Understanding the Determinants of Digital Innovation in California Local Governments: Digital Inequality and Agency Assignment Perspectives

Abstract

Many local governments have adopted digital innovations and advanced technologies, including Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of things, and big data to address unprecedented problems, improve the processes and procedures of their services, and enhance citizen engagement. Yet, there are considerable variations in the adoption of digital innovation among local communities, and such variations lead to inequality in access to digital technologies among individuals, households, and other groups of different demographic and socioeconomic levels. Drawing on insights from institutional theory, this study examines whether community wealth, education level, and the presence of an independent IT department matter for a city's level of engagement with digital innovation and technologies. It examines a dataset obtained from the 2023 Local Digital innovation Survey with California city governments. A set of logistic regression analyses provide evidence that community wealth/education and independent IT departments play significant roles in influencing California city governments’ level of engagement with digital innovation and technologies.