E-government transformations: challenges and strategies

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how to analyse the possibilities for e-government transformations in public sector organisations and how these possibilities can be improved.

The research constructs a model based on a literature review that focusses on the pressure that drives transformations, on the challenges transformations face and on the abilities needed for overcoming these challenges. The resulting model is subsequently used to analyse a successful case and to identify the keys to success in terms of the strategies used to transform.

The possibilities for transformation depend on the organisational and contextual configuration (a public sector organisation and the context it operates in) which is more or less supportive of transformations. The configuration can be characterized by the pressure to transform, the challenges that must be overcome and the abilities to do so. There are some basic conditions that impact the possibilities for making the configuration more supportive of transformations: the interest of powerful stakeholders, the degree of publicness, the possibilities for changing the configuration are path dependent and the factors that matter for the possibilities for transformation are interrelated and might be governed by different authorities which make it difficult to manage and change them. When improving the possibilities for transformation in a configuration, the pressure can be increased, transformations can be made easier to accomplish by reducing challenges and by providing more support and abilities might be developed to better overcome the challenges. Transformation is accomplished through an interplay between actions that improve and exploit the configuration.

The findings are based on a single case.

The public sector should find the balance between making transformations easier and increasing capabilities. The lessons from this research suggest that a more balanced strategy focussing more on eliminating the contextual and organisational challenges that make these projects so complex and providing more support might be a better investment than just aiming to increase project level capabilities.

Just as practice might benefit from changing the balance between increasing project level capabilities and making transformation easier, e-government research might improve its relevance by changing the balance between suggesting new approaches and researching the basic conditions for the exploitation of IT in public sector organisations. While the essence of public sector organisations in some cases makes transformations very challenging, there are still factors that might be improved upon through research.

Previous research has established knowledge about transformational challenges and solutions. Based on this knowledge this research constructs a model that can be used to systematically analyse the possibilities for success, and strategies for dealing with these challenges are suggested.