Editorial

Citation

Irani, Z. and Dwivedi, Y. (2011), "Editorial", Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, Vol. 5 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/tg.2011.32605baa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, Volume 5, Issue 2

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the second issue of the fifth volume of Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy. The research presented in the selected papers for this issue is exploratory in nature and deal with contemporary e-government theme from a multiplicity of angles, providing a mixture of conjectural and prudent contributions. For example, the topics covered within these papers focus on assessing the impact of e-government, critically analysing the government interoperability frameworks (GIFs), focusing on hybrid simulation and distinct modes of governance within the UK healthcare sector, discussing on e-customs implementation that deal with digital government-to-business interaction, citizens interaction with e-government and lastly, state-individual relationship in public portals.

We start this issue with a viewpoint by Shirish C. Srivastava that explores the normative literature on e-government and provides a value framework for future research on assessing the impact of e-government. The author specifically integrates the two stakeholder perspectives on e-government namely the “government” and the “citizen” and identify areas where e-government can provide returns. The presented in this paper delineates three government and five citizen areas where e-government may create an impact. The three government areas are: policy making, program administration and compliance. The five citizen areas are: financial, political, social, ideological and stewardship. The impact in these areas is created because of two major value-generating mechanisms: enhancements in efficiency and enhancements in effectiveness. Further, the impact is created at different levels of analyses: local, state and central governments. This viewpoint provides a timely discussion on returns from e-government and provides a value framework for assessing these returns. It also provides several suggestions for future research in this area. This viewpoint is a call for systematic future research on the impact of e-government.

Following the viewpoint is the research conducted by Dibakar Ray, Umesh Gulla, Shefali S. Dash and M.P. Gupta. These authors focus on critically surveying selected GIFs. In their research, interoperability is highlighted as a critical success factor in delivering integrated e-government services, whereas, GIF is the cornerstone towards achieving interoperability among government information systems. The authors highlight that GIFs prescribe a set of standards and policies that information systems of government and other stakeholders must comply with to become interoperable. However, these GIFs are not similar; they vary widely in content, context and process of managing and implementing. Such diversity makes it difficult for any new GIF initiative to learn from and use the existing knowledge about GIFs. In order to compare and to collate uniqueness and commonalities in content and approaches of the GIFs, a framework for analysis is required. This paper aims to present an analytical framework for analysing GIFs and to do a comparative analysis of a set of GIFs using the analytical framework. Based on the comparative analysis, the paper presents a set of recommendations useful for new GIF initiatives. Drawing on literature and personal knowledge and experience, the authors propose an analytical framework for qualitative comparison of GIFs. The analytical framework developed in this work has been used for comparative analysis of the GIFs. The comparative analysis shows that the analytical framework adequately covers all the features of the GIFs. This research attempts to fill two gaps in existing literature, namely lack of an analytical tool for the analysis of GIFs and exhaustive comparative analysis of existing GIFs. The contribution of the study is substantial for academia and practitioners.

The aforesaid research is followed by the work presented on hybrid simulation and distinct modes of governance in the UK healthcare sector by Kirandeep Chahal and Tillal Eldabi. These authors report in their research that healthcare organisations exhibit both detail and dynamic complexity. It has been argued that discrete event simulation (DES) is ideal for problems exhibiting detail complexity and system dynamics (SD) lends itself naturally to comprehend dynamic complexity. Appreciating the complexity of healthcare sector, the authors propose use of hybrid simulation; wherein both SD and DES are integrated symbiotically. Their research also further describes how different forms of hybrid simulation can be applied to different modes of governance in UK healthcare. In order to find different ways, the authors argue that hybrid simulation can be effectively applied to different problem contexts. In doing so, the authors critically analysed the normative literature to explore existing hybrid studies. Thus, a meta-review of literature on different modes of governance in UK healthcare has been conducted. The findings on the literature analysis induce that hybrid simulation can be used in three different formats: hierarchical format, process-environment format and integrated format. Literature on different modes of governance in UK healthcare sector further points out that there are three modes of governance in UK healthcare: top-down performance hierarchical mode, network partnership mode and quasi-market mode. It is believed that hybrid simulation will aid in forming a synergy between strategic and operational managements. One of the limitations of this paper is that it does not provide any guidance with respect to technical automation of integration between SD and DES. The authors propose use of hybrid simulation for complex healthcare problems and the way it can contribute towards effective decision making within different modes of governance.

Thereafter, we have Helle Zinner Henriksen and Boriana Rukanova presenting their research on e-Customs implementation. Their research focuses on studying the significance of technology – both as a driver as well as a barrier – for e-customs implementation. According to the authors, e-customs is a subset of e-government because it deals with digital government-to-business interaction. Their study applies the syntegration process as a method of knowledge exchange among a heterogeneous group of people involved in e-customs implementation. Therefore, the research methodology employed is qualitative, explorative and inductive search for drivers and barriers. The authors claim in their paper that the data presented suggest that technology is seen more as a means rather than an end in relation to e-customs implementation. Legal, regulatory and policy factors, as well as human and organisational factors are suggested to be of similar importance. The study presented demonstrates the strength in applying more interpretative research approaches to less explored domains. It highlights that practitioners perceive variables to be of importance, which are less obvious to the traditional research-driven models. From practical implications perspective, this research highlights that the results should be applied with care, bearing in mind that our conclusions are based on a single syntegration process. The robust foundation of the living lab as a platform for collaboration (beyond the syntegration workshop) suggests that the insights can provide useful input to practitioners who need to implement e-customs solutions. It provides a more balanced view because data are generated from a heterogeneous group of stakeholders involved in e-customs implementation. The authors of this research claim that the process of data collection deviates from the more traditional case study where the design of the study guides the data collection.

Then, we have Christopher G. Reddick investigating on citizen interaction with e-government using three e-participation models. In this paper, Reddick focuses on two major research questions, i.e:In pursuing his research, Reddick employs quantitative survey-based methods to examine the citizens in the USA and their use of e-participation. His findings reveal that citizens were most likely to use e-participation for management activities. Citizens were much less likely to use the internet for more advanced consultative and participatory activities. Using regression analysis, factors such as demand by citizens for e-government, the digital divide and political factors influenced the level of e-participation. From research limitations/implications perspective, the results of this study imply that governments should do more to stimulate demand for e-government, address issues of the digital divide and provide for more open and transparent government. A limitation of this study is its focus on e-participation through a survey instrument, which does not consider all possible forms of e-participation. Whereas, from the pragmatic implications perspective, for e-participation to blossom governments should do more to promote citizens’ demand for e-government, bridge the digital divide and promote more open and transparent government. Reddick claims that existing research on e-participation has focused on theory building and case studies; this paper provides empirical evidence, through a survey, of the level of e-participation and factors that promote e-participation.

Finally, we have Agneta Ranerup exploring the emergent development of public portals that are moulding the state-individual relationship. Ranerup reports that the relationship between the state and the individual is, more than ever before, being mediated by public portals. The requirement specifications for public portals can be said to define the level of expectation among influential actors concerning the roles of the individual in this relationship at a certain point in time. At the same time, they are part of an emergent-development process. Thus, Ranerup aims to test this perspective in the empirical context of healthcare. This research proposes a framework for analysing the requirement specifications for public portals, making various roles possible, such as being a patient, a citizen, a consumer and a customer. The framework is tested in a case study of a Swedish national healthcare portal. Based on the research carried out in this paper, Ranerup concludes that prominent actors in this particular context of design defined the requirement specification so that the patient and citizen roles were well supported, whereas the roles of the consumer and customer were supported in a less well-developed manner. The case study also indicated the importance of reusing already existing functionality to attain quick and tangible results. Consequently, the individual is both enhanced and limited by the “travel of ideas” in the form of the reuse of existing functionality. Ranerup also claims on the fact that the requirement specifications for public portals are part of the emergent formation of an e-governance relationship.

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

Abbreviations: RQ1.; what is the current level of e-participation in the USA?; RQ2.; what factors explain why citizens participate in online government?

Zahir Irani and Yogesh Dwivedi