Digital practices for consumer e-participation in economic regulation and the role of organisational capacity

How do national regulatory agencies (NRAs) use digital practices to empower consumers for e-participation in regulatory processes? To address this question, we designed a novel framework to comprehensively capture digital practices adopted by NRAs across the key regulatory procedures, including consumer information provision, communication, education, and rule-making, which we conceptualise as two-way relational mechanisms. To measure the scope of digital regulatory practices, we derived composite digital scores for 236 NRAs across 42 EU and OECD countries, based on coding the regulators' websites and social media accounts. We also developed a new multidimensional construct of organisational capacity to explain the variation in the adoption of digital regulatory practices among NRAs with sole – and multi-sectoral competencies in five economic markets, ranging from utilities to financial services. Our findings show significant regional divergence in the adoption of digital regulatory practices by NRAs from the old and new EU member states, as well as the significant effect of NRA's reform experience, resources allocations, sectoral competencies, and in-house capabilities on their digital scores. This study offers implications for both improving the effectiveness of regulatory procedures through consumer-oriented digital transformation, as well as government initiatives for enhancing digital trust and e-participation in economic regulation among consumers.