Between Clicks and Careers: Institutional Decoupling in Indonesia’s Digital Civil Service Performance Management

Abstract

Background: Indonesia’s expansion of e-Kinerja has made civil-service performance records more visible and portable across a national digital architecture. Platform use remains an incomplete indicator of reform because recorded activities may not be interpreted through dialogue or translated into development, talent management, career mobility, recognition, and sanctions.

Objective: This study examines how formal digital performance-management requirements become separated from performance dialogue and strategic HR consequences across documented Indonesian public organizations. It also identifies institutional mechanisms that may enable their recoupling.

Methods: The study employed qualitative comparative document analysis. Purposive criterion sampling retained 15 documents from 20 candidates: three regulatory or technical instruments, five official publications, and seven peer-reviewed empirical studies representing seven central and subnational contexts. Twenty-seven evidence units were analyzed through hybrid deductive–inductive thematic analysis, cross-case comparison, and negative-case testing.

Results: Three patterns emerged: digital visibility without substantive accountability; the supervisor as the system’s hidden interpretive architecture; and fragmented movement of appraisal information into strategic HR consequences. Problematic cases documented retrospective or accumulated reporting, weak dialogue, compressed ratings, and limited developmental use. A contrasting West Java case showed that performance and behavioral data informed nine-box talent mapping, targeted development, succession, promotion, and placement when decision links were traceable. Technical integration can therefore coexist with institutional separation.

Conclusion: The article proposes a non-linear continuum of digital compliance, substantive accountability, and strategic HR integration. This framework extends institutional decoupling theory into digital public-sector HRM and helps agencies distinguish administrative workflow completion from explainable appraisal, employee development, and organizational learning.