Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated a drastic limitation of physical contact in order to minimize its spread, so organizations (both private and public ones) had to rapidly modify their operational model in this direction, with respect to both their internal processes and their interactions with customers, suppliers and partners, and this included the extensive use of digital technologies for the above purposes. So, COVID-19 put pressure on organizations to advance their digital transformation. However, the magnitude of the positive impact that COVID-19 had on the use of digital technologies and the digital transformation differs among organizations, depending on the nature of their activities, their processes, their human resources, as well as their digital maturity and the availability of financial resources. So, it is important to analyze the real impact that COVID-19 had on the use of digital technologies and the digital transformation of different kinds of private and public organizations based on sound theoretical foundations. This study makes a contribution in this direction by conducting a multi-dimensional analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on government digital transformation. For this purpose, a comprehensive multi-dimensional research model has been developed, having as theoretical foundation the resource-based view of the firm, which includes the analysis of the impact of COVID-19: i) on the ICT-related resources; ii) on the ICT-related capabilities; and iii) on the digital transformation outcomes. Our study has been conducted in one of the largest and most important and costly Ministries of Greece: The Ministry of Education. Data has been collected through a combination of qualitative and quantitative techniques: a focus group discussion and a questionnaire filled in by its participants. It has been concluded that the COVID-19 led to a large increase of the available financial resources for ICT-related investments and operating expenses, a significant improvement of the ICT-related processes/capabilities, and also acted as a strong driver of digital transformation of this Ministry, which consists of two components: one component that was temporary, as it concerned the support of schools’ operation during the special circumstances of the COVID-19 period, including both the initial online synchronous e-learning, and the subsequent classroom-based learning in the COVID-19 conditions that followed, so it was discontinued afterwards; and another significant component that is permanent, and was continued beyond the COVID-19 period

Abstract
Economic crises are an inherent problem of market-based economies, which is repeatedly appearing with various levels of intensity, resulting in ‘recessions’, meant as significant contractions of economic activity. They have negative conse-quences on organizations (both private and public ones), as they decrease their fi-nancial resources, and therefore their operational and investment expenses and ac-tivities. In this paper we focus on public organizations and investigate the effects of economic crisis on a highly important activity of them: their digital transfor-mation activity. For our study we have selected a highly appropriate national con-text: Greece, which has been hit by a strong economic crisis between 2010-2018. We investigate the effects of this economic crisis on the digital transformation of a large, costly and highly important for the society and the economy public organ-ization: the Ministry of Education. For this purpose, we have constructed a re-search framework, based on the ‘Resource-based View’ (RBV) of the firm, as well as a comprehensive conceptualization of government digital transformation, as our theoretical foundations. Data have been collected through a combination of qualitative and quantitative techniques. It has been concluded that the above eco-nomic crisis resulted in a serious decrease of the ICT-related investment and op-erating expenses (for the acquisition of ICT resources) of the Ministry of Educa-tion. However, despite this decrease the economic crisis has led to a significant increase of the digital transformation developments of this Ministry, and a signif-icant advancement in all the main dimensions of the digital transformation of it.

Abstract
Economic crises repeatedly appear in market-based economies and have serious consequences on them. They are causing serious decreases of the sales revenue and therefor the financial resources of organizations, as well as oftheir operations and investments. However, they can have some positive effects as well, leading to processes’ rationalizations in important functions of them, improvements of their efficiency and better exploitation of their resources. In this paper we investigate the effects of the strong economic crisis that hit Greece between 2010-2018 on the digitization of one of the most important and costly domains of government activity: the social security. It has been concluded that during the economic crisis period there has been a large decrease of the ICT-related investment and operating expenses; however due to some improvement and rationalization of ICT-related processes and practices, as well as a better utilization of knowledgeable ICT personnel (mainly of the central ‘Electronic Government Center for Social Security’), a significant increase in the digitalization of the Greek Social Security has been achieved during this difficult period.