The Impact of COVID-19 on Government Digital Transformation from a Resource-based Perspective - The case of the Greek Ministry of Education

The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated a drastic limitation of physical contact in order to minimize its spread, so organizations (both private and public ones) had to rapidly modify their operational model in this direction, with respect to both their internal processes and their interactions with customers, suppliers and partners, and this included the extensive use of digital technologies for the above purposes. So, COVID-19 put pressure on organizations to advance their digital transformation. However, the magnitude of the positive impact that COVID-19 had on the use of digital technologies and the digital transformation differs among organizations, depending on the nature of their activities, their processes, their human resources, as well as their digital maturity and the availability of financial resources. So, it is important to analyze the real impact that COVID-19 had on the use of digital technologies and the digital transformation of different kinds of private and public organizations based on sound theoretical foundations. This study makes a contribution in this direction by conducting a multi-dimensional analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on government digital transformation. For this purpose, a comprehensive multi-dimensional research model has been developed, having as theoretical foundation the resource-based view of the firm, which includes the analysis of the impact of COVID-19: i) on the ICT-related resources; ii) on the ICT-related capabilities; and iii) on the digital transformation outcomes. Our study has been conducted in one of the largest and most important and costly Ministries of Greece: The Ministry of Education. Data has been collected through a combination of qualitative and quantitative techniques: a focus group discussion and a questionnaire filled in by its participants. It has been concluded that the COVID-19 led to a large increase of the available financial resources for ICT-related investments and operating expenses, a significant improvement of the ICT-related processes/capabilities, and also acted as a strong driver of digital transformation of this Ministry, which consists of two components: one component that was temporary, as it concerned the support of schools’ operation during the special circumstances of the COVID-19 period, including both the initial online synchronous e-learning, and the subsequent classroom-based learning in the COVID-19 conditions that followed, so it was discontinued afterwards; and another significant component that is permanent, and was continued beyond the COVID-19 period