Anam Ilyas

• Ilyas, Anam; Bjørkquist, Catharina & Helgesen, Marit Kristine (2025). Digital Bureaucracy vs. Professional Discretion: The Evolvement of a Digital Logic in Norwegian Municipal Welfare Services for Children and Young People. Journal of technology in human services. ISSN 1522-8835. 43(4), p. 363–390. doi: 10.1080/15228835.2025.2572757. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This article examines digitalization in municipal welfare services for children and young people from the perspectives of municipal directors, frontline managers, and frontline workers. This study proposes a nuanced understanding of emerging digital work and workflows across multiple institutional logics. The authors argue that digitalization transforms professional discretion and institutional logics within Norwegian municipal welfare services for children and young people. Using a collective case study of two municipalities, interviews were conducted with 35 participants, including several levels of managers and frontline workers. The findings demonstrate the impact of digitalization on discretion, professional practice and institutional logics. Digital tools streamline record-keeping and enhance oversight, but they risk oversimplifying complex cases, increasing administrative burdens and constraining frontline workers’ discretion. The findings highlight a critical tension between managerial expectations of standardization and frontline workers’ need for nuanced judgment. The three mechanisms, replacement, blending and segregation, explain how an emergent institutional order “digital logic” interacts with established professional, bureaucratic and community logics. Finally, this study deepens the understanding of the involvement of digital logic when discretion is applied during work processes.

• Mustafa, Ghulam; Solli-Sæther, Hans; Bodolica, Virginia; Håvold, Jon Ivar & Ilyas, Anam (2022). Digitalization trends and organizational structure: bureaucracy, ambidexterity or post‑bureaucracy? Eurasian Business Review (EABR). ISSN 1309-4297. doi: 10.1007/s40821-021-00196-8. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  Nowadays, the vast majority of forward-looking organizations is activating under the imperative of embracing digital transformation. This study aims to contribute to a more fine-grained understanding of the relationship between digitalization and organizing processes, with a particular emphasis on organizational structure. Espousing the bureaucratic, ambidextrous, and post-bureaucratic views of structure based on the individual dimensions of centralization, formalization, skill variety, interdependence and integration, we ask which structural arrangement is more suitable for leveraging the benefits of digitalization. Two consecutive studies were conducted drawing on samples of 117 digital natives and 141 older-generation managers employed by various organizations located in Norway. Our empirical findings provide consistent cross-study support for the relevance of post-bureaucratic structure in the context of digitalization. We highlight the contributions of our research to extant knowledge in the field and discuss specific implications for theory and practice.

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• Mustafa, Ghulam; Solli-Sæther, Hans; Håvold, Jon Ivar; Danielsen, Antoni Vike & Ilyas, Anam (2018). Lokal forskning på digitalisering. Sunnmørsposten. ISSN 1503-9056. p. 19–19. Full text in Research Archive
• Mustafa, Ghulam; Solli-Sæther, Hans; Håvold, Jon Ivar; Danielsen, Antoni Vike & Ilyas, Anam (2018). Lokal forskning på digitalisering. Romsdals Budstikke.. ISSN 0806-5160. p. 27–27. Full text in Research Archive
• Mustafa, Ghulam; Solli-Sæther, Hans; Håvold, Jon Ivar; Ilyas, Anam; Danielsen, Antoni Vike & Nujen, Bella (2019). Human side of digitalization: A study of organizational structure, leader and employee competencies, and work-life balance. Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet. Full text in Research Archive

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