Public service innovation in Brazil after covid-19: digital platforms across the levels of public administration

Resumo

The COVID-19 pandemic has made sociability even more dependent on digital technologies. In this context, we investigate whether this trend towards accelerating digitization can also be observed in the public sector and what are the differences in terms of levels of the Brazilian federal state. We base our inquiry on the literature of innovation in the public sector and digital innovation/digital platforms. We opt for a multiple-case approach, based on document analysis and interviews. We investigated three Public Services Platforms (PSP): ‘gov.br’ at the federal government (Digital Government Secretariat); ‘EPI-Match’ from an autonomous social services (Brazilian Industrial Development Agency - ABDI) and ‘FiquenoLar’ at the local government (project by the Jaguaribe City Hall and the Federal Institute of Ceará). Our investigation found evidence that public service providers have turned to PSPs as one of the solutions to respond to a growing demand for digitization.