E-GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC SECTOR PROCESS REBUILDING

Transcription

1 E-GOVERNMENT AND PUBLIC SECTOR PROCESS REBUILDING

2 E-government and Public Sector Process Rebuilding Dilettantes, Wheel Barrows, and Diamonds by Kim Viborg Andersen Copenhagen Business School, Denmark KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS NEW YORK, BOSTON, DORDRECHT, LONDON, MOSCOW

3 ebook ISBN: Print ISBN: X 2005 Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. Print 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers Dordrecht All rights reserved No part of this ebook may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without written consent from the Publisher Created in the United States of America Visit Springer's ebookstore at: and the Springer Global Website Online at:

4 Contents Preface vii Presentation of the PPR-Model 1 The Activity and Customer Centric Approach 19 The domains and directions of IT impacts 37 Digital wheel barrows in local government 57 E-government Objectives, Means, and Reach 71 The Organizational Membrane Penetrated by Mobile Technologies 93 E-Procurement: The Improvement of Supporting and Strategic Operations 107 Instrumental Digital Customer Involvement 133 Evaluation of IT applications 153 Development of e-government applications 177 Conclusion 195

5 Preface Writing a book on information systems (IS) in government turned out to be targeting the market at a time when the topic of e-government is sprouting. Clearly, I am happy to have launched a book that hopefully can help drive the e-government race in the right direction. Most e-government plans are at the surface stylish and confident in their capacity to transform their country, county, municipality, and city. Under the first layer of confidence, there is little information on where the right direction lead to, what resources it will take to get there, who is getting there, and what will be the impacts. We present a series of studies and observations that governments at present are taking the wrong track if the benefits of e-government is to be any different from the benefits achieved from information technology (IT) so far. The PPR-approach we launch in this book is not a guarantee for reaching the right goals. The goals and aims of the IT applications need to be identified in the organization of the activities that starts and ends with the customers. This book provides guidelines and inspiration for how these can be approached. E-government and Public Sector Process Rebuilding: Dilettantes, Wheelbarrows, and Diamonds is chosen as the title of this book to reflect three overall goals. First, the aim is to give a constructive input to rebuild and improve the processes in which the public sector perform activities and interact with the citizens, companies, and the formal elected decision-makers. The ambition is not to attack the public sector per se or to argue that no public sector should exist. That would a wrong motivation to adopt this book and would contradict the objectives of the PPR-approach launched in this book.

6 viii E-government and Public sector process rebuilding (PPR): Dilettantes, wheelbarrows, and diamonds Second, we want to emphasize information systems as the vehicle for change. The book covers a range of applications and technologies other than internet technologies to demonstrate the plethora of technologies that are part of PPR. Third, the subtitle of the book reflects that there are serious capability challenges in the public sector inhibiting the transformation towards activity and customer centric applications. The dilettantes in the public sector are in need of upgrading, rethinking, and refocusing their use of IS. Part of this involves a revisit of the extensive use of digital wheel barrows to transmit data, and complement the transaction focus with IT-enabled analysis of the activities. Also, there is a need to recognize that IS are not only flashy and shining diamonds to be shown off on special occasions. IS are, as are most diamonds, produced to be part of a set of activities and are intended for replacement whenever the diamonds are no longer serving their intended purpose. The book should as such be seen as an input to researchers and graduate and Ph.D. students. Equally important readership for this book is the practitioner group comprised of public servants, managers, policy makers, consultant, and IT-suppliers. Consequently the book is written in a style and format that should appeal to both groups. The book downplays the more rigorous part of the arguments, tables, and figures although there are still be a few places with rather complex data and tables. This book has had a long birth and the publisher has been very patient waiting for the final manuscript. The research and writing up of the pieces has been going through a series of drafting, comments from colleagues, students, and governmental workers. Without their comments, I would not have been able to complete the book. Chapter 3 of this book was developed from a joint research project with Professor James N. Danziger from University of California at Irvine. Although the chapter has been conceptualized, reiterated, and rephrased, the bulk of that chapter and the research conducted is a result of joint forces rather than the results of my work only. I am in debt to Department of Informatics at the Copenhagen Business School who granted me the opportunity to complete this book and provided the physical facilities to enable me to do so. During 2003, whilst the final outline and research for this book was completed, I was happy to benefit from the friendly atmosphere at the Department of Economics, Statistics, and Information Systems (ESI), Örebro University in Sweden. I am also appreciative of the School of Information Systems at Deakin University in Australia who hosted me during January 2004 where the last elements of this book emerged.

7 E-government and Public sector process rebuilding (PPR): Dilettantes, wheelbarrows, and diamonds ix The text has been carefully proofread by Angela Wyatt from New Zealand and Birgitte Bush from the Department of Informatics at the Copenhagen Business School. Last, but certainly not least, Vicki Antosz has done an outstanding job in formatting, entering, and keeping track of the versions and iterations of this book. Any errors that remain are clearly on my behalf only. March 2004 Kim Viborg Andersen