Administrative Sciences

This study empirically examines how information technology (IT) governance and digital financial transformation interact to influence economic sustainability performance. The research instrument used in the current study is a questionnaire survey. The data were collected from different government authorities in Oman. The study used convenience and snowball sampling to collect the data. Online questionnaire platforms, such as Google Forms, were used to collect data for the current study. The data collected for the current study were from 104 respondents. The results indicate that IT governance has a significant positive effect on digital financial transformation. Further, digital financial transformation has effectively and significantly enhanced the level of economic sustainability performance. However, IT governance does not have a direct effect on economic sustainability performance; rather, it has an indirect effect on economic sustainability performance through the mediating effect of digital financial transformation. These findings provide actionable implications for policymakers and practitioners to enhance awareness and integration of governance across different aspects in the context of digital financial transformation. The present study contributes to the literature and offers a unique perspective to the existing body of knowledge by highlighting the importance of IT governance as a key driver for digital financial transformation and economic sustainability performance.

Employee retention remains a critical challenge in human resource management (HRM). Embeddedness theory offers a vital framework to understand retention dynamics, yet its development within HRM lacks systematic mapping. This study systematically examines the intellectual evolution, thematic clusters, and emerging trends of embeddedness theory in HRM from 1995 to 2025, addressing three research questions: (1) How has the theory developed over time? (2) What are the key research themes and conceptual structures? (3) Which emerging trends can inform future HRM practice? A bibliometric and science mapping analysis was conducted on 562 peer-reviewed articles from Web of Science using co-citation, co-word clustering, and keyword evolution techniques. Three distinct phases were identified: formative (1995–2005), expansion (2006–2015), and maturation (2016–2025). Findings reveal a dual focus on micro-level constructs, including job satisfaction and turnover intention, and macro-level themes, such as organizational commitment and performance. Recent trends highlight organizational and institutional contexts, cross-cultural perspectives, and post-pandemic dynamics. The study provides the first comprehensive longitudinal mapping of embeddedness theory in HRM, clarifying its intellectual structure, key contributors, and evolving research frontiers. These insights offer actionable guidance for scholars and practitioners, emphasizing the integration of multi-level and contextual factors to enhance employee retention in increasingly complex and globalized work environments.

Digital transformation in government services represents a strategic shift that leverages digital technologies to enhance efficiency, accessibility, convenience, and user-centricity. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, many governments accelerated the digitisation of services to support remote access and social distancing. Governments typically progress from digitisation (converting physical processes into digital formats) to digitalisation (automating service delivery and improving process efficiency), and ultimately to full digital transformation, where services are completed instantly and entirely online. However, varying levels of maturity across countries influence service outcomes differently, and indicators related to service quality, convenience, and security remain underexamined, particularly in developing contexts. This study addresses these gaps by examining Kuwait’s progress along the digitalisation–digital transformation continuum. It investigates current trends and user preferences in the use of digital government services based on empirical quantitative data collected from users in Kuwait. Specifically, the research objectives are fourfold: (i) to identify crucial outcome metrics for the success of digital government services, (ii) to assess user evaluations of these services according to these metrics, (iii) to examine significant differences between digital transformation and digitalisation services, and (iv) to develop and empirically test a model for evaluating digital transformation success. Drawing on established Information Systems’ (ISs’) success perspectives, a customised conceptual model incorporating six outcome metrics in three domains—service-related (user satisfaction, service quality), convenience-related (accessibility, ease of use), and security-related (perceived security, perceived trust)—was developed. A survey of 378 users of digital government services in Kuwait was conducted to compare perceptions across service types using independent-samples t-tests and linear regression analyses. The study found that users primarily accessed government services through smartphones and dedicated applications, highlighting the importance of mobile optimisation, and showed a clear preference for real-time, fully automated services over those requiring extended approval processes. The results indicate that digital transformation services significantly outperform digitalisation services across five outcome metrics—satisfaction, service quality, accessibility, ease of use, and perceived security—while trust remains consistent across both. These findings underscore the importance of advancing comprehensive digital transformation to enhance public service delivery. Practical recommendations are provided to support Kuwait’s digital government strategy. Given the purposive sampling and cross-sectional, comparative design, the findings should be interpreted with caution, and future studies are encouraged to apply probability-based sampling and more advanced multivariate techniques (e.g., structural equation modelling) to validate and extend the proposed model.