Bram Klievink

Realizing joined-up government — Dynamic capabilities and stage models for transformation

Joining up remains a high priority on the e-government agenda and requires extensive transformation. Stage models are predictable patterns which exist in the growth of organizations and unfold as discrete time periods that result in discontinuity and can help e-government development towards joined-up government. Although stage models may be conceptually appealing, these models are often not empirically validated, do not transcend the level of individual organizations, and provide little practical support to policymakers. Furthermore, they do not include the dynamic capabilities needed by organizations to transform from one stage to the next stage. In this paper, a five-stage model is presented that describes the progression from stove-piped situations towards a nationwide, customer-oriented, and joined-up government. The dynamic capabilities needed for realizing each stage are identified. This model is empirically validated and helps government agencies benchmark their position, realize their role in the formation of a joined-up government, develop the necessary capabilities, and adopt centrally developed infrastructural facilities aimed at moving to the next stage. We found that growth stages are useful for providing guidance and can be used by policymakers to stimulate the developments of capabilities needed by organizations to migrate from one stage to another

Enhancing Visibility in International Supply Chains: The Data Pipeline Concept

With increasing global trade and growing emphasis on security, enhanced information sharing between actors in global supply chains is required. Currently, the data about cargo available in the supply chain does not provide a timely and accurate description of the goods. To solve this data quality issue, data should be captured upstream at the point where goods are packed for transport to the buyer. Without ICT, it was not possible to get timely access to the original trade data. The data pipeline concept is an IT innovation to enable capturing data at the source. The data pipeline accesses existing information systems used by the parties in international supply chains. This paper explores the data pipeline concept and the benefits that businesses and governments could obtain from such an innovation. This study also identifies the need for a public-private governance model that has to accompany the technical innovation.

The collaborative realization of public values and business goals: Governance and infrastructure of public-private information platforms

The scale of societys evolving challenges gradually surpasses the capacity of the public sector to address them. Coping with these challenges requires budget-short governments to look for innovative ways to transform and improve their operations and service provisioning models. While in many cases transformation starts from the inside-out (based on policy goals) and focuses on reorganization through ICTs, we notice a different class of initiatives in which external ICT developments are capitalized by governments to transform from the outside-in. One category of ICT innovations that is especially promising for such a transformation is that of information platforms (henceforth platforms), which can be used to connect different stakeholders; public and private. Platforms are not new. Yet, there is not much research on using public–private platforms as part of a transformation effort, the (policy) instruments that are involved, nor about dealing with the cascading multi-level challenges that transformation through platforms offers. This paper addresses these knowledge gaps by drawing on empirical research embedded in two long-term endeavors: (1) standard business reporting between businesses and government agencies and (2) international trade information platforms. In both cases, platforms are being collaboratively developed and used by a collective of public and private organizations. These initiatives reveal that government agencies can steer and shape the development of public–private platforms in a way that enables businesses to pursue their own interest whilst transforming business–government interactions and more generally serving collective interests and public value. Our findings indicate that once a public–private governance structure is accepted by stakeholders and adapted to fit with the technical dimensions of the information infrastructure, even platforms that are driven by the private sector can start to evolve in a way that enables extensive transformation of the operations of government.

The Role of Intermediaries in Multi-Channel Service Delivery Strategies

The advent of e-government and the use of the Internet to connect governments to citizens and businesses have resulted into direct contact between government agencies and their customers. This development confirms the prediction of the transaction cost theory, which predicts a more direct interaction and the resulting bypassing of intermediaries. In this article, the authors explore intermediation theory and analyze two case studies which counter the argument of the bypassing of intermediaries. It is possible to adopt a reintermediation strategy in which intermediaries are used as a value-adding service delivery channel. The case studies show that intermediaries can be employed to reduce cost and improve information quality, while at the same time make government more demand-driven by employing channels that are closer to the natural interaction patterns of their customers than direct interaction. For governments, this implies that only adopting a disintermediation strategy, which is often motivated by a desire to reduce transaction costs, is too narrow an approach and needs to be complimented by a reintermediation strategy in order to advance towards a demand-driven government.

Barriers and impediments to transformational government: insights from literature and practice

Transformational government (t-government) has been introduced as a new stage of e-government aimed at realising structural changes and greater benefits in the public sector. Yet, there are many impediments blocking transformation, and there is limited insight in these barriers. In this paper, impediments for t-government are investigated by conducting a literature review and carrying out three case studies. The impediments found in literature were confirmed and extended using the case studies. Impediments simultaneously occur on the governance, organisational and managerial, and technical level and need to be addressed in concert. Research on transformation can benefit from understanding these interrelated impediments.

Developing Multi-Layer Information Infrastructures: Advancing Social Innovation through Public–Private Governance

Information infrastructures of businesses and government are increasingly interwoven. The development of these information infrastructures often has a technological focus and the concurrent social innovation is ill understood. To address this gap, we study public–private information infrastructure developments at three layers over a prolonged period of time. Stakeholders have to alter existing social practices to realize the potential of information infrastructures. New social practices need to be developed and sustaining innovations requires new governance mechanisms.

Can enterprise architectures reduce failure in development projects

Purpose: Scant attention has been given to the role of enterprise architecture (EA) in relationship to risk management in information system development projects. Even less attention has been given to the inter-organizational setting. The aim of this paper is to better understand this relationship. Design/methodology/approach: The relationship between EA and project failure/success is investigated by – through a workshop – creating a retrospective view on the use of architectures in large and complex ICT-projects. Findings: Failure factors can be grouped in organization network, people, process, product and technology categories. The findings show that a disappointingly limited number of public sector development projects make sufficient use of architecture as a risk management instrument. Architectures should be considered both as a risk-mitigating instrument and as an organizational shaping routine to reduce project failure and manage risk in organization networks. Research limitations/implications: A single workshop with a limited number of participants was conducted. The findings need further refinement and generalization based on more empirical research investigating the relationship between architecture and project failure. Practical implications: Architecture should give explicit consideration to risk management and help to draw attention to this. Governance mechanisms need be defined to ensure that the organizations’ members become aware of both architecture and risk management. Risk management and EA have similarities, as they are both an instrument and an organizational shaping routine. Originality/value: Governments collaborate more and more in organizational networks and for that reason often multiple organizations are involved in information system project developments. Enterprise architecture as a risk mitigation instrument has not, to date, been given attention. Paper type: Research paper

Facilitating Adoption of International Information Infrastructures: A Living Labs Approach

One of the key challenges that governments face in supervising international supply chains is the need for improving the quality of data accompanying the logistics flow. In many supply chains, individual parties in the chain work with low quality data for their operations and compliance, even though somewhere in the supply chain, better data is available. In the European CASSANDRA project, ICT-supported information infrastructures are developed to exchange data between businesses and government, to support visibility on the supply chain and the re-use of information. However, to gain better data, actors need to be open about their operations, processes and systems to parties that are geographically and culturally on the other side of the world. This adds perceived vulnerabilities for parties already operating in a highly competitive environment. This could be a major barrier for making the innovation work. We argue that Living Labs, as a collaborative innovation approach, are able to support the adoption of innovative information infrastructures. They help identifying gains that innovations may bring. Furthermore, the trust-based setting also mitigates the added perceived vulnerability such innovations bring for the participants. We illustrate this by examples from the CASSANDRA Living Labs.

Gaming and simulation for transforming and reengineering government: Towards a research agenda

Purpose – In the process of transformation, governments have to deal with a host of stakeholders and complex organizational and technical issues. In this viewpoint paper, an argument is made in favour of using gaming and simulation as tools designed to aid the transformation and reengineering of government. Based on the argument, a research agenda is proposed. Design/methodology/approach – The approach taken is a combination of literature research, argumentation and illustrations. Findings – Simulation and gaming have the potential to be used to activate and involve stakeholders at all layers of government in transformational efforts. These tools should be closely connected to visualization and interaction options, to facilitate communication and participation. Because the various stakeholders involved have different views and different approaches, it is both necessary and difficult to involve them in identifying problems and developing solutions. Given the considerable potential of these tools, more research is needed on the use and development of participative simulation and gaming tools. Research limitations/implications – Although gaming and simulation have been used in many domains, they have yet to be tried in the area of e-government. More research is needed into the instruments that can help governments in their transformation processes. Practical implications – E-government projects should be supported by tools such as gaming and simulation to facilitate the participation, involvement of and communication among the various relevant stakeholders, to create a shared understanding of the problems and of future scenarios. Originality/value – The primary value of this viewpoint lies in the analysis of the potential opportunities of gaming and simulation in terms of transforming and reengineering government and the research agenda that follows from this analysis. Paper type - Viewpoint

Developing multi-sided platforms for public-private information sharing: design observations from two case studies

Multi-sided platforms (MSPs) represent an active area in economics and electronic markets, but are given scant attention in digital government research. While the body of knowledge on commercial MSPs is steadily growing, little empirical substantiation exists about the series of design choices that stakeholders conduct in order to realize information infrastructures in a public-private setting. This paper investigates the barriers and decisions that influence the public-private design of MSPs. Two public-private initiatives are investigated: (1) standard business reporting and (2) an international logistic information platform. The barriers and decisions in the current portrayal of both cases are analysed on two aspects: (1) the platform governance and (2) the information infrastructure. Research data is collected through knowledge retention projects in which researchers and practitioners reflect on design choices. We found that rather than developing an information infrastructure and demanding that businesses use it, government agencies detach from the classical approach and actively tempt businesses to partner in achieving long-term goals. A cross-case comparison shows that in the public-private setting government agencies need to employ a careful mix of instruments (i.e., business incentives, legislation and standard development) in order to realise successful information infrastructures. Both government agencies and businesses are still learning in terms of employing MSPs for realising change.