Cene Bavec

On stimulus for citizens’ use of e-government services

The paper presents the desk research on interdependences between individual use of e-government services and group of selected socio-economic indicators, results from public opinion polls on S&T, and work requirements in EU27 countries. We identified six distinct groups of indicators that are significantly correlated with use of e-government services: national innovativeness and competitiveness, regular use of Internet, demanding and autonomous work, interest in innovations and S&T, data protection and security and personal trust. Among others, research opens questions about possible role of social capital in public acceptance of e-governments services. Deeper insight into interdependences between studied indicators also reveals that old EU15 and the new EU member states in some cases demonstrate different behavior patterns.

What matters in the development of the e-government in the EU?

In this paper we presented an empirical insight into interdependences between selected national performance indicators and e-government indicators at national level in the European Union. Results show that the level of economic development has a moderate impact on the e-government development, while national competitiveness and innovation play quite a strong role. There is also a low correlation between overall government efficiency and e-government. It confirms that e-government projects are predominantly politically and not economic or socially driven. However, the most economically advanced Nordic countries and UK have all very high e-government readiness. On the other hand, there is surprisingly low correlation between e-government usage by enterprises and individuals, which indicates very different incentives for business and the public. The relatively low performance of new EU member states was also noted.

The impact of organizational virtuality on financial effectiveness

Purpose – The research focused on the question how the authors could assess the impact of organizational virtuality on financial efficiency using primary data from company accounting records. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – The implemented model was based on the assumption that the authors could define virtuality with the joint effects of outsourcing and IT utilization. The authors also assumed that they could define virtuality with available financial indicators. The authors tested the model on a sample of tourist organizations in Slovenia. The main methodological challenges were hidden by diverse methods in calculating and keeping financial records in individual organizations. In some cases, the authors had to recalculate and adjust individual indicators in the particular company to make them methodologically comparable with others. As the modeling and testing tool the authors used structural equation modeling with two latent variables: organization virtuality and f...