Ulf Melin

Exploring the importance of citizen participation and involvement in e‐government projects: Practice, incentives, and organization

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to investigate if, and in that case, how and what the e-government field can learn from user participation concepts and theories in general IS research. We ...

Managing e‐service development – comparing two e‐government case studies

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of the progress and the success vs failure in e‐government development, based on case studies of two inter‐organizational (IO) e‐service projects.Design/methodology/approach – The analysis in the paper is made from an e‐government systems development life cycle perspective and a challenge and success factor perspective. The point of departure is theory and a comparative analysis of two e‐government projects.Findings – The main results in this paper are: a combination of perspectives (in a project stage and analysis grid) that can serve as a support when managing e‐service development and a set of identified crucial success factors within an IO e‐government project including project manager skills and position in the agency organization as well as when and how systems maintenance issues are introduced into a project. Existing theory and perspectives are also criticised based on the present study.Practical implications – Lessons ...

The enterprise system as a part of an organization's administrative paradox

Purpose – The main purpose of this paper is to discuss whether an enterprise system (ES) is a part of an organizations administrative paradox. The paper aims to question which role the ES has in organizing, focusing aspects of flexibility and stability.Design/methodology/approach – The paper is a qualitative, longitudinal, case study of how an ES maintains, and even reinforces, existing administrative organizational structures. The theoretical lens used is mainly structuration theory.Findings – An ES can take the part of an organizations administrative paradox. An administrative paradox is two sides of the same coin when coordinating organizations – the concurrent striving for flexibility and stability. The studied ES even centralizes control, creates norms, and enhances power for actors in positions of authority (top management). Because of its structure and configuration the ES is a powerful tool to coordinate. The ES is considered to be organizationally ungainly, but at the same time indispensable.Pr...

Information Systems and Process Orientation: Evaluation and Change Using Business Actions Theory

The first purpose of this paper is to outline suitable features of, and strategies for developing and purchasing Information systems (IS) in organisations striving for increased process orientation, based on the results from two in-depth case studies and related theory. The results are based on an evaluation of IS and business processes using Business Action Theory (BAT). The second purpose of the paper is to present experiences using BAT as an approach for evaluation of IS and business processes in an organisational context. In analysing data BAT helps to focus on the character and the relations between different critical business actions in a process dimension. The need for information on IS at different departments and a higher integration level was also highlighted when using BAT in studying critical business actions.

SMEs need formative infrastructure for business transformation

Purpose – ICT has considerable importance for increasing productivity and growth. Using ICT requires resources to create value. As resources are more limited in smaller enterprises, and the context ...

Managing the development of e-ID in a public e-service context : Challenges and path dependencies from a life-cycle perspective

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to analyse and understand the contemporary management of electronic identification (e-ID) development to: identify and formulate challenges and reflect upon th ...

An inter-organisational perspective on challenges in one-stop government

Fragmentation and isolated development are main problems that hinder successful e-government. This paper has an inter-organisational perspective on challenges in one-stop government. We present a conceptual framework that characterises an inter-organisational relationship and its dimensions. The conceptual framework is used for analysing data from an inter-organisational one-stop government project. When applying the framework we focus on some interesting issues and explain some of the challenges that our interviewees identified. By addressing these inter-organisational aspects we reached further understanding of the problems associated with this case, which can provide added value to discussions of e-government challenges, barriers and problems in general.

Inter-organizational Public e-Service Development: Emerging Lessons from an Inside-Out Perspective

E-service development has grown to become a daily practice in most public organizations as a means for realizing digital agendas and e-government initiatives on different levels local, regional, national and transnational governmental levels. Public e-service development is often an inter-organizational IO effort with multiple actors and organizations involved in the multi-faceted dimensions of design, development and delivery decisions. Still, there is a lack of research focusing on IO public e-service development practices in particular. In order to address this lack we elaborate on reported challenges and their implications for IO public e-service development in practice. By returning to two empirical cases of IO public e-service development, the IO dimension is evolved. Our purpose is to highlight challenges in IO public e-service development with implications for research and practice. Findings are presented as eight emerging lessons learned from an inside-out perspective related to phases in IO public e-service development processes.

Student activity in seminars: designing multi-functional assessment events

In this paper, we describe assessment in seminars where high student activity is encouraged. The aim of our work has been to design assessment events that result in deep learning and high student activity, but still provide the teacher with a reliable basis for justice in examinations. We will discuss a course in electronic commerce where we have been working with two progressive seminars. Experiences from this attempt are discussed and analysed in the paper.

In Search of ICT in Smart Cities – Policy Documents as Idea Carriers in Urban Development

This paper explores how policy documents carry and institutionalize smart city ideas from high policy level to concrete policy level in an urban development context. We analyze the national urban development vision for Sweden and documents in a local urban development project in a Swedish city, in order to explore what kind of roles and expectations ICT is given in these documents. We contrast this with views of how social and environmental aspects are discussed in the studied documents. In order to understand and analyze the result we apply the concept of institutional carriers from institutional theory to our findings. Our analysis shows that as carriers of how ICT can contribute to increased sustainability in urban development, the policy documents do not function very well. ICT aspects are not put forth by any policy-making actor, neither on national nor on local level. The notion of institutional carriers helped us understand that without a responsible actor focusing on ICT’s role in smart cities, it is easy to forget or lose sight of technology.