Editorial

Citation

Irani, Z. and Kamal, M. (2014), "Editorial", Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, Vol. 8 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/TG-10-2013-0041

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, Volume 8, Issue 1

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the first issue of the eighth volume of Transforming Government: People, Process, and Policy. This issue is dedicated to the publication of papers researching the broad e-Government domain. Over the years, the constant update of the journal’s scope to advocate theoretical as well as empirical research has led to an increase in quality of submissions (in regular and special issues). The research presented in this issue of TGPPP is theoretical and exploratory in nature and provides a rich contextual background into e-Government. These papers outline up-to-date original thinking in the field of e-Government and offer our readers with an insight into the pragmatic ideas in e-Government adoption and implementation.

This issue commences with a conceptual paper by Francois Bernard Duhamel, Isis Gutierrez-Martinez, Sergio Picazo-Vela and Luis Felipe Luna-Reyes, entitled "IT outsourcing in the public sector: a conceptual model". In this paper, the authors propose a conceptual model of IT outsourcing enactment in public administration – this model is an extension of Fountain’s technology enactment framework that emphasizes the influences of organisational forms and institutions in the design, development, implementation, and use of technology (Fountain, 2001, 2006). Researchers such as Cordella and Willcocks (2010) and Cordella and Iannacci (2010) assert that Fountain’s model offers tools to analyse technical and institutional change in the public sector. However, the authors emphasize that despite its significance, it has never been used as a framework to study and understand outsourcing practices in the public sector. This rationale led to the extension of Fountain’s model in this paper, thereby addressing the determinants of efficiency of IT outsourcing relationships in public administration. This research contributes to the literature through exploring and proposing specific inter-organisational factors, such as trust, knowledge, and quality of outsourcing interfaces, which are related to the development an outsourcing relationship, and used as determinants of the quality of organisational interfaces between public bureaucracies and IT outsourcing providers. Moreover, the authors added organisational culture alignment between service providers and public administration to enhance Fountain’s original framework. The authors further proposed 17 empirically testable propositions to establish the relationships between key variables in IT outsourcing projects in the public sector. The proposed model aims to offer specific guidelines for prospective research focused on advancing knowledge around IT outsourcing.

Following the above conceptual study, we have further conceptual work, including that developed by Hans Jochen Scholl and Beth Joy Patin, entitled "Resilient information infrastructures: criticality and role in responding to catastrophic incidents". This research discusses the significance of robust information infrastructures in responding to calamitous occurrences across the globe, thereby developing a framework for resilient information infrastructures. The authors argue that calamities of tragic scope have occurred more frequently in recent years. In such incidences, several developed and developing economies and non-governmental organisations have struggled to effectively and efficiently respond, in so doing resulting in significant negative impact, with colossal damage and loss of lives during such extreme events. Researchers such as Harrald (2006), Kapucu et al. (2010) and Comfort et al. (2010) emphasize that during such catastrophic incidents, the resiliency of information infrastructures appears to be most critical. Research dedicated to catastrophic incidents including humanitarian supply chains, or extreme events have so far tended to emphasize the study of structure-related, lifeline-related, fire-related, geo-tech-related, and tsunami-related phenomena. Other studies have focused on catastrophic incident related psychological phenomena and traumatic impacts found in communities and individuals. Although the enormous importance of actionable information before, during, and after an extreme event for response and recovery has been mentioned in numerous studies, the role of information infrastructures has so far not been studied systematically. Thus, this research seeks to pave the way for empirical research on the subject in context and to conceptually develop a framework for the analysis of information infrastructures and their resiliency, when impacted by catastrophic incidents.

Then we have Lamharhar Hind, Dalila Chiadmi and Laila Benhlima presenting their research, entitled “How semantic technologies transform e-Government domain: a comparative study and framework”. In this paper, the authors address how semantic technologies transform the e-Government domain through exploring the use of semantic web services (SWS) technology and ontology (Cardoso, 2007) in numerous research studies and projects applying these technologies in this area. In so doing, a framework is developed that enhances existing SWS frameworks with incorporating a "context/situation" model for supporting the multiple usage contexts and situations of public services. In essence, this paper seeks to present a comparative study of existing e-Government projects that have transformed this field with semantic technologies, especially SWS technology and ontology. As a result, a set of tools are developed and proposed within these research works and projects such as ontologies for building e-Government knowledge and SWS models for describing efficiently the e-Government services. These tools are used for achieving interoperability in e-Government and improving the automation level of the integration and discovery process of e-Government services. The proposed framework indicates that an efficient semantic description of public services can accomplish the interoperability and integration issues in e-Government. Moreover, the reuse of existing resources, utilising the semantic technologies and improving them with incorporating the "context/situation" model can improve the automation level of a dynamic integration and discovery of e-Government services.

Thereafter, Ally Lee and Yair Levy present their research entitled "The effect of information quality on trust in e-government systems’ transformation". Researchers such as Carter and Belanger (2005), Evans and Yen (2006) and Jones (2007) have investigated the impact of e-Government systems on citizens. In these studies, researchers (Jones, 2007) argue that if public services are to be transformed through e-Government systems, then there is a need to understand how citizens perceive e-Government systems. Evans and Yen (2006) and Carter and Belanger (2005) argue that despite the government’s growing investment in electronic services, citizens do not trust e-Government systems and are still more likely to use traditional methods, such as in-person visits or phone calls, to interact with the government. This paper seeks to contribute to information systems through uncovering what citizens feel – and this is achieved by identifying the information quality (InfQual) factors that are significant to citizens including their impact on citizens’ trust in e-Government systems’ transformation. This study employed a two-phase approach, combining qualitative and quantitative methods:

1. The qualitative phase was aimed at collecting the InfQual factors that citizens find important when using e-Government systems.

2. The quantitative phase was designed to collect survey responses regarding the level of importance of both InfQual factors and trust.

To develop and test a framework in the context of e-Government systems, this study used four InfQual factors (such as accessibility, contextual, intrinsic and representational factors) from the InfQual framework initially proposed by Lee et al. (1997) as a starting point for this exploratory investigation.

A research paper is then presented by Kelvin Joseph Bwalya, Tanya Du Plessis, and Chris Rensleigh, entitled "E-Government implementation in Zambia – prospects". As argued in this paper, a number of African regimes (e.g. Nigeria, Malawi, Uganda and Zambia) have been held responsible for inefficient public service delivery, attributed to poor information management practice, slow adoption of ICTs in leveraging socio-economic value chains, and lack of appropriate service integration amongst different government departments. Researchers such as Muganda-Ochara (2010) assert that for these regimes, e-Government is still a novel concept and rarely applied, often due to poor ICT diffusion. The authors explore the prospects of successfully implementing e-Government in Zambia by considering citizens’ and businesses’ perceptions on e-Government. The understanding of citizens’ and businesses’ perspectives on e-Government may go a long way to informing strategies geared towards design of strategies for successful e-Government development. In so doing, this research is guided by the following research question:

RQ1. What factors that influence citizens’ perspectives and engagement in e-Government in Zambia?

To measure the behavioural intention of individual citizens to adopt e-Government, this study utilises the technology acceptance model (TAM) that has been utilised to explain the factors that influence individuals’ adoption of technology. To validate the TAM model in the context of this research, the authors use both qualitative and quantitative data collection approaches (interviews, questionnaires and document analysis), and utilise multivariate analysis. The authors claim that e-Government implementation in Zambia presents an opportunity where institutional inefficiency and corruption can be mitigated – supported by the appropriate information management practices as a result of ICT platforms and supporting norms and standards. Moreover, the successful implementation of e-Government is thought to allow transparent information management practices that will further nurture open, comprehensive and responsive government.

We then have a paper by Mohammad Kamel Alomari, Kuldeep Sandhu and Peter Woods entitled "Exploring citizen perceptions of barriers to e-Government adoption in a developing country". This research investigates on how citizens socialise and network in relation to adopting and using e-Government services. To support this conception, the authors argue that to investigate e-Government adoption and use in the middle-eastern region (e.g. in this case Jordan), attention should be paid to social groups that are dynamic in nature and effectively respond to changes such as e-Government initiatives. Jordan has a collectivist based cultural system where the people are unified into groups from birth. According to Hofstede (2001, p. 225), collectivism is referred to as "a society in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong, cohesive in-groups, which throughout people’s lifetime continue to protect them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty". In essence, the authors emphasize that while introducing e-Government initiatives, governments need to focus on the social aspects of the society. This research therefore offers a better understanding for what drives e-Government across cultures and social norms of different social groups in Jordan by providing a qualitative focus group-based study to capture the people perceptions towards e-Government adoption in Jordan. The rationale for conducting empirical research was to explore and understand the fears, motivations and factors with respect to e-Government relevant to two social groups of people, i.e.:

1. those who do; and

2. those who do not have regular access to the internet in the Middle Eastern country of Jordan.

Contrary to previous research (such as Carter and Belanger, 2005; Chang et al., 2005; Phang et al., 2005), this study highlights the importance of considering factors that most likely appear as organisational terms, such as resistance to change, when investigating the adoption of e-Government within a social community. Cultural and social themes that emerged through the empirical research include resistance to change, wasta (favouritism), and word of mouth.

Finally, we have a case study based paper by Emma Higgins, Mark Taylor, Paulo Lisboa and Farath Arshad, entitled "Developing a data sharing framework: a case study". As reflected from the title of this paper, the authors examine the process of developing a data sharing framework between different public sector organisations such as:

* UK fire and rescue service;

* local council;

* NHS Primary Care Trust; and

* police force.

In order to improve policy and practice, several attempts towards inter-organisational data sharing in the public sector have been made (Yang and Maxwell, 2011; Florence et al., 2011; Quigg et al., 2012). Nevertheless, the authors argue that there appears to be a lack of commonly used frameworks for data sharing in the public sector organisations. In overcoming this gap, the authors emphasize that data sharing between public sector organisations should be approached in a systematised and well-managed mode, to appreciate the potential benefits of data sharing, and to establish a workable approach to data sharing that is legitimately accommodating. The conceptual systematic data sharing framework examined in this paper seeks to provide guidance to organisations considering data sharing initiatives. The empirical findings of this research indicated that it is important to carefully scope data sharing activities in terms of the organisational activities that can be supported by data sharing, the actual data that can be shared (both existing data and new data), the actual mechanisms for sharing the data, and the manner in which organizational activities may be altered as a result of data sharing. Based on the overall research conducted, it can be said that data sharing can contribute to significantly reducing duplication efforts between public sector organisations, reducing costs and facilitating synchronised and coordinated provision of public services, and reducing risks associated with individuals and promote independent living.

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

Zahir Irani
Editor
Muhammad Kamal
Editorial Assistant

References

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