Hans Jochen Scholl

E-Government Integration and Interoperability: Framing the Research Agenda

Abstract Among the defining purposes of e-Government, highly agile, citizen-centric, accountable, transparent, effective, and efficient government operations and services have high rank. For reaching these goals, the integration of government information resources and processes, and ultimately, the interoperation of independent e-Government information systems appears essential. Yet, most integration and interoperation efforts meet serious challenges and constraints. This article contributes to the development of a research framework on integration and system interoperation in e-Government. We propose future research projects to study the foci and purposes, limitations and constraints, as well as processes and outcomes of integration and interoperation in electronic Government. For so doing, we suggest needs-and-wants theory as one promising theoretical lens (among others) for guiding that effort.

E-government: a special case of ICT-enabled business process change

The literature on business process reengineering (BPR) has evolved into a strand of literature which studies organizational change (OC), and more specifically, business process change (BPC), induced and enabled by information and communication technology (ICT). With the unfolding of electronic government (e-government) changes to the way government works also seem to be imminent. Electronic government increasingly impacts business processes and workflows in the public sector. The BPC/ICT research, hence, has the capacity to directly inform both the research and practice of electronic government. In this paper, the findings of the BPC/ICT literature are reviewed and discussed regarding their applicability to electronic government. Both the theory and preliminary empirical evidence suggest that electronic government must be seen as a special case of ICT-enabled business process change.

Building Understanding of Smart City Initiatives

This study presents the first results of an analysis primarily based on semi-structured interviews with government officials and managers who are responsible for smart city initiatives in four North American cities—Philadelphia and Seattle in the United States, Quebec City in Canada, and Mexico City in Mexico. With the reference to the Smart City Initiatives Framework that we suggested in our previous research, this study aims to build a new understanding of smart city initiatives. Main findings are categorized into eight aspects including technology, management and organization, policy context, governance, people and communities, economy, built infrastructure, and natural environment.

Interoperability in E-Government: More than Just Smart Middleware

According to Layne and Lee (2001), electronic Government (e-Government, e-Gov) progresses towards higher levels of integration and interoperability among and between government levels and branches. Interoperability in essence leads to extensive information sharing among and between governmental entities. However, the obstacles, which prevent a rapid progress into that direction, are not merely technical. In fact, the technology side may prove the least difficult to address, while the organizational, legal, political, and social aspects may prove much more of a challenge. The case in point presented in this paper is Washington States Justice Information Network (JIN), which attempts to share and interoperate criminal and judicial information between state and local governments. Progress towards sustainable information sharing requires many players seeking the same ends in an ongoing fashion, not just a huge upfront and one-time effort as the case illustrates.

Information Quality as a Common Ground for Key Players in e-Government Integration and Interoperability

Whereas computer-supported sharing of information is a core issue of e-Government integration and interoperation, the key players involved hardly find any guidance how to settle for an agreement covering the various aspects related to information exchange. Hence, we argue that e-Government research needs an explicit dedication to the phenomenon of information quality (IQ). We base our analysis on key players and constituents in e-Government, and on how those key players’ and constituents’ needs and wants, roles and agendas shape the view on and the understanding of IQ. We propose detailed and practical steps for information sharing in e-Government interoperation projects and demonstrate how those steps are related to information quality.

Involving Salient Stakeholders: Beyond the Technocratic View on Change

Business process change involving information technology has become notorious for high failure rates. Apparently, the larger the project scope and size, the higher the failure rate. Also, as a major factor among others associated with failure, past research has identified an overemphasis on technical validity and functionality at the expense of the social and institutional process side in change projects. Yet, even if important factors had been correctly and completely identified, the social process, within which they interact, might have remained obscured. Furthermore, long-term, large-scale change projects, particularly when they encompass IT components as major building blocks, defy the conventional start-to-closeout, detailed project planning. Rather, they unfold in a stepwise fashion with alternative paths towards a coarse goal, particularly in environments with distributed powers, as in the public sector. For this process and this environment, the author proposes that participatory action research (PAR) has the capacity to provide a holistic methodological and social-process frame and a mode of joint inquiry. This article gives an account of the approach based on a large government change project in its early stages. In this project, practitioners and researchers formed a joint team, which strove to lay foundations to a multi-year, IT-enabled change initiative meant to become a state-wide exemplar for similar projects. During this early project stage, salient stakeholders and their needs were identified, which helped launch a highly inclusive process. However, as found in this project, external influences impacted this public-sector project in a way that the build-up of consensus remained incomplete, underscoring the need for ongoing stakeholder involvement within the project.

E-Government-Induced Business Process Change (BPC): An Empirical Study of Current Practices

E-government (e-gov) projects have an increasing influence on how government business processes evolve and change. While early e-gov projects focused on government-to-public information and interaction, the second and third wave of e-gov projects also emphasize internal effectiveness and efficiency, along with intra- and interdepartmental as well as intra- and interbranch integration. With these increases in scope and scale of e-gov projects, existing business processes, including core processes, become candidates for improvement and change. While the private-sector-oriented literature on business process change abounds with descriptive and prescriptive accounts, no equivalent has been found in the public-sector-related literature. Although many insights drawn from the private sector may apply, the public sector seems to develop distinct practices. This paper contributes to the understanding of current practices in e-gov-induced business process change, comparing those practices to prescriptions derived from private-sector experience. Among other factors, the more inclusive approach observed in e-gov business process change may explain the higher success rate of public-sector projects compared to those reported from the private sector.

Profiling the EG Research Community and Its Core

Electronic Government Research (EGR) has progressed beyond its stages of infancy and has unfolded into a respected domain of multi- and cross-disciplinary study. A sizable and dedicated community of researchers has formed. So far, however, few, if any, accounts exist which sufficiently analyze the profile of the electronic government research community. The contribution of this paper is to describe this profile and give a detailed account of the core researcher community, name the most prolific researchers, determine their disciplinary backgrounds, and identify their preferred standards of inquiry. The study also identifies and quantifies the preferred publishing outlets in EGR, distinguishing between core journals and core conferences, on the one hand, and non-core sites, on the other hand. This study advances the understanding of the emerging structure and profile of the academic domain of EGR and helps researchers identify adequate publishing outlets for their domain-related research.

Information quality as capstone in negotiating e-government integration, interoperation and information sharing

A core challenge of e-government integration and interoperation is the computer-supported sharing of information. So far, e-government research has paid little attention to Information Quality (IQ), although this is central to government agencies willingness to share or to use shared information in this context. In our study, we demonstrate and detail how IQ serves as an indispensable capstone and common ground in cross-agency information-sharing and interoperation projects. We base our analysis on key players and constituents in e-government, their institutional needs and wants, their roles and agendas and how those shape the understanding of IQ. In particular, we distinguish between desired, negotiated and emergent IQ and how these are linked to the choice of organisational arrangements and utilised standards. Finally, we further detail how IQ-oriented research helps facilitate e-government integration and information sharing in research and practice.

Process integration, information sharing, and system interoperation in government: A comparative case analysis

Abstract In recent years, government agencies on all levels and in all branches have increasingly engaged in harmonizing business processes, standardizing information sharing, and interoperating their information systems, which indicates a rising need for intra- and inter-government collaboration. Simultaneously, the technical capacity for process integration, information sharing, and system interoperation/interoperability (INT-IS-IOP) has also greatly increased. While a number of INT-IS-IOP projects have faced serious challenges leading to problematic project outcomes, other projects have produced the desired results. Using the amended Scholl/Klischewski (2007) framework this study systematically analyzes documents of nineteen cases of mostly successful projects, which were carried out across Europe. Based on the results of this analysis, we identify and document key foci and characteristics of successful projects. The comparative case analysis also helps assess the explanatory power of the Scholl/Klischewski framework, its applicability to practice, and its utility for evaluative purposes.