Editorial

Citation

Irani, Z. and Dwivedi, Y. (2009), "Editorial", Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, Vol. 3 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/tg.2009.32603daa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, Volume 3, Issue 4

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the fourth issue of the third volume of Transforming Government: People, Process, and Policy. This issue encompasses papers that are exploratory in nature and deal with up-to-date eGovernment issues from a variety of angles, providing a mixture of theoretical and practical contributions.

We start this issue with a viewpoint by Muhammad Mustafa Kamal that explores and analyses the research conducted in the area of eParticipation by investigating and assessing both theoretical and pragmatic findings published in the normative literature. The synthesis of the research findings in this viewpoint exemplify that the foremost dominant research studies to eParticipation advocated and conducted by several researchers were: theoretical perspective on eParticipation, e-Participation technological solutions, governance models in public administration, policy making lifecycle models, and location-based e-Participation services. The analysis of these research studies has directed towards identifying the voids in the literature. In doing so, proposing a new stream of research focusing on the development of a ubiquitous platform that allows citizens to be involved in government policy-making processes. The combination of theoretical conceptions, analysis of the normative literature and empirical findings presented in this viewpoint illustrate the start of research on eParticipation. However, the theoretical and empirical findings accumulated accentuate that one of the reasons that make citizens de-motivated in participating in the policy making, is the ignorance of relevant Government policies. Therefore, it is suggested that the more the citizen connects between their anticipated activities and relevant policies, the more they become pro-active to be involved in government policy-making processes. The prime significance and uniqueness of the research presented in this viewpoint lies in proposing a platform that allows citizens to participate in government policy-making processes regardless of their current locations and time. This is a thought provoking invited piece of research work that helps explore new perceptions and research issues of eParticipation.

Following the viewpoint is the research conducted by Christoph Lattemann, Stefan Stieglitz, Sören Kupke and Anna-Maria Schneider. These researchers investigate the impact of public, private partnership (PPP) to broadband diffusion to the wider context of Europe. Broadband access plays a major role for economic growth and for social and cultural development of urban and rural areas. A provision of broadband infrastructure and services in these areas is not attractive for private investments because of a low or even negative expected rate on return. This paper identifies different modes of public private partnership funding and organizational models of collaborations among public and private partners to establish broadband infrastructures. Decision makers get insights about innovative financial and structural models to bring broadband into rural areas. Organizational and financial structures of PPP projects are analyzed by six PPP case studies from the broadband sector in Sweden, Great Britain, and France. This research adopts a data triangulation approach. A comparative case study analysis about “broadband-PPPs” from different countries depicts that the organizational and financial funding models differ from project to project. PPPs represent a good alternative to build a broadband infrastructure through mutual collaboration between public and private partners. The examined case studies verify that a PPP is an appropriate instrument to implement broadband infrastructures, especially in case of market failure. The study is mainly based on case studies. Thus, the significance of the derived results is limited. Companies in the sector of telecommunication as well as decision makers learn about different financing models to implement broadband in rural areas and to increase broadband penetration. This contribution shows that there are relationships among three key factors of PPPs: environmental conditions (risk, social structures, density of population, etc.), organizational model, and funding modes. This knowledge helps researchers and decision makers to measure different scenarios to bring broadband access into rural areas.

Then Moaman Al-Busaidy and Vishanth Weerakkody investigate the progress of eGovernment in Oman, based on the survey of public sector workers. This paper was an extension of a submission originally presented at the European and Mediterranean Conference on Information Systems, 2009 (www.emcis.org). It argued that eGovernment is increasingly becoming pervasive in modern society and has acted as an effective means of delivering Government services to citizens. While most early eGovernment efforts were concentrated on developed countries, in the recent past, it has also become popular in many developing countries. Most notably are the Middle East, which continues to invest significantly into eGovernment initiatives; the Sultanate of Oman is one such example. However, although large investments have been made since 2003 to facilitate the implementation of electronic services in the public sector, within Oman, only limited progress has been made in terms of realizing fully functional eGovernment. Through a quantitative survey-based empirical study in three key public service agencies in Muscat, the capital of Oman, the authors aim to identify the factors that are currently influencing the development and implementation of eGovernment within an Oman[ie] context. The research presented in this paper has identified ten different factors that were influencing the progress of the national eGovernment project, e-Oman, from the viewpoint of government employees. The most salient of these factors was the Omani IT workforce capability and the citizens' trust and confidence in using e-services.

Colin Combe explains that one of the key aims of the UK's Transformational Government strategy is to create a “joined-up” government where communications within and between public organizations is improved by the use of information technology. Data sharing is a key enabler of “joined-up” Government but the implementation of the strategy presents a series of risks. The purpose of this paper is to articulate and assess the nature of those risks, and identify examples of violations of existing laws using the NHS as a case study. A case study of the NHS is used as an example of how certain identified data sharing practices contravene existing laws and exposes this aspect of the Transformational Government strategy to heightened risk of a legal challenge. The case study is an effective enabler of interpretive analysis leading to a rational assessment of the legal implications of data sharing practices in the public sector. Data sharing practices as a key enabler of the Transformational Government strategy risks violating existing laws designed to protect privacy.

The UK Government is identified as risking a legal challenge, the outcome of which may seriously undermine the prospects for achieving the stated aim of improving efficiency and effectiveness across the public sector. The paper focuses on only one public organization – the NHS, leaving scope for further research into the legality of data sharing across and between other public sector organizations.

Finally, İrfan Emrah Kanat and Sevgi Özkan explore citizen adoption of eGovernment systems and propose a model based on the theory of planned behaviour. This paper was an extension of a paper originally presented at the European and Mediterranean Conference on Information Systems, 2009 (www.emcis.org). The authors assert that eGovernment initiatives are increasing the convenience and accessibility of Government services worldwide, as also manifested in Turkey with the ever increasing eGovernment investments since 2001. Unfortunately not all eGovernment initiatives end up being successful. It is evident that a deeper understanding of the factors influencing citizens' adoption behaviour is required to guide eGovernment implementations to success. Models of eGovernment adoption can provide this much needed insight. Considering the number of countries employing eGovernment services with their unique technical and cultural needs, models aiming to explain citizen adoption need to be adaptive and suitable for inter-cultural comparison. Thus, the aim of the research presented in this paper is to develop a model with solid theoretical roots for predicting and explaining citizen behaviour regarding the acceptance of eGovernment systems in an international setting.

We hope you will find this issue interesting and though provoking, and hope to receive your valuable contributions for the coming issue.

Zahir IraniEditorYogesh DwivediEditorial Assistant