Marta Raus

Evaluating IT innovations in a business-to-government context: A framework and its applications

Abstract This paper highlights the challenges of assessing the value of business-to-government IT innovations for both private and public stakeholders. Due to the different backgrounds of inhomogeneous stakeholders, potential adopters of business-to-government systems have varying requirements; in particular, they address understandings of value attributed to the implementation and the usage of such systems. Incorporating specific perspectives of each stakeholder in its own domain for evaluation is vital for supporting diffusion of IT innovations. The main contribution of this paper is the development of a value assessment framework that combines the value understanding from both public and private stakeholders. Applying this framework not only allows the value assessment of business-to-government IT innovations incorporating different needs and requirements of various current stakeholders, but it also provides common and objective evaluation criteria on similar business-to-government IT innovations for potential adopters from both domains. We discuss the application of the proposed value framework in the case of e-customs systems redesign based on an example of the introduction of e-customs IT solutions in a Finnish multinational company.

Standardised Data Models

Standardisation and interoperability efforts are ongoing within and across organisations on a local and global scale. In many cases, industry-focused standards advocates propose offerings from their organisations to any possibly- involved organisations in global trade. Given regulatory and security measures established by national, European and international authorities, Single Window Access, business-to-government (B2G) collaboration and Data Tagging along a trade chain require a standardisation concept that works for all involved trade partners regardless of the size and industrial ori- entation. Semantic standardisation as proposed by the successor of UN/EDIBookID FACT, the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT) seems a promising approach. Thus far, it has not been tested in a complex environment, as, for example, in multi-national and interorganisational living labs. In this chapter we introduce the key aspects of UN/CEFACT and semantic standardisation. We illustrate the characteristics of semantic standardisations based not only on the findings of our work as Work Package 1 team, but also on our trials in selected living labs of the ITAIDE project. The prerequisites to make semantic standardisation work are then discussed based on experienced usability, benefits and limitations, and by disclosing further requirements that we have developed in our research. Moreover, the innovation in approaching standardisation as we have done is comprised of the connectedness of semantics, standards and regulations. The chapter closes with recommendations for making trusted trade networks executable.

Value Assessment of Business-to-Government IT Innovations: The Case of e-Customs

This chapter highlights a procedure for assessing the value of business-togovernment (B2G) IT innovations for both private and public stakeholders. Due to the different backgrounds of inhomogeneous stakeholders, potential adopters of B2G systems have varying requirements; in particular, they attach different value to the implementation and the usage of such systems Incorporating the specific perspectives of each stakeholder for evaluation is vital for supporting diffusion of IT innovations. The main contribution of this chapter is the development of a value assessment framework that combines the value understanding of both private and public stakeholders. Applying this framework allows not only the value assessment of B2G IT innovations incorporating different needs and requirements of various current stakeholders, but it also provides potential adopters with a common and objective evaluation criteria on similar B2G IT innovations that will be relevant to both domains.