e-Government Adoption Model (GAM): Differing service maturity levels

This research has as its objective the discovery of the critical factors that enable citizens to adopt e-Government (e-Gov) at different stages of service maturity. To accomplish the objective, this research has explained the related concepts and theories and developed a research framework grounded on a strong theoretical and literature review background. The empirical study was conducted in Canada, which is a leader in providing mature e-Gov services. From our results, we have observed two ontological differences from the present literature in the adoption behavior of e-Gov where organizational and financial perspectives have distinct implications over parsimonious technology adoption behavior. First, technology adoption model (TAM), diffusion of innovation theory (DOI), and theory of planned behavior (TPB) cannot capture and specify the complete essence of e-Gov adoption behavior of citizens. Second, e-Gov adoption behavior also differs based on service maturity levels, i.e., when functional characteristics of organizational, technological, economical, and social perspectives of e-Gov differ. Our findings indicate the critical factors that enable citizens to adopt e-Gov at different stages of service maturity. Public administrators and policy-makers have potential implications from the findings of the adoption behavior of e-Gov at different maturity levels.     

The evolution of the policy objectives of South Korea's Broadband Convergence Network from 2004 to 2007

The purpose of this study is to explore the South Korean government's policy objectives for the Broadband Convergence Network (BcN) between 2004 and 2007. The BcN is envisioned as conduit for broadband content and applications. This paper uses generativity as a conceptual framework to determine whether the objectives for the BcN, based on a content analysis of policy documents and interviews with experts, empowered the network to sustain a generative critical information infrastructure. This study is designed to be useful for executives in the private sector, officials in government and academics in university settings who are interested in drawing insights from Korean experience to inform their own work.     

Understanding the dynamics in e-Participation initiatives: Looking through the genre and stakeholder lenses

Conventionally, e-Participation initiatives are considered to be successful only if users use these services. While the growing body of e-Participation literature has listed and studied challenges and barriers to achieving this end, conceptual clarity on why such projects are considered as failures is yet to be achieved. We argue that this is due to the inadequate understanding of the complex stakeholder dynamics of an e-Participation project. In this paper, we seek to address this knowledge gap by proposing that using stakeholder theory complemented by genre theory provides an interpretive lens to understand the complexities in the development and use of such projects. To illustrate our proposed lens, we apply it to analyze an e-Participation project in Norway at its development and use phases. Our findings indicate that a key factor that influences the success of e-Participation initiatives is high saliency of at least one stakeholder group at various phases of the initiatives. The saliency of stakeholders changes over the life of a project and hence the salient stakeholder also varies. Consequently, it is not essential for the same stakeholder group to be salient throughout, only that some stakeholders remain salient. Our interpretive lens also extends the discourse on stakeholder theory. In traditional management literature stakeholder theory is meant as a tool to identify stakeholders' groups to which management or owner of an organization should pay attention. We show that it is also useful to identify which stakeholder groups will act to protect their interests. Based on our findings, we propose insights into studying and developing e-Participation projects.     

Exploring geographic disparities in broadband access and use in rural southern Illinois: Who's being left behind?

Recent literature about broadband telecommunications reveals two major areas that are not only globally gaining prominence, but are also demanding urgent attention from a research perspective. One of the key areas is related to the need to spatially evaluate the availability and deployment of broadband services, especially among urban versus rural communities. Another area of interest falls under the need for enabling broadband policies and strategies that address existing geographic disparities. These motivating factors shaped this research and provided a basis for defining three specific objectives, namely: (1) to identify locations with or without broadband access, (2) to identify underserved rural and inner-city markets, and (3) to determine whether university and community college towns can be used in the adoption and dispersion of broadband technologies in southern Illinois. Supply-side and demand-side data were collected and inputted into a Geographic Information System (GIS). Supply-side data included cable modem, digital subscriber lines (DSL), wireless, and fiber optic lines, while demand data included reported broadband requests from individuals without access (n = 439), students (n = 45,866), and higher education workforce (n = 5419). Using the GIS and statistical techniques, insightful maps of broadband infrastructure were created to illustrate areas of supply and demand so that governments and businesses can address existing gaps in consumer needs. Specifically, different levels of broadband access and use were mapped; different under-served rural and inner-city markets were identified so as to emphasize the dramatic economic impact on the business opportunities available to small business entrepreneurs. Also, different geographies of use and accessibility of broadband connectivity in the study region were synthesized to support decision-making. The resulting maps provided supply and demand marketing intelligence based on the geographic analyses of residential and enterprise sectors. These data can be used as a model to develop specific policy recommendations for a knowledge-based economy, specifically for the southern Illinois region or other rural communities in the United States.     

Information-sharing in public organizations: A literature review of interpersonal, intra-organizational and inter-organizational success factors

Information sharing is considered an important approach to increasing organizational efficiency and performance. With advances in information and communication technology, sharing information across organizations has become more feasible. In the public sector, government agencies are also aware of the importance of information sharing for addressing policy issues such as anti-terrorism and public health. However, information sharing can be a complex task. Identifying factors that influence information sharing is critical. In the literature, research in information sharing focuses on the interpersonal, intra-organizational, and inter-organizational levels. This paper reviews the current information-sharing research, discusses the factors affecting information sharing at the three levels, and provides summative frameworks. These frameworks provide a means to discover future research opportunities, and a systematic way for practitioners to identify key factors involved in successful information sharing.     

Borrowing demand at local public libraries in Sweden

This research explored the determinants of borrowing demand for print books and media at local public libraries in Sweden for the period of 1995–2007. The role of the Swedish local public libraries seemed to have fundamentally changed during the period analyzed. They have had an increasingly important role to play in equalizing income opportunities. This was only the case for the working part of the population, however. Those outside the labor force, as well as the unemployed—had substantially lower borrowing demand for both print books and media. This fact appears to be one of the more demanding challenges facing Swedish public libraries today, together with the fact that while children are the most frequent borrowers, they become the least frequent borrowers of all age groups when they turn into teens.     

Demand articulation in emerging technologies: Intermediary user organisations as co-producers?

User involvement is assumed to be beneficial to innovation processes. Intermediary user organisations contribute to articulating societal demands for innovations. However, the learning processes inside these organisations are still not understood well. Therefore, this paper empirically investigates intermediaries using an event history approach. It yields characteristic learning mechanisms, e.g. concerning the management of expectations or actively building a case. If intermediaries overcome challenges regarding positioning, representation and the level of proactivity, they can play a precarious role in demand articulation in the context of new technologies.     

When ‘national innovation system’ meet ‘varieties of capitalism’ arguments on labour qualifications: On the skill types and scientific knowledge needed for radical and incremental product innovations

The literatures on ‘varieties of capitalism’ (VoC) and ‘national innovation systems’ (NIS) propose very similar arguments about how firms require different types of labour qualifications to pursue strategies of radical product innovation (RPI), incremental product innovation (IPI), and product imitation (PI) respectively. Despite their similar lines of reasoning, however, the VoC scholars are concerned with the skill profiles of a firm's entire workforce, whereas the NIS proponents focus on the knowledge base of scientists. Given that both literatures have developed without explicitly taking the arguments of the neighbouring discipline into account, it is thus unclear whether they explain the same, or different, phenomena. Furthermore, both literatures propose firm level arguments but test them on the basis of macro- rather than micro-level indicators. This paper therefore asks: first, does micro-level evidence support the VoC and NIS arguments that particular types of employee skills and knowledge backgrounds of scientists are needed for different competitive strategies? And, if so, do RPI, IPI, and PI firms need to employ scientists in combination with a workforce having the respective qualifications, or is it sufficient if scientists or employees alone are adequately qualified. Quantitative analyses indicate that a particular mix of scientific knowledge combined with employee skills facilitate RPI, IPI, and PI strategies. The article thus concludes that - despite their similar reasoning - the VoC and the NIS literatures indeed describe different phenomena, without being aware of the synergies created whenever adequate employee and scientific qualifications are hired together.