Mirko Vintar

E-government and organisational transformation of government: Black box revisited?

Abstract During the e-government era the role of technology in the transformation of public sector organisations has significantly increased, whereby the relationship between ICT and organisational change in the public sector has become the subject of increasingly intensive research over the last decade. However, an overview of the literature to date indicates that the impacts of e-government on the organisational transformation of administrative structures and processes are still relatively poorly understood and vaguely defined. The main purpose of the paper is therefore the following: (1) to examine the interdependence of e-government development and organisational transformation in public sector organisations and propose a clearer explanation of ICTs role as a driving force of organisational transformation in further e-government development; and (2) to specify the main characteristics of organisational transformation in the e-government era through the development of a new framework. This framework describes organisational transformation in two dimensions, i.e. the ‘depth’ and the ‘nature’ of changes, and specifies the key attributes related to the three typical organisational levels.

The Concepts of an Active Life-Event Public Portal

Public Portals as common entry points to public services are becoming key elements of the future e-government infrastructure. In most countries, recent research in further development of public portals has been very intensive; however, approaches to the design of portal architecture and organization are still very diverse. In this paper, we will present current results of the research in progress aiming to develop prototype of an intelligent Life-Event Public Portal. We are focusing on the methodological aspects of the knowledge-based Life-Event Portals, which can provide much more efficient provision of e-services than conventional e-portals.

Ontologies, Web Services, and Intelligent Agents: Ideas for Further Development of Life-Event Portals

This paper present possible further development of intelligent life-event based portals. Introduction of ‘deep’ knowledge (semantics) in the shape of ontologies, distributed components in the shape of web services and intelligent agents are three main topics of probable future architecture of e-gov. This paper relates to the developed prototype of life-event based portal and its possible future architectural refinement.

A possible solution for digital preservation of e‐government: A centralised repository within a cloud computing framework

Purpose – Based on a three‐level digital preservation framework, the purpose of this paper is to suggest a solution for long‐term digital preservation for the public administration sector, in the form of a centralised intermediate repository, on the basis of the concept of cloud computing.Design/methodology/approach – By means of a thorough review of the literature in this area and an analysis of the current state of the art, the paper investigates a three‐level digital preservation framework with a focus on the public sector. It cross‐links this framework with the cloud computing concept, in order to propose an appropriate solution.Findings – The mapping of six factors of digital preservation to three levels of digital preservation shows that using appropriate steps supported by suitable strategies and policies enables the public administration sector to take advantage of modern information technology and solve the demanding and critical problem of digital preservation.Practical implications – The paper ...

Ex-ante evaluation: Towards an assessment model of its impact on the success of e-government projects

The paper addresses the issue of ex-ante evaluation of e-government projects. Many methodologies have been developed in the last 15 years in order to support such evaluations, but we still know very little about the impact of these evaluations on the success rate of e-government projects. The research conducted on the Slovenian public administration and presented in this paper fills in the gap between theoretical and empirical research in this area. Using the methodology of partial least squares, a model of indicators was developed and tested in the Slovenian e-government environment. It was proven that ex-ante evaluation of e-government projects has an impact on the success of these projects --28% of the variance in success can be explained by ex-ante evaluation.

How much can we trust different e-government surveys? The case of Slovenia

E-government has been the subject for benchmarking since the beginning of this decade, with several well-established surveys on the subject. These surveys employ different models for assessing the maturity of services, e-readiness, digital divide, and other relevant factors, leading to varying conclusions concerning the state of e-government in individual countries, regions, or even on a global level [13]. Within the EU, the CapGemini benchmark has been used since 2001. According to these surveys, Slovenia, the subject of this discourse, has made impressive progress over the last five years. However, if we analyse the Slovene position vs. other, also well established rankings and surveys around the world, the results of Slovenia are not so outstanding. Thus, the main aim of the paper is to critically analyse and compare the case of Slovenia with regard to some of the most established benchmarks around the world. These will serve us as basis for presenting a more realistic picture about the true state of e-government in Slovenia in comparison to other countries.

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.

Life-Event Approach: Comparison between Countries

Designing user-friendly public e-services is one of the prime concerns of most e-government initiatives and programmes. In this context a life-event based approach seems to be one of the most promising. There are several research projects and several live-event description and design methodologies under development, most of them still in an early stage. In the paper we are trying to focus and compare three selected methodological approaches to designing live-events. Main aim of our research was to compare the selected approaches and outline their main characteristics as well as differences between them.

Development of eHealth at a national level - comparative aspects and mapping of general success factors

Implementation of eHealth is one of the key long-term goals of the Slovenian public sector. The main objective of eHealth is the construction of a comprehensive health information system (IS) and the connection of a widespread network of stakeholders within the healthcare sector. The article presents a review of the eHealth project in Slovenia and provides a comparative analysis of eHealth development in Slovenia, Austria and Denmark. Focusing on the situation in Slovenia, the article identifies the main deficiencies in the current state of eHealth implementation, maps a set of general success factors in the field and suggests guidelines for the effective development and implementation of eHealth projects.

Reference models for e-services integration based on life-events

Modelling life events is a task of a crucial importance and a first necessary step towards supporting resolution of a particular life event on the active e-government portal. The use of reference models as templates for building life-event models promises savings in time and costs of the modelling process. At the same time, using reference models can increase the quality and accuracy of the established models. The paper proposes a complete set of lifeevent reference models at different abstraction levels that allows for modelling and implementing virtually any life event. The types of reference models range from a general one that provides template for any life-event model, to reference models specialized for establishing models of a specific life event in a specific country or a region or tailored to a set of specific user circumstances and needs.