Patrick Spencer
PhD Student
Research Summary
Patrick Spencer is a doctoral candidate at the School of Public Policy and Administration at Carleton University. His dissertation examines why early leadership in digital government and artificial intelligence policy fails to translate into sustained institutional delivery capability, a pattern he terms the digital capability trap. The research follows a three essay format that moves from historical and theoretical foundations through comparative mechanism testing to a prospective diagnostic tool.
The puzzle
Canada ranked at the top of global electronic government rankings in the early 2000s but has since fallen sharply. Peer countries have maintained stronger digital delivery capability despite similar technologies and pressures. The research asks what structural, procedural, and behavioural mechanisms prevent policy ambition from turning into sustained delivery capability inside government.
Essay 1
The first essay builds the historical and theoretical foundations for understanding the digital capability trap. It reviews work on digital government, institutional theory, New Public Management, and capability development, and treats digital transformation as the dependent variable. It then traces Canada’s digital government trajectory to show how early choices in governance, procurement, architecture, and workforce created constraints that persist and underpin current failure.
Essay 2
The second essay tests mechanism patterns across multiple jurisdictions using historical institutional process tracing. It organises explanation around four mechanism families: governance and coordination, procurement and sourcing, architecture and legacy systems, and workforce and capability development. It applies evidentiary tests to examine how these mechanisms operate and interact over time and to identify recurring configurations associated with failure, partial success, or sustained success. Cases are selected to test mechanisms across varying Westminster governance models in the United Kingdom and Australia and a small state digital leader in Estonia with different structural conditions.
Essay 3
The third essay translates mechanism patterns into a practical diagnostic tool. The tool helps organisations assess institutional risks in governance, procurement, architecture, and workforce arrangements before major initiatives. It is validated retrospectively against past cases, then applied prospectively to current digital strategies and emerging technologies including agentic artificial intelligence.
Research approach
The dissertation uses historical institutional process tracing to analyse major digital government initiatives in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Estonia over roughly three decades. It focuses on sequences of decisions and reforms and uses explicit evidence tests to identify concrete mechanisms rather than broad catch all explanations. The research draws on Auditor General reports, parliamentary and committee inquiries, inquiry findings, and policy documents, complemented by approximately twenty five to thirty elite interviews with current and former officials and practitioners, subject to ethics approval.
Contribution and background
The research moves beyond general claims about complexity, culture, or political interference by specifying institutional mechanisms that link policy ambition to delivery outcomes and by turning retrospective analysis into a prospective diagnostic tool for early risk identification. Patrick brings over twenty years of experience in strategy, digital transformation, and large scale implementation, including senior roles with Accenture, IBM, Cisco, EY, Deloitte, and KPMG, and service in federal audit and review functions, which directly informs the focus of his doctoral work.