Digitalization and managerial control of street-level action: the case of an Italian Public Highter Institution

This study investigates how the digitalization of the exam recording system in an Italian Public Higher Education Institution (PHEI) impacts the micro-level street- level bureaucrats’ discretion in terms of their alignment with hard control rather than soft control mechanisms. Based on the assumptions of Actor-Network Theory and the analytical tools offered by affordance theory, we employed interviews, ethnographic observations of situated practices, and an analysis of key strategy documents. We find a redefinition of street-level bureaucrat role because, in an effort to keep their action aligned with the beliefs system rooted in the institution’s control environment, they exercise office-based digital discretion in the form of rule-breaking. The study contributes to the literature about unforeseen implementation dynamics of management control tools in PHEIs due to the action of the organizational soft control system. Moreover, it adds a new nuance to the current debate about the curtailment, enablement, and continuation thesis concerning the impact of digitalization on street-level bureaucrats’ discretion, providing evidence of a rule-breaking action that is not aimed at retaining a pre- existing discretionary power despite the constraint imposed by the digital tool, but at generating a new one.