Arild Jansen

What is the value of eGovernment – and how can we actually realize it?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to promote academic discourse around the understanding of the concept of value of eGovernment and how a diverse set of benefits or values can be realized from eGovernment efforts.Design/methodology/approach – The paper is designed as a viewpoint paper with emphasis on grounding a set of arguments on current practice and relevant scholarly papers.Findings – Although not based on a formal, structured review, the paper proposes that the concept of value in relation to eGovernment is insufficiently discussed and defined in the eGovernment literature. Based on the high failure rates of eGovernment efforts, it further proposes that structured approaches to benefits realization, in combination with increased focus on (public) value, can be fruitful avenues for future research. The complexity of the context and the research challenges makes interdisciplinary research teams a necessity.Originality/value – If addressed, the research propositions can lead to an increased unders...

How to develop an open and flexible information infrastructure for the public sector

In line with a number of other countries, Norway has decided to base their ICT solutions in the public sector on a common ICT architecture. This article discusses some challenges related to this work. The theoretical basis for the discussions is our understanding of information infrastructures, which we claim offers a fruitful perspective to the building of ICT architectures. Of particular relevance is its installed base: the history of technical and nontechnical components that determines its further development. We argue that an ICT architecture for the public sector should be seen as an important element of a government information infrastructure. However, it has to be adapted to other principles and fulfil a wider range of needs than traditional types of infrastructures, including the specific political, regulatory and organizational context that it targets

The nature of public e-services and their quality dimensions

Abstract In this paper, we argue that our understanding of the concept of ‘e-service’ is incomplete and that this inadequate understanding blurs important differences between distinct types of interaction between a government and its citizens. This in turn creates difficulties when assessing the quality of ‘e-services’, as we cannot specify precisely what we are measuring. Based on a literature review, we argue that it is neither feasible nor fruitful to provide an unambiguous, precise understanding of the concept of e-service. However, in our context, ‘e-services’ is understood as a sequence of digital interactions between a service provider and service receiver which add some value to the receiver. We will accordingly inquire into the ‘e-service’ concept and examine its distinct types of communication in order to provide a better understanding of its basic characteristics. As a result, we outline a framework for categorizing the different types of digital communication that are denoted ‘e-services’ by identifying their basic service elements. This framework will also help to specify their distinct quality dimensions. We can thereby identify and model various types of interaction between citizens and public agencies based on a consistent set of service elements. As an illustration of its usefulness, we describe one of the life event services in the EU eGovernment benchmark framework in terms of our framework, including its quality dimensions.

Blockchain Technology as s Support Infrastructure in e-Government

The blockchain technology, including Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, has been adopted in many application areas during recent years. However, the main attention has been on the currency and not so much on the underlying blockchain technology, including peer-to-peer networking, security and consensus mechanisms. This paper argues that we need to look beyond the currency applications and investigate the potential use of the blockchain technology in governmental tasks such as digital ID management and secure document handling. The paper discusses the use of blockchain technology as a platform for various applications in e-Government and furthermore as an emerging support infrastructure by showing that blockchain technology demonstrates a potential for authenticating many types of persistent documents.

E-Government - Just a Matter of Technology?

The aim of this paper is to examine the role of technology in the reorganizing of public agencies. The empirical basis is the automation of the admission to higher education in Norway. This long development process has included many steps of technical developments, combined with changes in legislation and radical administrative reforms. Our analysis aims at identifying the factors that have driven these complex development processes. We ask to what ex-tent we may claim that advances in new ICTs have been a decisive factor in these reform processes? Or, has the development by and large been impelled in-stead by management interests? Our findings indicate that neither of these hypotheses can fully explain these processes. It is indisputable that political and central management priorities have been crucially important in this reform. At the same time, we cannot neglect the dynamics related to the visions that technological developments have created.

The state of IT governance: patterns of variation at the central government level in Norway

The aim of this article is to analyze IT governance practices in the Norwegian government ministries. We seek to identify the ministries IT governance regimes, and, more specifically, the different government sectors policies and principles regarding the use of ICTs. Moreover, we seek to explain differences in IT governance regimes across ministries. The empirical evidence has been collected from policy documents, budget proposals and other document. These data have been supplemented by qualitative interviews with key civil servants in the various government ministries. The analysis of the data is based on a theoretical framework consisting of four IT governance models and a classification of the functions that ICTs fulfill within the various government sectors. Our findings indicate that there is some correlation between IT governance models and ICT functions.

The Understanding of ICTs in Public Sector and Its Impact on Governance

The visions and goals for the use of ICTs in public sector are huge, both related to efficiency, effectiveness and for strengthening democratic functions. The realisation of such diverse set of goals requires a broad range of means and measures. However, do the managers really understand the many functions and roles ICTs have and how they should be governed? This paper discusses what functions that ICTs have in the public sector, and analyses existing ICT governance approaches in the Norwegian government. Our findings do indicate that there exist a mismatch between the functions implicit in the objectives that are stated for eGovernment and the way ICTs are governed. This mismatch, can, at least partly, be attributed to an inadequate understanding of ICTs and its many functions.

Innovation in ICT-Based Health Care Provision

This paper describes a project redesigning psychiatric services for children and adolescents, introducing a new decentralized model into the ordinary structures of health care services in rural areas in Norway by using mobile phone technology. The authors apply a multilayer and dialectic perspective in the analysis of the innovation process that created the ICT solution that supports this treatment model. The salient challenges of the project were related to the contradictions between the existing, dominant power structures and the emergent structures in the different layers of the design structures. As a result of the development process, a new model emerged with a larger potential for creating a new innovation path than if it had been linked to existing structures. This paper contributes to the understanding of how user-driven innovation can break with existing power structures through focusing on different layers in the change processes.

Can ICT Reform Public Agencies

This study examines the reorganisation of the administration of admission to higher education in Norway, which has also included the development of a nationwide, ICT-based case handling system. This reform process was initiated out of the need to provide politicians with information for control and regulatory purposes, and the reform resulted in a centralised management information system. This system, however, has evolved into a coordinated but also partly locally delegated decision-making instrument which processes most of the applications for admission to higher education in Norway. Our analysis aims at identifying the driving forces and mechanisms that have motivated this long-term and complex development process. We ask to what extent we may claim that management interests have been the key factor in these reform processes? Or, has the development been impelled instead by advances in new information and communication technologies? Our conclusion is that neither of these hypotheses can fully explain these processes. It is indisputable that political and central management priorities have been crucially important in this reform. At the same time, we cannot neglect the dynamics related to the visions that technological developments have created. Such visions, implemented through collaborative processes and including a central project team and support staff in the various local institutions, seem to have created an environment for innovative technical and administrative solutions.

What role has scandinavian IS tradition in egovernment implementations

The aim of this paper is to take part in the discussions on how the Scandinavian IS research tradition in information system research may contribute to eGovernment developments and implementations. Although this tradition does not represent a coherent set of principles and methods for system development, they share some common ideas and goals related to user involvement, participatory design and democracy at the work place. Even if some of the most basic ideas are inherent in our understanding of the IS field to day, many of the lessons from the past may have been forgotten. Some do also claim that the dominant understanding of eGovernment is primarily based on efficiency, customer orientation and competition. I will argue that advanced development and use of ICT also can support ideals and goals similar to those of the Scandinavian approaches to IS; we should not least have a greater focus on studying the consequences of various approaches to system design, implementation and use.