Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy

Purpose – The objective of this research is to study the significance of technology – as a driver as well as a barrier – for e-customs implementation. E-customs is seen here as a subset of e-government because it deals with digital government-to-business interaction.

Design/methodology/approach – The study applies the syntegration process (Beer, 1994) as a method of knowledge exchange among a heterogeneous group of people involved in e-customs implementation. The research methodology is therefore a qualitative, explorative and inductive search for drivers and barriers.

Findings – The data 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 organizational factors are suggested to be of similar importance.

Research limitations/implications – The study demonstrates the strength in applying more interpretative research approaches to less explored domains. It highlights that practitioners perceive certain variables, which are less obvious to the traditional research-driven models, to be of importance.

Practical implications – 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 an e-customs solutions. It provides a more balanced view because data are generated from a heterogeneous group of stakeholders involved in e-customs implementation.

Originality/value – The process of data collection deviates from the more traditional case study where the design of the study guides the data collection.