AI Governance and Organizational Change in Developing States
Keywords:
Artificial Intelligence Governance; Public Sector Reform; Organizational Change; Digital Government; Developing CountriesAbstract
The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) and data-driven systems is reshaping public administration across developing countries, yet these transformations unfold within bureaucratic structures characterized by uneven capacity and entrenched hierarchies. In Indonesia, AI governance reforms intersect with decentralized authority arrangements and institutional fragmentation, raising questions about how technological systems are mediated within public organizations. This study aims to analyze how AI and data-driven governance reshape discretion, authority, power relations, and legitimacy through organizational mediation in Indonesia’s public sector. The research adopts a qualitative case study design based exclusively on secondary data, including policy documents, institutional reports, academic literature, NGO publications, and credible media sources. Guided by Organizational Mediation Theory, the analysis applies thematic coding across dimensions such as absorptive capacity, discretion redistribution, authority locus, data governance and integration, accountability and legitimacy, and equity outcomes. A theory-driven interpretive framework is used to examine how institutional structures filter and reshape AI implementation processes. The findings indicate that AI governance does not operate deterministically but is mediated by uneven absorptive capacity, hybrid authority structures, and negotiated data integration practices. The study concludes that AI-driven transformation in developing-country bureaucracies is institutionally constructed and politically embedded rather than technologically automatic. By integrating Organizational Mediation Theory with digital governance scholarship, the article contributes a contextualized framework for understanding AI governance in developing public sectors.
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