E-leadership has become particularly prominent in the public sector over the last five years. The urgent shift requires more remote work and management via information and communication technologies. In recognition of its ever-growing popularity, the objective of this article is to provide a systematic review of the existing literature on e-leadership within public sector organisations and identify key research approaches and outcomes. The analysis provides a framework of research on e-leadership in public sector entities, by focusing on various theoretical, methodological, empirical and contextual perspectives, specifically tailored to public sector organisations. The detailed framework, presented here, incorporates dimensions, approaches, clusters and findings of previous research (articles, published in the period 2013–2022), aiding a deeper understanding of the phenomenon and its practical implementation. The study complies with PRISMA 2020 requirements. As it shall be demonstrated, interest in the phenomenon surged during the pandemic, particularly within educational and management disciplines. The findings highlight a predominant focus on leadership within educational institutions, whilst areas such as healthcare and public governance remain under-researched. The most common theoretical approach adopted is associated with the transformational leadership theory and encompasses three main interpretations. Specifically, it evaluates e-leadership as a strategic approach, a leadership process and a leadership transformation. Qualitative methodology predominates in e-leadership research within the public sector, with quantitative and mixed-method approaches being less frequent. Addressing the challenges identified by previous research, such as competency and infrastructure deficiencies, is crucial for advancing knowledge of e-leadership in the public sector and improving sustainable performance.

E-leadership (i.e., remotely leading employees) has become a new normal in the public sector during the pandemic. However, practices of e-leadership differ due to legal, national and even organisational conditions. A deeper analysis is needed to understand what has happened with leadership practices in municipalities after the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of the article is to reveal the main challenges of e-leadership in the post-pandemic municipal administrations and to identify e-leaders’ approaches (how they should act) in this context. A qualitative method of online focus groups was used to analyze specifics of the post-pandemic e-leadership in municipal administrations. The research was conducted in Lithuanian, Latvian and German municipal administrations. It was revealed that the use of remote work and e-leadership in municipal administrations after the pandemic heavily depends on the attitudes of supervisors toward work productivity. In addition, ensuring effective digital communication as well as managing social contacts and maintaining team spirit become challenges for e-leadership in municipalities after the pandemic also when remote work is reduced.

Global pandemic COVID-19 has increased the level of digitalization which allows public and private sector organizations in the world to employ people remotely outside office premises and crossing borders of the world. Remote work is one of the new employment forms caused by the impact of digitalization, which keeps conquering and strengthening the positions on our daily professional lives. It means extended use of different new employment forms, including the digital transition of administration processes and business management, improvement of digital skills and competences, contributing to development of areas of services and products with higher benefit (Breaugh, Farabee, 2012). Research aims to study basic principles and tendencies of remote work organization based on theoretical aspects, draw conclusions and elaborate proposals for improvement of remote work. In order to achieve the goal, the tasks are as follows: 1) provide the explanation of remote work organization; 2) describe secondary data from a conducted survey by Milasi, S., Fernandez – Macias, E., Gonzalez-Vazquez, I. 2020, European Commission; 3) conduct survey about remote work

The digitalisation of the public sector was already an emerging trend prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools in municipal administrative settings was gaining traction in limited fields, with the digital preparedness of employees yet to be fully established. As already argued within academic debates, digitalisation leads to the emergence of e-leadership. As such, in order to evaluate the dynamics in operation, this study focuses on local municipalities in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Germany, analysing the pre-pandemic practices. Moreover, it examines the challenges to public servants brought about by the adoption of ICT tools. As a pilot study, proposing further avenues for future research to explore, it expands the theoretical understanding of how digitalisation fosters e-leadership in local administration. The qualitative analysis relies upon interviews with managers and employees within local municipalities. The results suggest that even in the pre-pandemic period, an overall positive attitude towards digitalisation and e-leadership had already been established. However, the findings demonstrate that there are emerging challenges stemming from the process. More often than not, they are associated with the need for suitable training, difficulties in establishing an appropriate work-life balance, and disparities between the traditional organisational culture and digitalisation.

This chapter presents Latvia, a Baltic member state of the European Union (EU), and a net recipient from the EU budget with prospects of becoming a net payer. The chapter starts with a general introduction to Latvia and the country’s path to EU membership. It further gives a compact overview of Latvia’s political system and key figures on its population and economy. The chapter continues with key highlights of political and public debates in Latvia about European integration. The substantive third section of the chapter outlines the common patterns that emerged in the focus group discussions in Latvia, particularly across the discussed scenarios presented to the participants and also between and within the three sociodemographic groups. The findings show that, overall, the Latvian participants acknowledged the benefits of EU membership and perceived solidarity as a shared commitment and responsibility of those belonging to the EU. However, there was a shared doubt about the country’s capabilities to help others hit by a crisis. <!----> <!----> <!----> <!---->