminology to denote change-impeding forces aligned with their specific research paradigm.
Negative psychology inertia must be understood in reference to resistance to change (Ford et al., 2008) and status quo bias (Samuelson and Zeckhauser, 1988) and is rooted in negative emotions due to fear. Research has shown its association with exhaustion and counterproductive work behaviour (De Longis et al., 2022). For instance, in a study on the adoption of big data analytics, Mikalef et al. (2021) found that experienced employees feared that its implementation would diminish the value of their skills.
Socio-cognitive inertia incorporates an interactionist dimension related to shared cultural assumptions (Cooper, 1994). Organizational changes are inhibited due to the continuous re-enactment of collectively held assumptions, values, and norms, encapsulated as organizational culture (Schein, 1992). For instance, in a U.K. retail bank, Audzeyeva and Hudson (2017) demonstrated that deeply ingrained yet outdated industry beliefs about customer behaviour impeded the acquisition of new knowledge, contributing to rigidity.
Socio-technical inertia links to the argument that the effects of digital transformation are contingent upon its actual use as part of a socio-technical assemblage (Fountain, 2001; Lips, 2019). It relates to path dependence, based on the notion of self-reinforcing (or ‘increasing returns’) processes that become increasingly irreversible, potentially leading to an organizational lock-in (Pierson, 2000; Schreyögg and Sydow, 2011). The continued use of a given tool may be driven by learning effects and adaptive expectations about potential future drawbacks of other options (Arthur, 1994; Pierson, 2000). This encompasses two interconnected aspects: resources and routines (Kaganer et al., 2023). For instance, Schmid (2019) conducted a case study on workplace IT infrastructure that illustrates how rigidity can stem from existing practices being replicated on new artefacts or from workarounds.
Economic inertia is related to path dependency, sunk costs, and switching costs (Keil et al., 1995; Klemperer, 1995; Rinta-Kahila et al., 2016) as well as fixed costs (Pierson, 2000). Organizations may persist in using outdated technology or analogue processes due to past resource allocation decisions and to withhold sunk costs. Moreover, organizations are inclined to stick with a technology when fixed costs are particularly high, and may further be deterred by transition expenses and insufficient financial resources from adopting alternatives. For example, according to Mikalef et al. (2017), top managers were hesitant to invest in big data analytics due to the perceived high costs outweighing the expected value.
In public administration, political inertia relates to the concepts of veto points (Immergut, 1990) and veto players (Tsebelis, 2002), as it considers that in moments of uncertainty, various stakeholders may obstruct or overturn (digitalization) policies. This rigidity due to vested interests can emerge at different levels. For instance, Mikalef et al. (2018) demonstrated how lock-in effects occurred when the organization’s ICT vendor restricted the use of their data in third-party tools, resulting in the termination of the collaboration between two partner organizations.
Lastly, legal inertia is introduced as a sixth dimension to acknowledge that public organizations operate within a distinct regulatory framework divergent from that of private sector firms (Gil-Garcia and Pardo, 2005). Previous research highlights the challenges posed by legal and regulatory factors, such as restrictive laws, to digital government initiatives (Rainey and Bozeman, 2000). Simultaneously, the lack of legal requirements and control mechanisms may also impede organizational change.
This conceptualization highlights the intricacy of inertia, enabling an integrated analytical approach that recognizes its manifestation in various forms and across different levels in response to pressures for digital adaptation. Accordingly, organizational inertia extends beyond both individual resistance to change and a mere macro-level perspective on organizational systems’ incapacity to adjust to changes in their environment. Within the context of digital government transformation, it encompasses perceived rigidity at the individual, group, organizational, and sector levels, bounded by the organizational units and processes implicated in reform efforts. The first group of dimensions, which includes negative psychology, socio-cognitive, and socio-technical inertia, considers psychological or socially constructed sources of inertia at the individual and group levels. The second group, encompassing economic, political, and legal inertia, relates to public employees’ perspectives on structural sources of inertia at the sector level. While these six dimensions differ in their ontological nature, they are treated as interrelated elements of organizational inertia as perceived by employees. Acknowledging the multi-level nature of the concept implies an awareness of the interconnectedness of dimensions and the interplay between agency and institutional contexts. Each dimension contributes to the overall understanding of inertia, forming a cohesive framework of complementary factors that cannot be addressed in isolation.
Research model and hypothesis
In the research model, top-down and bottom-up approaches to digitalization reforms are seen as the independent variables perceived as affecting negative psychology, socio-cognitive, socio-technical, economic, political, and legal inertia. Figure 1 displays the research model. Research model.
This study follows the distinction between a top-down and bottom-up approach to the implementation of digitalization reforms (Hammerschmid et al., 2019). Rather than being considered distinct categories, these terms are viewed as poles on a continuum (Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2017). A top-down approach is often linked with Traditional Public Administration or New Public Management paradigms. Conversely, a bottom-up approach can be associated with the Networked Governance paradigm, as it encompasses autonomy in implementation as well as stakeholder involvement in decision-making and the initiation of change (Hammerschmid et al., 2019; Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2017). The analysis is based on the premise that different digitalization approaches are linked to specific styles of strategy formulation and implementation within organizations. The literature distinguishes between rational implementation styles with hierarchical patterns of control and command, found in the top-down approach, and incremental, network-based implementation styles, found in the bottom-up approach (Andrews et al., 2012; Christensen and Lægreid, 2012). Each of these approaches is assumed to have distinct effects on the outcomes of reform implementation. Importantly, this distinction analytically refers to the degree to which the digitalization authority resides at the central or local levels of government, as well as the local authorities’ discretion concerning policy implementation (Marienfeldt et al., 2025). Individual perceptions may differ, meaning that even bottom-up digitalization involves some internal hierarchy and may still be experienced to a certain degree as top-down by street-level bureaucrats.
A hierarchical approach exercises authority from the top, with coherent directives being passed down the line (Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2017). Prioritizing a rational implementation style can boost organizational performance (Genc-Tetik, 2022) by enhancing task coordination and clarity of objectives (Molin and Norrman Brandt, 2025; Thorpe and Morgan, 2007). Research indicates that a strategic plan with clear goals is essential for successful implementation (Chustz and Larson, 2006; Kühler et al., 2025). Therefore, this study proposes that the top-down approach, emphasising accountability and governance through legal regulations, may reduce sector-level inertia by effectively distributing strategic competencies and resources. It is hypothesized as follows:
However, scholars have found that top-down implementation may overlook the necessity of active support from frontline workers to ensure effective implementation (Chustz and Larson, 2006) and may be less successful if the implementation approach does not align with the organizational culture (Genc-Tetik, 2022). Wegrich and Štimac (2014) concluded that hierarchical coordination can lead to reduced support from overruled organizational units, which could negatively affect the support during implementation. Therefore, it is assumed that the top-down approach may result in greater individual- and organizational-level inertia. The following hypotheses are proposed:
In the bottom-up approach, when relationships are more complex than in a vertical (hierarchical) approach, coordination among stakeholders can become increasingly challenging (Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2017), especially when spanning different sectors or organizational boundaries (Pollitt, 2016). Research by Andrews et al. (2012, 2017) also suggests that a mostly incremental approach may not be effective when implementing a strategy. While resources may be mobilized in both digitalization approaches, taking advantage of economies of scale can be a struggle in the bottom-up approach, resulting in inertia due to resource allocation decisions. Therefore, it is assumed that the bottom-up approach may lead to the perception of greater sector-level inertia. The following hypotheses are proposed:
The incremental, bottom-up implementation style emphasizes change management and strategy adaptation at the operational level (Andrews et al., 2012). Research highlights the importance of effective communication and employee participation for achieving change (Molin and Norrman Brandt, 2025; Van der Voet et al., 2016). In a bottom-up approach, organizational members actively shape reforms, fostering ownership based on local experience (Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2017). Further, successful reform implementation requires deep integration into the standard way of operations (Barrett, 2004). This study posits that the bottom-up approach reduces rigidity at the individual and organizational levels. The hypotheses are as follows:
Methods and case selection
A mixed methods approach is applied to investigate organizational inertia in digital government reforms. The study examines qualitative data from expert interviews in German tax and vehicle registration offices as well as quantitative data from an online survey of public employees. The chosen approach adds to a deeper understanding of the research problem, as well as the overall validity and reliability of conclusions. Its purpose is to triangulate and complement the findings, fostering improved interpretability by enriching and contextualizing the results (Hendren et al., 2018). While the qualitative data collection preceded the quantitative phase, both carry equal weight in the study’s design.
Cases: Tax offices and vehicle registration offices in Germany
The two cases of the tax and vehicle administration were chosen because they both provide relatively advanced digital public services, the electronic tax return and the internet-based vehicle registration, respectively. Both are routine procedures with large numbers of formalized transactions that are among the most frequently used administrative procedures in Germany. However, the two administrations differ greatly in their approaches to digitalization. Namely, the German tax administration adopts a top-down approach, centrally coordinated through an intergovernmental network, while the internet-based vehicle registration project follows a predominantly bottom-up strategy, driven by local government with decentralized autonomy.
Despite the decentralized nature of the German tax administration, digitalization follows a predominantly top-down approach, characterized by legally mandated cooperation in a multi-layered policy process (Wehmeier, 2024). A uniform digitalization strategy for consistent taxation is driven through intergovernmental cooperation within a digitalization network that concentrates competencies in specialized units. Regulated by an administrative agreement since 2007 and a federal law since 2019, this network defines strategic and operative steering responsibilities, as well as a binding implementation. All Länder participate in the network but delegate most authority to a body overseeing the IT architecture and strategy, comprising representatives from five Länder and chaired by the federal government. The federal government also leads the network’s management board, responsible for operational steering. Regarding policy legacies, the tax administration has considerably more experience in digitalization reforms than other areas in Germany, including a failed nationwide digitalization project that was discontinued in 2005 after 12 years of development.
The digitalization project for the internet-based vehicle registration in Germany is predominantly steered by the local governments. While the federal government sets standards and coordinates with the Länder, the overall digitalization approach is considered bottom-up. Local-level autonomy includes the right for local administrations to independently decide on internal organization and modernization matters (Wollmann, 2000). Consequently, the local authorities are in charge of technical, organizational, and personnel aspects, including the development and maintenance e-government portals, electronic interfaces, and specialized software. The implementation is not a specific, legally binding requirement for local governments but, at most, an indirect requirement through broader digitalization policies. The legacies of digitalization policy in the vehicle registration are shaped by a relatively recent reform period. Since 2015, it has gradually been digitalized, albeit amid political disputes. Initially, a federal office operated a central online portal for deregistration procedures, but constitutional objections from the local level led to its discontinuation in 2017, replaced by decentralized portals.
Procedure
The survey was conducted in January–March (vehicle registration offices) and May–June (tax offices) 2023. The survey was pilot-tested on individuals from the target population, and it was distributed to vehicle registration office employees via local governments’ staff councils, who were contacted by e-mail. The process was assisted by a letter of support from the United Services Union (ver.di). To reach the employees of the tax offices, both ver.di and the trade union for employees and civil servants in the tax administration (DSTG) circulated the survey among their members. Participation was anonymous. The survey achieved a 28% response rate from vehicle registration offices, with respondents from 263 of the 937 German local governments and a 34% response rate from 160 of the targeted 473 tax offices. Sample limitations include an unbalanced geographic distribution of responses, which can be attributed to the specific challenges of surveying local government officials, such as survey fatigue and severe time constraints (Krause et al., 2024). Moreover, the response rates varied among the Länder due to the federal administrative structure and varying levels of support from staff councils. While these aspects limit generalizability, the survey data are anticipated to provide valuable insights, particularly when combined with qualitative data.
The operationalization of organizational inertia is grounded on the term’s conceptualization along the aforementioned dimensions, and thus based on and adapted from extant research (additional details on the measurement and validation of constructs, as well as the undelying data are provided in the supplemental material). Regarding the ontological differences of the dimensions – ranging from psychological or socially constructed sources at the individual or group level to perceived structural sources at the sector level – the survey required a uniform operationalization based on employees' perceptions. However, the qualitative interviews were used to contextualize and capture the complexity of these dimensions, thereby triangulating insights and strengthening interpretive depth. In the survey, organizational inertia items were measured on a 5-point Likert scale. To ensure comparability across indicators, the items were recoded so that higher values uniformly indicate greater perceived inertia. The administration type was measured as a categorical variable and dummy coded. The building administration serves as the reference category because its digitalization approach is neither purely top-down nor bottom-up. 1 While the model does not aim to estimate mediation effects but rather direct associations between the digitalization approach and various dimensions of perceived organizational inertia, relevant moderator effects are taken into account. It is assumed that the age, tenure, and received training of the respondents moderate the impact of the digitalization approach on negative psychology, socio-cognitive, and socio-technical inertia, respectively, based on human capital theory (Becker, 1964), which suggests that accumulated experience and investment in skills influence individual adaptability and openness to change. For the tax administration, it is assumed that belonging to a Land with authority within the digitalization network will moderate the relationship with political inertia.
For the data analysis, structural equation modelling (SEM) was employed, allowing for the simultaneous estimation of relationships between multiple latent variables while accounting for measurement errors, which is particularly important given the use of perception-based data. Due to data with non-normal distributions and the use of both multi- and single-item constructs, it was opted for PLS-SEM, a statistical modelling technique that estimates path models through ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions (Hair et al., 2022). The analysis was performed using SmartPLS 4.0 software. A bootstrap analysis with 10,000 samples was conducted to estimate the significance of the loadings and path coefficients. To evaluate the missing data in the dataset of 1577 cases, a within-case and within-variable analysis was performed. It revealed a total of 1496 missing values accounting for 6.32% of the total number of values. Little’s MCAR test rejected the assumption that the data were missing completely at random (χ2 = 1792, df = 1548, p < .001). Given the relatively low proportion of missing values and the sufficiently large remaining sample size, a complete-case approach (listwise deletion) was applied, resulting in a final dataset of 831 respondents.
For the qualitative part, semi-structured expert interviews were conducted with 45 public officials, comprising 23 officials from the administrations dealing with vehicle registration and 22 from the tax administration. At the local level, interviewees were heads of office, case workers, and staff councils. At the Land level, policy contexts were discussed with ministerial representatives, and both IT and training stakeholders shared their expertise. While the authorities were selected based on theoretical considerations, a certain degree of research pragmatism was necessary to gain access to the field. Regarding internet-based vehicle registration, local authorities with higher usage numbers were identified, serving as a metric for advanced digitalization. The interviews were conducted from January 2021 to June 2022, either over the phone, via video call, or in-person at the interviewee’s workplace. The interview guidelines included general questions about the service and its digitalization process, as well as questions about changes in organization, performance, and personnel. The guidelines were tailored to the interviewee’s position and allowed for narrative responses. The interviews were transcribed and then analysed based on qualitative content analysis using MaxQDA software, following an abductive coding approach (Rädiker and Kuckartz, 2020). Specifically, coding focused on sections that were discerned as reflective of either the presence or absence of each inertia dimension. Limitations regarding the study’s reliability due to data analysis by a single researcher were addressed through detailed documentation and discussions with other researchers. Importantly, diverse perspectives from actors across various Länder and authorities within a Land were systematically included to increase reliability (Enticott, 2004). It should be noted, however, that the study measures perceptions and infers correlations rather than providing causal evidence, which limits the generalizability of results.
Results and findings
Assessment of the measurement model
For the validity and reliability of the measurement of multi-item constructs, rhoc was used to assess internal consistency, and the average variance extracted (AVE) was used to evaluate convergent validity (Hair et al., 2019). The loadings of the reflectively measured constructs of socio-technical, economic, and legal inertia are above the suggested threshold (<0.7), except for one value (Competence = 0.693), which is retained to preserve content validity despite being slightly below the threshold. All rhoc values range from 0.7 to 0.9, indicating good internal consistency reliability, and all AVE values are above 0.5, demonstrating strong convergent validity (Hair et al., 2019). For discriminant validity assessment, the heterotrait–monotrait ratio of correlations (HTMT) was used. All HTMT values are below 0.85, ensuring the empirical uniqueness of the construct measures (Hair et al., 2019).
Assessment of the structural model
Significance testing and predictive validity (R2).
Note. ***p < 0.001, **p < 0.01, *p < 0.05, two-tailed p-value, n = 831. CI = Bias corrected confidence intervals. Bootstrapping = 10,000.
Outcomes of the structural model after running the PLS analysis.
The results of the PLS-SEM were integrated with the qualitative findings to test the hypotheses. These are presented for each inertia dimension in the following sections. The analysis indicated that the bottom-up approach negatively affects negative psychology inertia, supporting H2d, and that the top-down approach negatively affects political inertia, supporting H1b. Furthermore, the analysis supported hypotheses H1e and H1f regarding the positive effects of the top-down approach on socio-cognitive and socio-technical inertia.
Negative psychology inertia
The model revealed a significant negative relationship between the bottom-up approach and negative psychology inertia (β = −0.347, p < 0.001), which is supported by the qualitative analysis. While there were some initial concerns regarding staff reductions and additional workload among the employees, most remained neutral or viewed digitalized service provision as “a good thing” (VEH09, case worker). In fact, according to interviewed staff council members, digitalization should be promoted “because it can support the employees” (VEH17, staff council), for instance by creating desired opportunities for more flexible work.
Both data sources converge on the observation that the top-down approach exerts neither a positive nor a negative impact on the perceived stress of employees around adapting their way of working, with the model not indicating a significant relationship (β = 0.003, p > 0.05). However, the qualitative data showed that tax office employees displayed more resistance to change, linked to a sense of restriction and external control. Some employees felt reduced to mere “data entry clerks” (TAX05, head of office) due to increased automation, according to the motto: “Now the machine does my work. The machine tells me what I have to check” (TAX02, management Land Ministry of Finance). The interviewees felt they were not sufficiently involved, resulting in a more negative perception of the reform process. Building acceptance of technical change was considered one of the biggest challenges, also in light of partly negatively perceived prior reform experiences, particularly among older colleagues. This is supported by the significant and positive moderating effect of age on negative-psychology inertia in a top-down approach (β = 0.328, p < 0.01).
Socio-cognitive inertia
The analysis of socio-cognitive inertia revealed a statistically highly significant positive relationship with the tax administration (β = 0.575, p < 0.001). In accordance with this, the expert interviews highlighted the “pain and change of mentality” (TAX02, management Land Ministry of Finance) faced during the digitalization process. Employees faced a shift from quality- to quantity-oriented work, which created conflicts with their prevailing self-image and difficulties in adapting, particularly among those with more experience: “We once had a colleague who said, ‘I am a tax specialist, not a computer specialist. How am I supposed to handle this now?’” (TAX14, case worker/staff council). This aligns with the quantitative findings where a slightly significant interaction effect of tenure and the top-down approach was observed (β = 0.575, p > 0.05).
The quantitative analysis did not indicate a significant direct effect of the bottom-up approach on socio-cognitive inertia (β = −0.252, p > 0.05). However, the moderating effect of tenure on this relationship was significant and positive (β = 0.538, p < 0.01), meaning that as tenure decreases, the bottom-up approach is associated with lower levels of socio-cognitive inertia. This suggests that employees with fewer years of service, who may not yet have deeply internalized the organization’s established norms and values, are more receptive to the discretion in reform implementation provided by the bottom-up approach. Similarly, the qualitative data revealed that the bottom-up approach allowed for greater adaptability to local needs, minimizing socio-cognitive inertia. For instance, some authorities created specialized units to handle digital applications, while others qualified only a select number of employees to manage digital applications.
Socio-technical inertia
The top-down approach demonstrated a statistically slightly significant positive relationship with socio-technical inertia (β = 0.348, p < 0.05). The interviews substantiated this result, reporting instances of certain digital tools not being used as intended, often due to perceived technical deficiencies or a lack of digital skills. The interviewees expressed a sense of being left on their own as users of the digital systems, wishing for more support. As one interviewee explained, “they always publish some instructions and other things, but sometimes it’s 140 pages, nobody reads that” (TAX10, management). The analysis indicated that the moderating effect of having received training on using digital tools was not statistically significant.
In contrast, the bottom-up approach did not show a significant relationship with socio-technical inertia (β = −0.252, p > 0.05). While the qualitative data generally supported this, it further indicated that the bottom-up approach may exhibit a particular reliance on multiple software developers and portal operators with incompatible interfaces, leading to path dependencies due to limited intergovernmental coordination.
Economic inertia
A statistically highly significant positive relationship was found between the top-down approach and economic inertia (β = 0.907, p < 0.001). The interviews provided additional context, indicating that economic inertia emerged at the local level and hindered hardware procurement and employee training, despite overall sufficient financial resources for software development and maintenance. The data suggests that economic inertia emerges without the awareness of those steering the reform, who argued that the arguably slow progress of digitalization “is not due to a lack of money” (TAX02, management Land Ministry of Finance).
The interviews revealed that economic inertia only emerged in the vehicle registration offices when the Land did not cover the costs for the digital service portal, as the high associated costs prevented many local governments from adopting the digital service. Interviewees suggested that digitalization could have progressed further if resources were not as limited. Therefore, there was no linear relationship between a bottom-up digitalization approach and economic inertia, as supported by the quantitative data (β = −0.140, p > 0.05).
Political inertia
The model showed a statistically highly significant negative effect of the top-down approach on political inertia (β = −0.943, p < 0.001). The qualitative data supported this, showing that political inertia was reduced through intergovernmental collaboration in the digitalization network. The top-down approach facilitated a clear distribution of competencies and responsibilities concerning the strategic direction of digitalization, with unequal stakeholder influence, the interests of the Länder being subordinate to the overarching project goals, and the mandatory, legally-enforced implementation of digital tools. Policy legacies play a role as previous reform initiatives in the policy field have created learning loops that contributed to shaping the current approach. The moderating effect of Land participation in the network’s IT oversight body was not statistically significant.
Regarding the bottom-up approach, there is a tension between data sources, highlighting the need for additional research. While the model revealed a slightly significant negative relationship with political inertia (β = −0.320, p < 0.05), the interviews suggested a positive relationship. The federal government used to provide a central portal to local governments, but constitutional concerns regarding local self-government led to demands for decentralized solutions. Coordinating the numerous stakeholders involved proved challenging, as one interview explained: “Everyone had a say in it, and that ultimately led to a 1:1 reproduction of the previous process in the area of internet-based vehicle registration. And that is not an optimal process with a lot of media disruptions” (VEH10, head of office). Several interviewees advocated for a more centralized, top-down execution, criticizing the presence of numerous potential veto players. Conflicts of interest emerged, which the interviewee summarized as: “You can’t ask the frogs if you want to drain the swamps” (VEH10, head of office).
Legal inertia
The model revealed a statistically significant positive relationship between legal inertia and the top-down approach (β = 0.297, p < 0.01). However, this reflects a tension with the qualitative data, which indicated that this relationship could be influenced by tax administration specifics and legacies, such as certain (communication) processes not being digitalized due to tax secrecy, or the complexity and volatility of tax law. Conversely, the interviews suggested that the top-down approach was instrumental in establishing a legal framework that promoted digitalization. It imposed a rule-bound approach, including controlling mechanisms by the federal government, resulting in limited discretion in implementing digital tools at the local level and ensuring a relatively high nationwide uniformity.
Regarding the bottom-up approach, the triangulation of data also did not provide a clear picture, necessitating further research. Despite the model not indicating a statistically significant relationship (β = −0.128, p > 0.05), insights from the interviews suggested that legal inertia played a role. The federal government lacked the means to intervene, sanction local governments, or enforce citizens’ use of the digital tool, with one interviewee remarking, “The legislator is not brave enough there” (VEH 15, local IT staff).
Concluding discussion
This study investigates the perceived influence of different digitalization approaches on inertia in public administration. The findings suggest that both top-down and bottom-up digitalization approaches effectively mitigate distinct inertial forces: the bottom-up approach addresses negative psychology inertia, while the top-down approach counters political inertia. However, the results also indicate that the top-down approach leads to socio-cognitive and socio-technical inertia. These insights offer valuable contributions to the existing literature as well as conclusions for practice.
First, the study contributes to the literature on organizational change and inertia. It challenges the prevailing notion that public administration is generally characterized by inertia in the context of digitalization (Sørensen and Torfing, 2011), instead providing a nuanced understanding that emphasizes the implementation approach. Aligning with literature on change management (Van der Voet et al., 2016), the results suggest that bottom-up digitalization effectively mitigates negative psychology inertia at the local level. This can be attributed to the approach’s ability to foster employee involvement. However, inertia at the local level poses a significant challenge in the top-down approach. The findings indicate that this rigidity stems not only from factors like exhaustion (De Longis et al., 2022), or sunk and transition costs (Polites and Karahanna, 2012), but also from employees’ perceived lack of agency. This is particularly evident for more tenured employees (Mikalef et al., 2021) and when the established work habits, including learning effects gained from current processes (Pierson, 2000), are disregarded during the reform process.
Second, the findings support the argument that, when considering inertial forces at the sector level, rational implementation styles with hierarchical patterns of control and command are beneficial for digital government transformation. Specifically, this involves having concentrated measures agreed upon by the institution’s stakeholders (Heuberger, 2022) along with clear distributions of competencies and accountability (Hammerschmid et al., 2024b). The analysis indicates that integrating top-down mechanisms helps to overcome blockages in multi-level systems with numerous potential veto players (Kuhlmann and Bogumil, 2021; Kuhlmann and Heuberger, 2023), affirming the critical role of hierarchy in coordinating digitalization reforms (Di Giulio and Vecchi, 2023; Hammerschmid et al., 2024a). This view contrasts with research emphasizing collaborative or network-based coordination as more adaptive to digital transformation (Mian et al., 2025; Wouters et al., 2023). It also challenges prior assumptions attributing organizational inertia primarily to public employee resistance to digitalization (Choi and Meyers Chandler, 2020), explaining the influence of sector-level factors such as political and legal inertia (Savoldelli et al., 2014).
These findings must, however, be interpreted in light of the sector-specific contexts in which the two approaches are embedded in this study. The tax administration’s long-standing intergovernmental coordination through its digitalization network, its resource endowment, and the rule-based nature of its tasks create conditions conducive to digital change processes. Conversely, vehicle registration is a local self-government task, which is a characteristic of the bottom-up approach in Germany. While it grants local autonomy and adaptation, it also contributes to fragmentation and resource disparities. Therefore, sectoral legacies and configurations should be viewed as integral contextual factors shaping the dynamics of inertia alongside the digitalization approach.
Taken together, from a practical perspective, this means considering the institutional context when implementing digitalization reforms (Fountain, 2001; Lips, 2019). Policymakers must be aware that intergovernmental digitalization projects are inherently complex (Breaugh et al., 2023), requiring a context-sensitive approach that balances top-down commitment with bottom-up involvement. Top-down approaches are particularly valuable where interoperability, horizontal coordination, and cross-level alignment are required. The findings indicate that policymakers should establish mandatory, instead of voluntary, cooperation and implementation across federal levels for digital government reforms and ensure clearly defined rules and processes. Yet, overly rigid top-down approaches risk reinforcing organizational inertia if digital solutions are perceived as non-functional or detached from local realities, particularly in administrative domains characterized by substantial local autonomy. Therefore, bottom-up elements are essential not only in the implementation phase but also as feedback mechanisms that inform policy adjustment and learning. Policymakers should identify operational needs, especially where digital reforms must reflect diverse local contexts, and foster acceptance through tailored interventions that are aligned with the sector-specific context, such as communication and participation strategies.
Third, the article makes a theoretical contribution to organizational inertia by emphasizing the need to conceptualize it differently in public sector organizations compared to private firms. In proposing the addition of legal inertia as a dimension to the framework by Besson and Rowe (2012), the adapted conceptual model recognizes the public sector’s distinct formal rules. While not aiming to provide a comprehensive theory for inertia in the public sector, this contributes to the concept’s relevance in Public Administration research. Based on this study’s findings, it could be further refined by potentially including a dimension of sector-specific inertia to capture variations within organizational sectors, such as public administrations with functions related to interventions or service delivery.
This study does not come without limitations. First, given the study’s case-comparative design, the digitalization approaches are represented by one area of public administration each, raising concerns about external validity. Testing the propositions across diverse administrative contexts could enhance the findings’ transferability, especially given the variance in the complexity of the services studied. Moreover, it is worth noting that while the binary measure of the digitalization approaches reflects institutional distinctions in Germany’s federal implementation structures, this choice limits the ability to capture more granular variations. This also extends to potential subnational variations, which could only be examined to a limited extent, as the study’s comparative logic deliberately focuses on variation between two administrative areas within a shared national framework. While the analysis includes an exploratory regional robustness check comparing southern and northern/eastern Länder, this should not be interpreted as a systematic within-case comparison across individual Länder. Second, while the operationalization of the inertia items is based on previous research and theoretical considerations, some quantitative measurement items are single-item measures. Additionally, the lack of clustered standard errors, due to incomplete details on the respondents’ organizations, poses a limitation. Enhancing the reliability of the results could be achieved by expanding the measurement items and ensuring detailed organizational data. Lastly, conducting follow-up studies addressing the tensions between qualitative and quantitative data revealed in this study could provide deeper insights. Taking these aspects into account, future research should engage with inertia in digital government transformation from both longitudinal and comparative perspectives. While this study does not examine how different dimensions of inertia emerge and evolve over time, or how their relevance varies across administrative systems and subnational contexts, it may serve as a valuable starting point for future investigations into the dynamics of implementing digitalization reforms in the public sector.
Finally, while inertia can have valid reasons and long-term benefits, a more nuanced understanding can contribute to digitalization more effectively fulfilling its intended effects in public administration. The findings thus reconcile conflicting claims in the existing literature, emphasizing the need for a reform approach that balances top-down commitment and bottom-up involvement to foster a conducive environment for digital government transformation.
Supplemental material
Supplemental material - Digital transformation amidst inertia: Implementing digitalization reforms in the public sector
Supplemental material for Digital transformation amidst inertia: Implementing digitalization reforms in the public sector by Liz Marla Wehmeier in Public Policy and Administration
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The empirical data were collected as part of the research project titled “Digitalization and automation of public administration in Germany”, funded by the Hans Böckler Foundation and conducted jointly by the University of Potsdam and the Ruhr University Bochum under the guidance of Prof. Dr Sabine Kuhlmann and Prof. Dr Jörg Bogumil. Special thanks to colleague Philipp Gräfe for their invaluable support in data collection.
Ethical considerations
This study adhered to the ethical guidelines of the University of Potsdam. Formal approval from the Ethics Commission was not required as no vulnerable populations were involved, it was not an interventional study, participants were fully informed and gave consent, and participation was voluntary with no conflicts of interest.
Consent to participate
All participants in this study provided their informed consent prior to participation. Interview respondents gave verbal consent, while survey participants provided written consent. Participants were fully informed about the study’s objectives, procedures, and their rights, including the right to withdraw at any time without any consequences.
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Hans Böckler Foundation [grant number 2021-122-2].
Declaration of conflicting interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Data Availability Statement
The datasets generated and analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Supplemental material
Supplemental material is available online.