The Contextual Benchmark Method: Benchmarking e-Government services

This paper offers a new method for benchmarking e-Government services. Government organizations no longer doubt the need to deliver their services on line. Instead, the question that is more relevant is how well the electronic services offered by a particular organization perform in comparison with those offered by others. Benchmarking is currently a popular means of answering that question. The benchmarking of e-Government services has reached a critical stage where, as we argue, simply measuring the number of electronic services is not enough and a more sophisticated approach is needed. This paper details the development of a Contextual Benchmark Method (CBM). The value of CBM is that it is both benchmark- and context-driven.     

E-Government readiness index: A methodology and analysis

E-Government has received significant attention as digital technologies transcend private businesses and serve as a basic source of transformation in government functions. One most notable project is the United Nations Public Administration Network (UNPAN) that assesses the e-Government readiness of the 192 member nations according to a quantitative composite index involving website assessment, telecommunication infrastructure, and human resource endowment. However, the UNPAN index, though rich in depth and breadth of data collection, relies on a method that is a simple mathematical average of the values of the variables measured. This paper revisits the UNPAN index and proposes alternative indices based on principal components analysis (PCA). Using the UNPAN survey data, four different versions of the index are presented and the resulting rankings of the nations are examined vis-à-vis the existing ranking. The theoretical and policy implications of the proposed methodology and its results are discussed.     

Requirements engineering for e-Government services: A citizen-centric approach and case study

Throughout the last decade, user involvement in e-Government service design has been virtually non-existent. Over time, e-Government experts began to realize that these services would benefit from a citizen-centric requirements engineering approach which has led to a demand for such an approach for this particular field. This article presents a citizen-centric approach towards user requirements engineering for e-Government services. It utilizes interviews and citizen walkthroughs of low-fidelity prototypes. A case study of a social support portal illustrates the approach and shows the need for repeated citizen inquiry, as the implementation of user requirements in low-fidelity prototype design is not always accepted by prospective end-users.     

A collaborative decision framework for managing changes in e-Government services

Developing and maintaining e-Government services that can effectively deal with changes is a challenge for public administrations. In this paper, we address this challenge by presenting an ontology-based approach that: (i) enables systematic response of e-Government systems to changes by applying formal methods for achieving consistency when a change is discovered; (ii) enables knowledgeable response of service designers and implementers to changes by utilizing design rationale knowledge. We argue that such a synthesis of systematic response to changes with knowledge to deal with them has a positive impact on the change management process. Evaluation of the proposed approach in three case studies let us develop useful propositions for practitioners, discuss policy implications and identify future research topics.     

e-Government services for faith-based organizations: Bridging the organizational divide

In this paper, we examine the challenges faced by faith-based institutions in a low-income, predominantly Black community seeking to take advantage of grants provided through the White House Office of Community and Faith-Based Initiatives (FBCI). FBCI is an e-Government program that assists nonprofit organizations in competing for Federal dollars with fewer bureaucratic barriers. Informed by the design-actuality framework, we interviewed clergy at seven faith-based organizations. The intent of this analysis is to juxtapose the design intentions of the government officials with the actualities expressed by the intended benefactors of the initiative. Our findings suggest that this e-Government initiative may unwittingly exacerbate existing disparities in the strategic use of information and communication technologies (ICT).     

e-Government legislation: Implementation issues for programs for low-income people

This paper introduces a research agenda to explore the intersection of e-government implementation and the key federal programs – Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, a.k.a. food stamps), (SSI), and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF, a.k.a. welfare) – that provide assistance to low-income citizens in the United States. To lay the groundwork for on-going research, this paper focuses on the implementing statutes that require different levels of automation for delivering these programs to the public. It discusses the programs in terms of their breadth, impacts to recipients, and the effects of automation as implemented for each. It identifies some of the consequences of automation, such as potentially faster service delivery, different approaches to information access, and issues of privacy. It then suggests some points to consider for policymakers and for future research to more deeply understand this unique and little-studied aspect of e-government implementation. By understanding the impacts of implementing statutes on the poor, policymakers can develop a deliberately inclusive strategy that leverages technology to support access to assistance in measurable models that can be implemented at the federal, state, and county levels. This can further democratize the government-to-citizen relationship and support greater accountability to taxpayers.     

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technology and organizational change: Evidence for the bureaucratic and e-Government paradigms

This paper examines the impact of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technology on organizational change in local governments in the United States. The bureaucratic and e-Government paradigms are examined with regards to this technology impacting organizational change. Survey evidence on the adoption of CRM is examined from the perceptions of Chief Administrative Officers (CAOs) in cities and counties that have adopted this technology. Survey results indicate that both the e-Government and bureaucratic paradigms impacted organizational change from CRM adoption. Factor analysis shows that management change, efficiency change, and leadership and organizational change are the three most common factors in the models. Regression results indicate that local governments that score high on these factors are more likely to take an enterprise approach in the adoption of CRM for their local government. The results of this study imply that organizational change is not just influenced by the more recent e-Government paradigm, but traditional attributes of the bureaucratic model are present as well.     

Conception, development and implementation of an e-Government maturity model in public agencies

Governments worldwide are encouraging public agencies to join e-Government initiatives in order to provide better services to their citizens and businesses; hence, methods of evaluating the readiness of individual public agencies to execute specific e-Government programs and directives are a key ingredient in the successful expansion of e-Government. To satisfy this need, a model called the eGovernment Maturity Model (eGov-MM) was developed, integrating the assessment of technological, organizational, operational, and human capital capabilities, under a multi-dimensional, holistic, and evolutionary approach. The model is strongly supported by international best practices, and provides tuning mechanisms to enable its alignment with nation-wide directives on e-Government. This article describes how the model was conceived, designed, developed, field tested by expert public officials from several government agencies, and finally applied to a selection of 30 public agencies in Chile, generating the first formal measurements, assessments, and rankings of their readiness for e-Government. The implementation of the model also provided several recommendations to policymakers at the national and agency levels.     

The e-Government evaluation challenge: A South African Batho Pele-aligned service quality approach

Over the past decade, governments have embarked on major Information and Communication Technology (ICT) investments in an attempt to take advantage of the benefits of the internet in extending the channels by which services are provided to their respective citizenries. With the increasing reliance on ICTs, one of the challenges facing public sector managers is how to evaluate the success or effectiveness of their ICT investments. Given the citizen-focused objectives of governments, service quality approaches offer a suitable frame for evaluating ICT effectiveness. This paper therefore extends current e-Service quality research into the e-Government domain. The paper reports on the development of a multi-item instrument for evaluating the e-Service quality constructs of an e-Government website in South Africa. The development of this instrument also takes into account the service delivery principles which have been adopted by the South African government viz. the Batho Pele program. The study shows that there are six service quality dimensions applicable in e-Government evaluation, viz. website design, navigation, communication, site aesthetics, information quality, and security. The generic instrument allows practitioners to modify and utilise it according to their needs.     

Assessing citizen adoption of e-Government initiatives in Gambia: A validation of the technology acceptance model in information systems success

The technology acceptance model (TAM) has been used extensively to explain and predict users' acceptance of corporate information technology (IT). With the advancement in IT and the expanding popularity of internet applications in Gambia, e-Government has been a priority factor in rendering government services and in making information more accessible to citizens. This study shows how the TAM and e-Government initiatives would positively impact the Gambian government, despite the cultural differences within the country. This study developed a successful model of the Gambian e-Government system to assist Gambians with more efficient and cost-effective government operations. The study results reveal that the core constructs of the TAM have strong influences on user-intention towards e-Government products. This implies that the Gambian government can potentially utilize this study's TAM findings in other contextual settings to design and promote further implementation of e-Government systems.     

e-Government adoption model based on theory of planned behavior: Empirical validation

The e-Government phenomenon has become more important with the ever increasing number of implementations worldwide. A model explaining the e-Government adoption and the related measurement instrument – a survey – had been developed and validated in this study. In a post Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) approach, theory of planned behavior (TPB) was extended to fit the requirements of e-Government context. The adoption of student loans service of the higher education student loans and accommodation association of Turkey (KYK) was investigated to obtain data for empirical validation. The instrument was administered to over four-hundred students and partial least squares path modeling was employed to analyze the data. The results indicate that the model was an improvement over TAM in terms of predictive power. The constructs trust, perceived behavioral control and attitudes successfully explained the intention to use an e-Government service. The findings presented in this study provide useful insights for researchers and policy makers when dealing with e-Government services.     

The willingness of e-Government service adoption by business users: The role of offline service quality and trust in technology

Prior e-Government research has paid much attention to e-Government service adoption from the supplier side - the government - while mostly overlooking the user side of e-Government, such as citizens and businesses. While there have been some initial efforts to study citizens in their adoption behavior, few have examined what influences the willingness of businesses in adopting e-Government services. This research attempts to fill this research gap by addressing the following research question: Why are some businesses more willing to adopt e-Government applications to perform transactions with the government than others? The authors argue that the willingness of a business to adopt e-Government depends on the perceived quality of government services through traditional brick and mortar service channels (offline service channels), and the level of trust businesses place in the internet technology itself. Competing hypotheses are developed with regard to the role of perceived quality of offline services on the business user's willingness to adopt e-Government services. Using data obtained from a local district government in Seoul, Korea, the analysis revealed that the willingness to adopt e-Government increased when business users perceived high quality service provision in offline service channels. However, trust in the internet technology itself did not have any significant impact on their willingness. The theoretical and practical implications of the study finding are discussed.     

Applying participatory design and collaboration in digital public services for discovering and re-designing e-Government services

E-Government projects are currently service oriented, focusing on the implementation and diffusion of digital public services through one-stop points of access for citizens. E-Government strategic plans are political, directed at cost and time minimization during the execution of public services, and they do not take into account citizen needs or public administration operating procedures. Although these plans have led to the development of projects that have succeeded in cost and time savings for both citizens and public administration, surveys conducted around the world show that users evaluate digital public services and do not hesitate to return to traditional methods rather than using digital channels to transact with the public administration again; neither would they recommend the use of digital services to others. This article presents collaborative and participatory tools and methods designed to exploit the knowledge and experience of public servants in the improvement and execution of custom and non-automated public services. Collaborative tools can succeed in the development of real one-stop shops for e-Government, while on the other hand they can encourage both citizens and civil servants to participate in the e-Government era.     

Strategic e-government development and the role of benchmarking

Developing information systems and e-government requires a lot of strategic and financial resources that developing countries often do not have. Facing such challenges, some countries are supported by international assistance and donors. This research contributes to explain how such assistance on the development of national information and communication technology (ICT) strategies and programs is related to e-government development. This comparative study of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, (Former Yugoslav Republic of) Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia takes a Rational Neoinstitutionalist perspective to look at longitudinal changes in these developing countries. Quantitative data such as the amount of foreign aid for national ICT strategies and the e-government index are combined with qualitative information from reports and documents. The research suggests that the effect of international assistance on e-government is generally positive in less developed countries. The analysis of benchmarking and benchlearning as e-government policy-making tools is another aim of this study, providing a critical discussion of their role and that of the donor–benchmarker duality.     

Trust and transformational government: A proposed framework for research

This paper examines the concepts of trust and transformational government, both of which have been the subject of increasing attention in recent times. It explores what trust and transformation mean, or could mean, for government, governance and public administration and whether transformational government is just a feel-good phrase or a genuinely new departure. As part of this, the question of what precisely is being, or could be, transformed is examined. The results of this examination suggest that the expectation that technology-enabled change has the ability to increase citizen trust, thereby transforming government may be too high, but that more research is needed. A framework for such research is proposed.     

e-GovQual: A multiple-item scale for assessing e-government service quality

A critical element in the evolution of governmental services through the internet is the development of sites that better serve the citizens' needs. To deliver superior service quality, we must first understand how citizens perceive and evaluate online. Citizen assessment is built on defining quality, identifying underlying dimensions, and conceptualizing measurements of these e-government services. In this article an e-gov service quality model (e-GovQual) is conceptualized and then a multiple-item scale for measuring e-gov service quality of governmental sites where citizens seek either information or service, is developed, refined, validated confirmed and tested.     

Contents and time sensitive document ranking of scientific literature

A new link-based document ranking framework is devised with at its heart, a contents and time sensitive random literature explorer designed to more accurately model the behaviour of readers of scientific documents. In particular, our ranking framework dynamically adjusts its random walk parameters according to both contents and age of encountered documents, thus incorporating the diversity of topics and how they evolve over time into the score of a scientific publication. Our random walk framework results in a ranking of scientific documents which is shown to be more effective in facilitating literature exploration than PageRank measured against a proxy gold standard based on papers’ potential usefulness in facilitating later research. One of its many strengths lies in its practical value in reliably retrieving and placing promisingly useful papers at the top of its ranking.     

A public value perspective for ICT enabled public sector reforms: A theoretical reflection

The purpose of this paper is to offer a critical discussion of information system adoption in the public sector (often referred to as e-government) and to contribute to the debate by offering a public value perspective. The paper points to the public value paradigm as an alternative approach to studying ICT-enabled public sector reforms. This paradigm, we argue, proposes an alternative way of framing the nature of the problems faced when ICT enabled public sector reforms are initiated and studied. The public value perspective proposes a new and richer context in which to study and research these phenomena. It also calls for the redefinition of the ways we assess e-government in the context of public sector reforms. It is therefore seen as vital to evaluate the socio-political impact of ICT adoption in the public sector.     

Axiomatics for the Hirsch index and the Egghe index

The Hirsch index and the Egghe index are both numbers that synthesize a researcher's output. The h-index associated with researcher r is the maximum number h such that r has h papers with at least h citations each. The g-index is the maximum number g of papers by r such that the average number of citations of the g papers is at least g. Both indices are characterized in terms of four axioms. One identifies outputs deserving index at most one. A second one establishes a strong monotonicity condition. A third one requires the index to satisfy a property of subadditivity. The last one consists of a monotonicity condition, for the h-index, and an aggregate monotonicity condition, for the g-index.