Legitimacy Work and Digital Transformation in Local Government: Insights from German Municipal Practice

Digital transformation in local government represents an institutional rather than a purely technical process. It unfolds under conditions of resource scarcity, vendor dependency, and competing accountability demands, conditions particularly pronounced in municipalities operating at the margins of administrative capacity. This study examines how local government actors in a German regional context interpret and enact digital transformation within these constraints. Drawing on six focus groups with thirty officials from twenty-five municipalities, it combines the Technology–Organization–Environment framework with Suchman's legitimacy typology into an integrated TOE–L analytical model. The analysis identifies two interrelated mechanisms of legitimacy work: legitimacy–capacity decoupling and guerrilla legitimation. Both illustrate how administrations sustain credibility when reform ambitions exceed capacity. Together, these dynamics constitute reflexive legitimacy work, that is, the conscious management of symbolic and practical tensions in digital reform. Conceptually, the study reframes legitimacy as an operational capability of governance. It advances institutional and public management theory by showing how local administrations govern through legitimacy under constraint.