Richard Heeks

Information Systems and Developing Countries: Failure, Success, and Local Improvisations

This article presents evidence that--alongside the successes-- many information systems in developing countries can be categorized as failing either totally or partially. It then develops a new model that seeks to explain the high rates of failure. The model draws on contingency theory in order to advance the notion of design-actuality gaps: the match or mismatch between IS designs and local user actuality. This helps identify two high-risk archetypes that affect IS in developing countries: country context gaps and hard-soft gaps. The model is also of value in explaining the constraints that exist to local IS improvisations in developing countries. Overall, the article shows how model and theory help understand IS cases in developing countries, and equally, how those cases provide valuable data to help develop IS models and theories.

Analyzing e-government research: Perspectives, philosophies, theories, methods, and practice

Abstract In recent years, there has been rapid growth in the volume of research output on the topic of e-government. To understand this research better, we used content analysis of eighty-four papers in e-government-specific research outlets (two journals and one conference series). Our analytical focus took in five main aspects: perspectives on the impacts of e-government, research philosophy, use of theory, methodology and method, and practical recommendations. Normative evaluation identified some positive features, such as recognition of contextual factors beyond technology, and a diversity of referent domains and ideas. Alongside this, though, research draws mainly from a weak or confused positivism and is dominated by over-optimistic, a-theoretical work that has done little to accumulate either knowledge or practical guidance for e-government. Worse, there is a lack of clarity and lack of rigor about research methods alongside poor treatment of generalization. We suggest ways of strengthening e-government research but also draw out some deeper issues, such as the role of research philosophy and theory, and the institutional factors – particularly pressures of competition and time – that may constrain development of e-government as a research field.

Reinventing Government in the Information Age

From the Publisher: This work reviews the role of information systems in public sector reform, including practical guidance and analytical insights. It discusses key topics, drawing on case studies from the US, UK, Europe and developing countries.

Synching or sinking: global software outsourcing relationships

Global software outsourcing is the outsourcing of software development to subcontractors outside the client organizations home country, India is the leading GSO subcontractor, registering average annual growth of more than 40 percent over the last decade and developing nearly US

e-Government as a carrier of context

4 billion in software for foreign clients in FY 1999. Indian firms now develop software for nearly one-third of the Fortune 5002. The authors investigate the strategies that differentiate successful and unsuccessful value chain moves.

Understanding e-Government project trajectories from an actor-network perspective

e-Government is a global project of technology transfer taking designs from one context into a different context. Using examples of ? etransparency? projects, this paper finds that the context of design inscribed into e-government systems in both explicit and implicit ways can produce a mismatch with the context in which it is deployed. This creates a contextual collision that can often lead to e-government failure. In other cases, there is some form of accommodation between the two contexts: users may appropriate inscribed elements to their own purposes or there may even be a reciprocating accommodation leading to a viable system. Factors that shape either failure or accommodation are identified, as are the networks of interests that determine the design inscription and deployment accommodation processes. Conclusions are drawn about policy on e-government project design and development of e-government capacities; and about the relevance of developing/ transitional economy cases for the literature on the sociology of technology.

International perspectives: software strategies in developing countries

A number of models have been offered to help explain the trajectories of e-Government projects: their frequent failures and their rarer successes. Most, though, lack a sense of the political interaction of stakeholders that is fundamental to understanding the public sector. This paper draws on actor-network theory to provide a perspective that is used to explain the trajectory of an e-Government case study. This perspective is found to provide a valuable insight into the local and global actor-networks that surround e-Government projects. The mobilisation, interaction and disintegration of these networks underpins the course of such projects, and can itself be understood in relation to network actor power: not through a static conception of ‘power over’ others but through the dynamic-enacted concept of ‘power to’. As well as providing a research tool for analysis of e-Government project trajectories, the local/global networks approach also offers insights into e-Government leadership as a process of network formation and maintenance; and into the tensions between network stabilisation and design stabilisation.

Benchmarking eGovernment: Improving the National and International Measurement, Evaluation and Comparison of eGovernment

Production of software provides many potential benefits for developing countries (DCs), including creation of jobs, skills and income. This paper reviews five different strategic approaches to software production that can be adopted: � Export of software services, the model followed by India ? the most successful producer ? is beset by various constraints, but does offer opportunities for a few countries. � Export of software packages has been far more limited. � Production of packages for the domestic market is difficult given the domination of imported packages. � Selling software services to the domestic market is the choice of most DC software enterprises, but it typically represents a survival strategy more than a development strategy. � Finally, some firms successfully ?straddle the intersections? between the other strategies, often by recognising synergies and growth routes between different market segments. Given the many constraints that exist, the paper reviews the factors underlying successful software production in developing countries, which fall into three domains: � Enterprise tactics, such as the ability of successful firms to identify growth markets and to access necessary inputs. � National strategy, such as government assistance in providing the inputs of finance, skills, technology and knowledge that successful firms require. � National vision, that carries forward both government and enterprises.

Exploring E-Commerce Benefits for Businesses in a Developing Country

This paper is aimed at those involved - in planning, in undertaking, in using or in evaluating - the benchmarking or measurement of e-government. It draws on models of e-government and current practice of benchmarking e-government to answer four questions:Why benchmark e-government?What to benchmark?How to benchmark?How to report?It provides a series of recommendations based on good practice or innovative practice, backed up by a set of conceptual frameworks and statistical findings. Checklists are provided for those planning and for those evaluating e-government benchmarking studies.

Explaining ERP failure in a developing country: a Jordanian case study

Developing countries are home to more than 80% of the worlds population, and are the site for growing use of e-commerce. There are theoretical claims that e-commerce could bring significant benefits to firms in developing countries, but we know very little empirically about the actual outcomes of e-commerce implementation. Our article addresses this gap in knowledge through a survey of 92 businesses in South Africa, all of which have moved beyond the basic stage of e-commerce. The findings indicate that e-commerce benefits are, by and large, limited to improvements in intra- and interorganizational communications. More strategic benefits relating to market access, customer/supplier linkages or cost savings were not found in the majority (more than 80%) of organizations surveyed. This therefore limits the likelihood of broader benefits such as incorporation into global supply chains, disintermediation, and improved competitiveness. Turning this somewhat disappointing e-commerce picture around requires a multiprong strategy aimed at building the resources and capabilities of businesses, developing electronic-mediated business routines with partners and customers, and addressing national e-readiness and global trade regulation issues.