Daniel J. Caron, Professor at the École nationale d'administration publique, CIRANO Researcher and Fellow, is the author of the book Écosystème de la transformation de l'administration publique vers le numérique (Ecosystem of the transformation of public administration to digital), with the collaboration of Sara Bernardi, Research Professional at CIRANO.

Public administration plays a fundamental role in the functioning of our democracies. It is the main mechanism by which the rule of law is realized for citizens through its offer of services and programs. To remain relevant, the public administration must be able to communicate with citizens in a way that respects their means and preferences, and must organize itself in order to function in the most optimal way possible, using the means available. Moreover, its duty towards elected officials and the population obliges it to create and make accessible the documentation necessary for decision making and accountability. However, since information and communication technologies have taken society and organizations by storm, the term "digital" has been added as a challenge to all activities in the organized world, disrupting ways of communicating and changing work practices and habits. This book attempts to trace the path of this transformation desired by public administrations by identifying the main factors that must be considered to achieve it.

The book explores how to take advantage of the potential offered by technologies to build the foundations of the digital organization, i.e., by thinking the administration's work spaces and the spaces of interaction with citizens on new foundations of governance and collaboration outside the traditional bureaucratic model. This book is intended for managers who contribute to or are responsible for the transformation of public organizations and wish to understand how to build a digital organization while respecting its public character.

Published by the Presses de l'Université du Québec, in the Gouvernance de l'information Collection, the book is available for sale since April 21, 2021.

Consult the book's fact sheet and buy the book

Daniel J. Caron also recently contributed to Le Québec économique 9, for the chapter entitled "Technologies numériques et efficience organisationnelle : repenser l'organisation publique selon ses flux informationnels" (Digital technologies and organizational efficiency: rethinking the public organization according to its information flows).

Read this chapter and the complete edition of Le Québec économique 9 : Perspectives et défis de la transformation numérique, free online, here.