Doreen Kubisch

Explaining successes and failures of e-Government implementation with micropolitics

The enabling potential of IT for reengineering administrative processes and service delivery will not be realized to any greater extent if basic problems of change management are neglected. There are numerous barriers to implementing innovative structures, represented e.g. by strategic deficits, not involved politicians, or organizational resistance. Micropolitics is a promising approach to clarify these issues. This contribution describes a framework based on distinguishing different micropolitical arenas, in each of which a different set of actors play different types of micropolitical games.

Analyse von Innovationsprozessen im Kontext von E-Government

E-Government requires technical and organizational innovation. Research has already shown that the respective innovation process is complex and contingent upon specific organizational structures. Managing such innovation processes successfully is difficult. Drawing on assumptions of micropolitical behavior, a framework of innovation arenas is proposed. It supports the analysis of ongoing E-Government projects as well as the ex post investigation of successful or failed projects. Testing this framework in case studies already demonstrates its usefulness for individual actors making strategic choices about change management. Furthermore, the results indicate that many commonly held assumptions about successful change management have to be reconsidered.