The role of digitalization and AI in the interactions between public administrations and firms ::a literature review

Public administration increasingly operate in a digitalised form and based on AI. The resulting social impact is mostly analysed regarding society as a whole or citizens. In contrast, this paper specifically focuses on firms, by analysing the role of digitalization and AI played in the interactions between public administrations and firms. Indeed, the World Bank considers that such interactions may be facilitated by digitalization, increasing the ease of doing business. The paper’s analysis is carried out through a systematic literature review based on the PRISMA methodology. First, results show that many papers address various kinds of supports governments are providing for firms’ digitalization. Second, a slightly lower amount of studies report about the impact of public administration’s digitalization on firms. For the most part, they mention a positive impact on firms, such as making them more performant, productive, resilient, sustainable, entrepreneurial, innovative, and competitive on foreign markets. A third smaller amount of studies underline the new possibilities public administrations have, thanks to digitalisation and AI, to control the firms’ legal compliance, e.g. in terms of tax payment, corruption, or environmental protection. This paper concludes by identifying several research gaps, among which the potential downsides of public administrations’ digital transformation, changes in the nature of public administration-firm interactions, as well as the lack of comparative studies and studies on the use of AI by governments and their impact on firms.