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Daniel Toll

PhD student

Artificial intelligence and robots alleviating humans are talked about as promising ways for society to progress. I study the technologies in the frontline of digitalization within the public sector, what these are used for and what the outcome is.

Technologies in the frontline of digitalization

The public sector in Sweden is facing many challenges and digitalization is seen in part as a natural part of technological development, but also as a large problem-solver.

Often the problems of the public sector are to do with the lack of resources for its many obligations. These obligations often concern supporting and assisting citizens, and many types of values are to be realized and uphold, be it democracy and equality or efficiency and integrity. For many years digital technologies have been used to support the processes we humans perform, typing on a computer instead of writing on paper or letting the computer perform calculations. But what happens when more typically human processes are starting to be replaced? Such as interpretation, learning and decision making? These types of processes exist in more of a gray area than simple calculations. Can a digital system, a type of software or a robot really handle these types of tasks? What happens when these types of solutions are starting to get used, and do we sacrifice anything getting there?

Research

Currently I am working on my licentiate thesis, focusing on automation within Swedish municipalities, with a particular focus on robotic process automation (RPA).

I study how municipalities implement this type of software, what they use it for and the outcome and experience of having ‘digital co-workers’ as colleagues. How does this affect the co-worker, organization, citizen and society? 

Publications

2024

Daniel Toll (2024) Process Automation in Swedish Municipalities: Stakeholders, Challenges, and Public Values

2023

Daniel Toll, Maria Booth, Ida Lindgren (2023) Robot Colleagues in Swedish Municipalities: How RPA Affects the Work Situation of Employees Electronic Government (EGOV 2023): 22nd IFIP WG 8.5 International Conference, EGOV 2023, Budapest, Hungary, September 5–7, 2023, Proceedings, p. 160-173 Continue to DOI
Daniel Toll, Maria Booth, Ida Lindgren (2023) Digitalization and automation for the sake of IT? Insight from automation initiatives in Swedish municipalities ICEGOV '23: Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance, p. 86-93 Continue to DOI

2022

Ida Lindgren, Maria Åkesson, Michael Thomsen, Daniel Toll (2022) Organizing for Robotic Process Automation in Local Government: Observations from Two Case Studies of Robotic Process Automation Implementation in Swedish Municipalities Service Automation in the Public Sectorns: Concepts, Empirical Examples and Challenges, p. 189-203 Continue to DOI
Daniel Toll, Ida Lindgren, Ulf Melin (2022) Stakeholder Views of Process Automation as an Enabler of Prioritized Value Ideals in a Swedish Municipality eJournal of eDemocracy & Open Government, Vol. 14, p. 32-56 Continue to DOI

Education

I am active as a teacher in two Information Systems study programs: 

I pop up in several different courses, but mainly in courses with a focus on method or a mix of IT and organization. As a teacher I lecture, lead seminars and workshops and supervise projects and theses. 

 

News

Organisation