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E-government Challenges: A Socio-technical Perspective

Gohar Feroz Khan & Prof. Junghoon Moon

School of Management Science, ITTP, Korean Advance Institute of science & Technology.

June 25, 2010

Prepared for Second Conference of Innovation and Development (CID) “Knowledge, Society and the Role of Government” June 24-25, 2010 Seoul National University, Korea. http://www.politicalenemy.com/main_v2/Worshop2.html

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The practice of public service provision through ICTs is well known as E-government or paperless government.

Due to E-government Benefits (World Bank, 2001) and (Ndou, 2004) Developing countries are mimic e-gove.

However, e-government initiative is not always been successful in developing countries; 50% failed (Heeks, 2003).

Why?-- Challenges What does literature say about the challenges?

Provides enough details BUT Static Pic-ture

Does not concern socio-technical aspect

Introduction

E-government Challenges: A Socio-technical Per-spective

Introduction

Goal

Challenges

Literature

TF

Conclusion

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Identify the critical success factors for e-government development crucial for developing countries.

Analyze the challenges in light of Socio-technical theory: technology, society, and human aspect based on e-government stage development.

Assign weights and priorities to the success factors based on their role and criticality

Goal of the article

Introduction

Goal

Challenges

Literature

TF

Conclusion

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Methodology

We will analyze current e-government literature dealing with the challenges of e-government taking into account:

Theories used, Research methods employed and Results that were obtained.

Each challenge will be analyzed from three dimensions: Technology, Organization, and Human

using staged wised approach i.e. challenges will be ana-lyzed with respect to the stages of e-government. As, challenges at each maybe different.

Based on the importance or criticality a weight will be assigned to each.

Introduction

Goal

Challenges

Method

TF

Conclusion

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System design based on Socio-technical Approach

Literature Review: Socio-technical Theory

Introduction

Goal

Challenges

Literature

TF

Conclusion

(Bostorm and Heinen, 1977)

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Literature Review: Socio-technical Theory

e-government

Human related Challenges

TechnologyRelated

Challenges

Organization Related

challenges

Introduction

Goal

Challenges

Literature

TF

Conclusion

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Literature Review: E-government stages

E-government Evolution

Initial Stage Transactional Stage Integrated Stage

Layne and Lee, 2001; Silcock, 2001 and Deloitte and Touche, 2002; UN, 2002; Reddick, 2004; Henriksen, 2006; Henriksen, 2006

•One way communication•Website established•Email, Static information

•Two way communication•online forms,•Payment of bills, fee etc

•One stop shop

Introduction

Goal

Challenges

Literature

TF

Conclusion

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Literature Review: e-government Challenges

•Human: Human challenges involve educational, social, ethical, trust and cultural issues, skills, behavioral, and environmental issues, affordability, demographics.

•Technology: Technological challenges involves infrastructure, digital Divide, availability, standards, emerging technologies

•Organization: Organizational challenges are change, legal framework, law, policy, leadership, and political challenges

E-government challenges

Carter and May, 2001; Heeks 2003; Ndou, 2004; Chen, Y.N et al, 2006; Gebremichael and Jackson, 2006.

Introduction

Goal

Challenges

Literature

TF

Conclusion

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Theoretical framework (TF)

•HowLiterature on

Practice/Coping

with e-governemnt challenges

• WhyLiterature on

importance

of e-governemnt challenges

• WhatLiterature on

Concept

of e-governemnt challenges

Human

OrganizationTechnology

InitialTransactional

Integration

Stages of e-government Development

Socio-technical Theory (Level of Analysis)

Challenges

Introduction

Goal

Challenges

Literature

TF

Conclusion

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E-government Challenges: Human (users)

Introduction

SystemDesign

Conclusion

Introduction

Goal

Challenges

Literature

TF

Conclusion

E-government services are provided to: Citizens Government Employees Private sector Employees

Skills Trust Privacy Cultural Issues Awareness Ethical responsibility Affordability Behavioral issues e.g. behavioral conflict Environmental issues e.g. Civil Conflict Demographic factors

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E-government Challenges: Human (users) Skills

Introduction

SystemDesign

Conclusion

Introduction

Goal

Challenges

Literature

TF

Conclusion

E-Skills: “The set of skills, knowledge, and concepts that are needed for effective consumption—access, locate, operate, manage, understand, and evaluate—of e-services provided in different stages of e-government.” (Khan et al, 2010, pp.8)Method: Delphi study

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E-government Challenges: Human (users) Skills

Introduction

SystemDesign

Conclusion

Introduction

Goal

Challenges

Literature

TF

Conclusion

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E-government Challenges: Human (users) Skills

Introduction

SystemDesign

Conclusion

Introduction

Goal

Challenges

Literature

TF

Conclusion

G.Feoz Khan et al, 2010

Domain Sub Domain N of itemsN of (very) important Items

% of (very) important Items

Technical e-Skills

Document Management skills 9 6 67

PC Environment Management skills 16 8 50

Standard Programs Usage skills 6 4 67

Internet Skills

Operational Skills 12 10 83

Formal Skills 5 3 60

Information Skills 7 4 57

Strategic Skills 7 4 57

Applied skills 19 11 58

G. Total 81 50 62

Table 1 E-government skills required by Citizens, public, and private sector employees

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E-government Challenges: Human Issues continue

Introduction

SystemDesign

Conclusion

Introduction

Goal

Challenges

Literature

TF

Conclusion

Behavioral issues:

Behavioral conflict Behavioral (or inner) conflict is “actual or perceived

opposition of needs, values, and interests which is internal (within oneself) to individuals” Argyris,1957 (pp. 47-54), where one must choose whether or not to take a particular course of action (Thomas,1992).

People use a technology based on their needs, interest, relevance (Srite & Karahanna, 2006; Selwyn et al, 2005).

Citizens use intention increase as behavioral conflict de-crease; If an e-government service provided online is ac-cording to needs , values, and interest citizens would be more aware of it (khan et al, 2010).

Method: Survey Method, 360 Subjects, PLS statisti-cal tool

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E-government Challenges: Human Issues continue

Introduction

SystemDesign

Conclusion

Introduction

Goal

Challenges

Literature

TF

Conclusion

Environmental issues: For example civil conflict, Violence, and political instability

Civil Conflict: Civil conflicts are clashes of interest and expressed struggle

between groups for political dominance who have mis-matched goals and interests (Dmitriy and Herschel, 2000)

Civil conflict Negatively affect the relationship between e-service access and use intention.

Civil conflict Negatively affect the relationship between e-service access quality and use intention.

In conflict zones government website high on cultural contents (e.g. Color, photos, and local language) positively affect use in-tention

Under the influence of civil conflict e-service use intention in-creases for the people having high e-skills

(Khan et al, 2010)

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E-government Challenges: Technological Issues

Introduction

SystemDesign

Conclusion

Introduction

Goal

Challenges

Literature

TF

Conclusion

Khan, et al, 2010)

Digital divide: Access Divide and Social Divide (Norris, 2001; Harper,2003)

Access Divide: E-service access

Resource availability and convenience of access E-service access quality

Timeliness (speed), Trust, and Stability E-service access Skills

Technical and applied e-skills

Social Divide: E-service Awareness

Knowledge of e-gov services availability E-service Social Support

Technical assistance and emotional reinforcement from friends and family

E-service Culturability National colors, pictures, and local language

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E-government Challenges: Organization

Introduction

SystemDesign

Conclusion

Introduction

Goal

Challenges

Literature

TF

Conclusion

Leadership: Vision, motivation, initiative, ........

Change management: Organizational skills to deal with migration from paper based government to paper less government.

Changing mind set Changing processes Changing routines

These issues are crucial for public organization to pos-sess due to:

Lack of leadership Resistance to change Lack of knowledge about e-government Beaurocracy

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Time table

Objective Details Start time End time Work involved Deliverables

Formulate Research Problem

Literature Review:Identify variables Formulate an answerable re-search question.Formulate objectives

Done Done Review all related papers

Research Questions

Theoreti-cal Frame-work

Literature Review:Based on RQ TF must be developed

Done 30-april-2010

Review all the theo-ries put forward in the field and estab-lish a logical link be-tween them

TF in hand

Search for Chal-lenges

Literature Review:An extensive literature review will be done to identify all possible success factors and frame them under socio-technical theory

30-june-2010

30-sept-2010

Review all the theo-ries put forward in the area of e-gov-ernment from socio-technical aspect

Successfactors identified

Assigning weights

Based on the criticality and importance weights will be assigned to all Success factors

1-oct-2010

30-oct-2010

analysis List of Success factors ac-cording to im-portance

Format-ting the article

Giving final touches to article to be sent to publication

16-Nov-2010

30-Nov-2010

Applying the for-mats according to the target journal

Final version of paper.

Introduction

Goal

Challenges

Literature

TF

Time Table

Conclusion

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Discussion and Conclusion

Introduction

Goal

Challenges

Literature

TF

Time Table

Conclusion

E-government is a complex system that need to be un-derstand from different aspects: technology, human, and organization.

Every country faces certain unique challenges while most of the challenges are universal.

Most part of challenges of e-government is social and not technological.

Conflict regions Negative effect on Access and Quality

Culturability of e-gov. website issues

E-skills crucial

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Thank You!Comments and Suggestions