Becoming Digital-Green Civil Servants: A Focused Organizational Ethnography of Green-Digital HRM, Engagement, and Performance in the Indonesian Civil Service

Isye Adolfien  Lumi; David Paul Elia Saerang; Djurwati Soepeno; Rudy Steven Wenas

doi:10.63922/ijebir.v5i04.4574

Isye Adolfien Lumi Program Doctor Management Science, Sam Ratulangi University, Indonesia
David Paul Elia Saerang Faculty of Economics and Business, Sam Ratulangi University, Indonesia
Djurwati Soepeno Faculty of Economics and Business, Sam Ratulangi University, Indonesia
Rudy Steven Wenas Faculty of Economics and Business, Sam Ratulangi University, Indonesia

DOI: https://doi.org/10.63922/ijebir.v5i04.4574

Keywords: ASN Digital-Hijau, civil service, digital competence, employee engagement, focused organizational ethnography, Green-Digital HRM, public-sector performance

Abstract

Digital transformation in public administration increasingly moves beyond the adoption of applications toward the reconfiguration of work routines, talent systems, and sustainability-oriented administrative practices. In Indonesia, the acceleration of electronic-based government systems, national digital service integration, e-Kinerja, electronic signatures, and paperless initiatives has created new expectations for civil servants. Yet the human and organizational processes through which civil servants become digital-green actors remain underexplored. This study examines how Green-Digital HRM is enacted in the Indonesian civil service and how it shapes digital competence, engagement, and performance. Using a focused organizational ethnographic interview design, the study draws on primary data from 19 informants across HR/personnel, leadership, frontline civil servants, IT/SPBE, and green-office functions. The findings show that ASN Digital-Hijau emerges through six interconnected routines: translating policy into HRM practices, modelling digital-green leadership, building uneven digital competence through formal training and informal helpers, negotiating engagement between empowerment and administrative burden, maintaining hybrid paperless routines, and redefining performance beyond e-Kinerja uploads. The study contributes to public-sector HRM by showing that digital-green transformation succeeds when HRM, leadership, technology support, and environmental routines converge in everyday work. It also warns that digitalization can reproduce administrative formalism when performance systems reward uploading evidence more than improving service quality

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