Elin Uppström

Configurable process models for the swedish public sector

Process orientation and e-services have become essential in revitalizing local government. Although most municipalities offer similar services there is little reuse of e-services or underlying process models among municipalities. Configurable process models represent a promising solution to this challenge by integrating numerous variations of a process in one general model. In this study, design science is used to develop a configurable process model to capture the variability of a number of different processes. The results include a validated configurable process model for social services, a benefits analysis and directions for future development. Although the results are perceived useful by municipal officials, there are several challenges to be met before the benefits of configurable process models are fully utilized.

Process Management Challenges in Swedish Public Sector: A Bottom Up Initiative

Public administration is under pressure to work more effectively and increase effectiveness with regards to internal administrative processes as well as level of service towards citizens. This paper identifies process management challenges encountered in Swedish municipalities and provides concrete examples of consequences of these challenges by using a bottom up approach. It is done by using a common public service process and a mobile solution as platform for discussions with municipal officials working with the process. To categorise the challenges they are grouped into six core categories of business process management, which provide a picture of challenges that municipalities face today. Results show that Swedish municipalities face challenges in all categories and that it was not possible to design a generic process for the analysed service. To initiate work with improving process maturity in local governments the bottom up approach used was found successful.

Re-Visiting IS Design Science Artifacts: Making a Case for Critical Realism

In this paper critical realism is suggested as a suitable philosophical assumption to guide a separate, stand-alone retrospective evaluation of design science projects and artifacts. A main contrib ...

New Implications for Customization of ERP Systems

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems are standardized software packages intended to support the majority or all of an organizations processes. Customization of an ERP system is usually required to achieve fit between system and business processes of an organization. Customization options ranges from setting parameters in the system to developing new functionality by modifying source code. Models describing customization options are a decade old. Since then, the trend is for ERP systems to become more flexible. The feasibility of customization is facilitated and new options for customization are made available. Through in depth interviews, this research identifies a need for revising existing models. Presents necessary changes and proposes new customization options that should be included in a new model. There is also a need for customization models for different types of ERP systems. This paper therefore also contributes with describing how customization of cloud ERP relates to existing models.

Explaining value co-creation and co-destruction in e-government using boundary object theory

This article contributes to the understanding of e-government collaboration, value co-creation and co-destruction when using information systems (IS) artifacts. This is achieved through case study ...

Understanding Public Sector Collaboration Through Boundary Object Theory: A Case Study of an E-Government Initiative in Sweden

This paper investigates a complex collaborative e-government initiative in Sweden using Boundary Object theory. 22 Swedish authorities have a joint mission to create a shared submission function to facilitate the communication and collaboration between numerous stakeholders such as forest owners, businesses and several other state-and local authorities. A case study approach is used where data is collected through in-depth interviews with different stakeholders, document studies and one focus group with project managers. Four boundary objects are identified: project, shared submission function, effects analysis and appropriation direction. By analyzing these four we describe how boundary objects are used to facilitate collaboration within an open government ecosystem.