Åke Grönlund

Electronic Government: Design, Applications and Management

While not specifically defined, electronic goverment has become a common term to describe all of the processes, administrative and democratic, that combine to constitute public sector operations. This text examines the changes faced by the public sector, as the use of IT significantly increases. The book strives to examine the challenges and opportunites involved in the implementation and use of IT into organizations.

A Conceptual Framework for E-Learning in Developing Countries: A Critical Review of Research Challenges

This paper presents a critical review of research on challenges for e‐learning with a particular focus on developing countries. A comprehensive literature review including 60 papers on e‐learning challenges was undertaken for the purpose of understanding how to implement e‐learning in developing countries. Research questions were: what has existing research identified as the major challenges for e‐learning, and, what differences, if any, are there between developing countries and developed countries in this respect? The literature study found 278 papers which were condensed to 60 based on exclusion and inclusion criteria designed to find papers of best quality as well as papers that clearly investigated well‐defined challenges. The research found 30 specific challenges which were grouped into four categories, viz.: courses, individuals, technology and context. The overall conclusion is that these challenges are equally valid for both developed and developing countries; however in developing countries more papers focus on access to technology and context whereas in developed countries more papers concern individuals. A further finding is that most papers focus on one or two categories of challenges; few papers exhibit a comprehensive view. Because challenges are interrelated, based on the findings we propose a conceptual framework of emerging issues for e‐learning in developed and developing countries. The framework is useful to guide both practice and research.

State of the Art in e-Gov Research – A Survey

This paper assesses the maturity of the eGovenrment (eGov) field by examining the nature of 170 papers published at three major eGov conferences using a maturity model. Papers were examined mainly for rigor, but to some extent also for relevance. It was found that theory generation and theory testing are not frequent while case stories (no theory, no structured data collection) and product descriptions (no analysis or test) are. Also, claims beyond what is reasonable given the method used are frequent. As for relevance, only a few of the cases where theories are either tested or generated concern the role and nature of government, most concern general organizational issues which could well find a place within traditional IS conferences. On the positive side, global outreach appears fairly good, as does involvement of various pertinent disciplines. It is concluded that eGov conferences need to address quality criteria, both rigor and relevance oriented ones, if the field shall develop to become a distinct research field.

eParticipation research: Systematizing the field

It has been widely acknowledged recently that the research field of eParticipation suffers from lack of comprehensive theoretical contributions, insufficient depth, and inconsistency in definitions of central concepts. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of the field researchers find it difficult to consolidate their theoretical groundwork and further theory building in the eParticipation domain. This paper reports a literature study of conceptual publications on the subject of eParticipation/eDemocracy in the time frame of 2007–2009. Its objectives are to track recent theoretical development in the field, to reveal constraints and limitations to researching the area, and to offer some suggestions for further inquiry. The results show that most theories currently used in conceptual eParticipation research originate from the fields of Political Science and Media and Communication Studies. But together with this, contemporary eParticipation authors contribute to strengthening the field with some “in-house” models and frameworks as well. Central problems with eParticipation research concern immaturity of the field, topical gaps, and biased assumptions. The review shows that the themes of recent publications can be grouped into three major categories: stakeholders, environment, and applications and tools. It also finds some interconnections between these categories; however, in general the coupling technology–stakeholders–(participatory) environments is weak.

Emerging electronic infrastructures: exploring democratic components

The concepts of electronic government and electronic democracy have common roots in that electronic government must rest on, and support, democratic principles. This article discusses how the components of a democratic society are treated as they are built into the emerging electronic infrastructures, dealing with services and dialogues pertinent to the functioning of the public sector, and tries to find emerging patterns. This article opens a discussion on the nature of the emerging infrastructures by reviewing four implementations of local e-democracy and putting them into the context of global e-government development, in particular the European Union’s development of “eEurope.” It is found that the cases represent different models of democracy, models that are only partially explicit. The development is governed more by gradual implementation of information and communication technology than a general political agenda. This means local actors have great influence, and hence, e-democracy is not deterministic; it can come in many shapes.

State of the Art in E-Gov Research: Surveying Conference Publications

This article assesses the maturity of the e-government (e-gov) field by examining the nature of 170 papers published at three major e-gov conferences using a straightforward maturity model. Papers were examined mainly for rigor but, to some extent, also for relevance. It was found that theory generation and theory testing are not frequent, while case stories (no theory, no structured data collection) and product descriptions (no analysis or test) are. Also, claims beyond what is reasonable, given the method used, are frequent. As for relevance, only a few of the cases where theories are either tested or generated concern the role and nature of government and governance; most concern general organizational issues that could well find a place within traditional IS conferences. On the positive side, involvement of various pertinent disciplines appears relevant, and global outreach goes far beyond the Atlantic shores. It is concluded that e-gov conferences need to address quality criteria, both rigor- and relevance-oriented, if e-gov is to develop into a mature research field.

Ten years of e-government: the 'end of history' and new beginning

eGovernment practice has over the past decade developed considerably in a technical perspective moving from information provision to complete transactional services. In terms of organizational adop ...

e-Gov research quality improvements since 2003: more rigor, but research (perhaps) redefined

This paper follows up on an earlier study [1] by assessing the nature of 80 papers from EGOV 05 in terms of rigor and relevance criteria. Both studies use the same method and makes comparison between the results. We find that however still focusing overwhelmingly on descriptions and little on theory testing and creation, paper quality appears much better in that references to literature have increased grossly, there are very few dubious claims, philosophical research and theoretical arguments are virtually extinct, and the number of case stories is vastly reduced. However, the number of product descriptions is more than doubled to just over 30 %. The reasons for this are discussed, and as most of these papers are based on EU research funding we propose that an important reason may be the funding mechanism where researchers are employed as helpers in product development rather than critical scrutiny and analysis.

What's In a Field - Exploring the eGoverment Domain

This paper presents a theory for eGov information systems based on a model of governance derived from a general model of society, and compares the theory to other theories. The theory covers the whole field of governance, and it can be used at any level of governance. It focuses on effectiveness rather than (internal) efficiency of government operation, hence filling a gap as the latter is the yet most commonly discussed in the eGov research field. The theory can be used for high-level comparison and for detailed analysis of specific cases. The purpose of the theory is to provide a general framework within which to assess the development towards electronic government in a utility perspective - what good does an eGov information system do to government in a strategic perspective, that is, government as a manager of society rather than as a collection of well defined narrow services.

Organizational measures to stimulate user engagement with open data

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate which organizational measures can facilitate the use of open data. Implementation of open government data initiatives is commonly supply-driven, as it is dif ...