<![CDATA[This Research on public-sector digital transformation is dominated by studies of national and urban governments with adequate infrastructure, whereas the smallest governmental units in peripheral regions, such as villages (kampung) on the southern Papua border, remain theoretically underexplored. Village-level studies in Indonesia also tend to treat digitalisation as a matter of application adoption, detached from the management of staff performance. This article develops a conceptual framework explaining how digital transformation can be managed to improve village staff performance under constrained infrastructure, capacity, and connectivity. Using a conceptual-article design based on theory synthesis, the study combines an integrative literature review, policy document analysis, and secondary data, with Matara Village, Merauke Regency, as an illustrative case. The analysis yields the Peripheral Digital Transformation Framework (PDTF), consisting of four interdependent layers, namely infrastructure foundation, staff digital capacity, adaptive performance management, and process and data governance, moderated by a peripheral context of border geography, Special Autonomy, customary relations, and fiscal resources. The framework is translated into five theoretical propositions, a staged roadmap based on a “minimum viable digitalisation” principle, and an agenda for empirical verification. The article contributes by shifting the debate on village digital transformation from a technology-adoption logic to a context-sensitive performance-management logic, while warning against symbolic digitalisation in peripheral regions.]]>
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