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sector is its context and relations. Specific for ICT is the set of tools that the set of
activities applies to. This makes ICT coordination relevant for ICT norms, ICT
activities, ICT outcomes, and ICT organizational contexts. In sum, ICT coordina-
tion can be considered “goal-setting and goal-implementation action which aims at
aligning ICT activities and choices in at least two organisations, and which usually
results in a change intervention in how public sector agencies cooperate with ICT”
(de Vries, 2013).
If ICT coordination actions involve prescribing and/or regulating behavior,
then professional discretions can be regarded as any behavior that deviates from the
prescribed coordination objectives. Strictly speaking, discretions can be concep-
tualized as decisions and associated actions of individual actors based on personal
judgments rather than organizational procedures and fully rational assessments.
Davis refers to discretions as the “freedom to make a choice among possible courses
of action and inaction within the effective limits of someone's power” (1976, p. 4).
Thus, if ICT coordination prescribes certain courses of action, then discretions
can be regarded as the actions and inactions of people when dealing with those
prescriptions.
Because coordination is an activity that connects organizational structure (for-
mal or informal) to organizational tools (including technology), discretions may
also arise in relation to framing the objectives for both aspects as well as on the pre-
ferred implementation strategy. Hence, discretions may relate to (a) the preferred
structure, usually reflected as choices on preferred responsibilities and hierarchies
(strategic, alignment, and operational); (b) the technology, visible through the pre-
ferred types of ICT and choices on relevant ICT components; and finally, (c) the
choices made when executing the alignment, that is, the implementation choices
when aligning either rules or norms, processes, products, or intended impacts.
Summarizing, ICT-related discretions can be conceptualized as a reaction to
three coordination aspects:
1. Preferred structure
2. Preferred technology
3. Preferred implementation strategy of coordination
9.3 Conceptualizing Discretions and
Discretionary Space
So far, only few publications make discretions in the public sector the core subject
of a conceptual study or even formulate a theory of discretions. Migué, Bélanger,
and Niskanen (1974) aim at such a “grand theory”; however, they focus primarily
on managerial discretions. Similarly, the classic work of Lipsky (1980) focuses pri-
marily on street-level discretions only. Thus, the larger context of any kind of dis-
cretions and the conceptualization of interrelated or interdependent discretions in
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