Stakeholders, contradictions and salience: An empirical study of a Norwegian G2G effort

Author's version of a chapter in Proceedings of the 39th Annual Hawaii International Conference on Systems Sciences. Also available from the publisher at http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/HICSS.2006.436 Previous studies indicate that the expected effects of e-Government are slower to realize than initially expected. Several authors argue that e-Government involves particularly complex settings, consisting of a variety of stakeholders promoting different and often conflicting objectives. Yet, few studies have explicitly addressed the inherent challenges of this complexity. This study focuses on the extent to which contradictory stakeholder objectives can help explain the relatively slow progress of …

Introduction to the Minitrack on Towards Government 3.0: Disruptive ICTs, Advanced Policy Informatics/Analytics and Government as a Platform

The Impact of Smart City Initiatives on Human Rights

Abstract: A smart city is a phenomenon where municipalities engage with stakeholders to use ICT for increasing efficiency, sustainability, and quality of life for its citizens and city operations. However, smart city initiatives can at times challenge human rights. While particular human rights such as privacy have been subject to analysis in the digital government field, a complete view on human rights in smart cities has so far been missing in our discipline. It is mainly studies from other disciplines that voice comprehensive concerns about potentially negative impacts of smart cities on human rights. However, they often lack the technological background. This paper reports on a pilot st…

On the evolution of e-Government: The user imperative

Published version of a chapter published in Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2739, 139-143. Also available from the publisher at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/10929179_25 This paper focuses the need for more research on user involvement and the investigation of stakeholders in e-Government initiatives. An investigation of existing work revealed a lack of research on those topics. As e-Government evolves and users mature, the value of their input can increase. The paper discusses the need and potential benefits of this approach. Finally, we suggest that existing stakeholder theory is investigated for adaptation into e-Government settings in order to map the complex body of interrelated stakeh…

Local E-Government in Norway

Understanding the dynamics in e-Participation initiatives: Looking through the genre and stakeholder lenses

Accepted version of an article published in the journal: Government Information Quarterly. Also available from the publisher at: http//dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2010.10.005 Conventionally, e-Participation initiatives are considered to be successful only if users use these services. While the growing body of e-Participation literature has listed and studied challenges and barriers to achieving this end, conceptual clarity on why such projects are considered as failures is yet to be achieved. We argue that this is due to the inadequate understanding of the complex stakeholder dynamics of an e-Participation project. In this paper, we seek to address this knowledge gap by proposing that using St…

Towards a Theoretical Model for Co-Realization of IT Value in Government

Despite decades of heavy investments in information technology (IT) and information systems (IS) in government systems and considerable amounts of research on how IS contributes to organizational performance and success, IS investments are still considered risky business. Fewer than 50% of IS projects deliver the expected functionality on time and on budget. As the world becomes increasingly more complex, IS increasingly needs to function across organizational boundaries. The added complexity is likely to add to the risks of IS investments. Hence, there is a need to improve practice and to increase the success rate of IS investments, especially in government settings. To address this fundam…

Social Media as Public Sphere: A Stakeholder Perspective

Purpose This paper aims to examine major stakeholders’ communication preferences in eParticipation initiatives and discuss how this affects the public sphere. Despite the potential of social media, it has proven difficult to get people actively involved in the decision-making processes. There is a need for more research on how stakeholders manage and use social media to communicate. Design/methodology/approach The study was conducted as a qualitative case study. Data sources include interviews, social media content, document analysis and field notes. Findings Communication preferences of stakeholders vary according to their salience level. Stakeholders with higher salience are less likely …

Five Challenges for Benefits Management in Complex Digitalisation Efforts – and a Research Agenda to Address Current Shortcomings

Over the past decades a number of benefits realisation (BR) frameworks have been developed. The benefits management model (BMM) is considered to be the most widely adopted and is often seen as a reference for good practice in digitalisation efforts in single organisations. However, this literature provides little support for complex, inter‑organisational efforts. This is problematic, considering that digitalisation increasingly involves multiple organisations. To explore this gap, we studied the phenomenon in a Norwegian inter‑organisational eHealth effort. Based on a qualitative study involving 50 interviews, observations and document analyses, we identify five distinct challenges and sugg…

Choosing the Right Medium for Municipal eParticipation Based on Stakeholder Expectations

Published version of a chapter in the book: Electronic Participation. Also available from the publisher at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33250-0_3 This paper examines the expectations and communication needs of relevant stakeholder groups for municipal eParticipation in a small Norwegian municipality. We identified relevant stakeholder groups with the municipality, and asked them about their communication preferences through a combined Delphi study and survey approach. The findings show that information about local issues, information about issues relevant for the individual stakeholder, and dialogue on business’ needs and employment are the three most important communication needs. …

Government Architecture: Concepts, Use and Impact

Part 3: Service Design and Improvement; International audience; Government architecture (GA) is a relatively young discipline in which concepts are slowly emerging. Often terms and concepts are used in various ways and there is no uniform agreement on these concepts. Further, the relationship between GA, benefits and public value creation is unclear. In this paper we unravel and define GA concepts that are often used by governments. Although GA is used in different ways there are common concepts. GA practice in two different countries, the Netherlands and Norway, indicates that although the Netherlands clearly has more experience with GA than Norway, both countries employ similar concepts. …

Stakeholder theory for the E -government context: Framing a value-oriented normative core

Despite substantial investments in ICT in the public sector over the past decades, it has been hard to achieve consistent benefits. One reason for the difficulties is the gap between the expectations of key stakeholders (such as governments, businesses and citizens) and project outcomes. Though normative, descriptive and instrumental aspects of stakeholder theory have been influential in explaining stakeholder interests and relationships in the management field, e-Government researchers have rather neglected the normative core of the theory. We show how value theory can improve normative foundations in this area to provide a focused analysis of four e-Government projects. We use a multiple …

Proposing an Entrepreneurial Process for the Co-creation of IT Value

Published version of a chapter from the book M. Janssen, H. Scholl, M. Wimmer & F. Bannister (Eds.), Electronic Government : Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2014. Also available on SpringerLink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-44426-9_26 Co-creation of IT value has received substantial focus from the IS research community over the past years. However, few if any have studied this phenomenon from a process perspective, and our understanding of the processes leading to successful co-creation is therefore limited. To address this shortcoming, we studied a complex, e-government case involving 38 government agencies intending to co-create value from a common IT platform. We used a mixed method a…

Diverging approaches to benefits realization from public ICT investments

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore practical methods for benefits realisation, with the intention of investigating if they are variance of a theme or rather can be classified as different approaches.Design/methodology/approachBased on a document study of Norwegian methods‐in‐use, this study uses an analytical comparison following an assimilation‐accommodation procedure to categorize the chosen methods as instances of approaches to benefits realisation.FindingsThis study documents the emergence of several methods from practice in the last half decade. This analysis suggests the existence of three distinct approaches to benefits realisation and defines these according to their cen…

The Shape of Interoperability: Reviewing and Characterizing a Central Area within eGovernment Research

Interoperability has been discussed and studied for more than a decade. While early discussions were very conceptual, interoperability is increasingly seen as one of the key enablers of the promised benefits from eGovernment. Consequently, and not surprisingly, a considerable amount of research has been published related to interoperability. However, a conceptual model of the interoperability domain is currently missing. We thus propose such a model based on an extensive review of a subset of the eGovernment literature published in highly ranked information systems, public administration and eGovernment journals. The model outlines and discusses actors, activities, contextual factors, effec…

Organizational Learning to Leverage Benefits Realization Management; Evidence from a Municipal eHealth Effort

Part 3: Organizational Aspects; International audience; While work with benefits realization requires organizational learning to be effective, emphasis on organizational learning is hard to find in benefits realization studies. To remedy this research gap, we study how organizational learning theory can contribute to improve benefits realization processes. A qualitative approach was used to gain in depth understanding of benefits realization in an ICT healthcare services project. We found that individual learning is present, but organizational learning has not been given explicit attention neither in the project nor in the literature of benefits realization management. We argue that the ind…

Assessing Effects of eGovernment Initiatives Based on a Public Value Framework

Published version of a chapter in the book: Electronic Government. Also available from the publisher at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33489-4_21 Assessing effects of eGovernment initiatives is considered an important but challenging endeavor. Assessments are, among other things, important to justify e-government investments. They are challenging because they are complex, often based on locally defined indicators, many times over-emphasizing financial effects, imprecise, faced with a number of contingencies and very seldom validated. Consequently, effect assessments can be seen as imprecise and difficult to compare across different initiatives. This paper addresses some of the challen…

What is the value of eGovernment – and how can we actually realize it?

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to promote academic discourse around the understanding of the concept of value of eGovernment and how a diverse set of benefits or values can be realized from eGovernment efforts.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is designed as a viewpoint paper with emphasis on grounding a set of arguments on current practice and relevant scholarly papers.FindingsAlthough not based on a formal, structured review, the paper proposes that the concept of value in relation to eGovernment is insufficiently discussed and defined in the eGovernment literature. Based on the high failure rates of eGovernment efforts, it further proposes that structured approaches to benefits r…

Analyzing Stakeholder Diversity in G2G Efforts: Combining Descriptive Stakeholder Theory and Dialectic Process Theory

Author's version of an article published in e-Service Journal, 6 (2), 3-23. Previous research indicates that the benefits of e-government initiatives are slower to realize than initially expected. This has partly been ascribed to the particularly complex settings of e-government projects, consisting of a variety of stakeholders promoting different and often conflicting objectives. Yet few studies have explicitly addressed the inherent challenges of this diversity. This study presents an analytical approach for investigating contradictory stakeholder interests by combining descriptive stakeholder theory and dialectic process theory. Descriptive stakeholder theory is concerned with why some s…

Towards a cumulative tradition in e-Government Research: Going beyond the Gs and Cs

Published version of a chapter published in Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 4656, 13-22. Also available from the publisher at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-74444-3_2 The emerging research area of e-Government is gradually moving towards a level of maturity on the back of increasingly rigorous empirical research. Yet, there has been little theoretical progress and a cumulative tradition is not emerging. We argue that a principle reason for this is a lack of shared understanding about basic concepts and entities amongst scholars in the field. Specifically, the entities that form the bedrock of e-Government research, such as “Government” and “Citizen” are conceptualized at a very gen…

Introduction to the Minitrack on Government Transformation and Digitalization: Governance, Organization, and Management

Stakeholder Contradictions in Early Stages of eHealth Efforts

Unveiling Barriers and Enablers of Risk Management in Interoperability Efforts

eGovernment efforts are, as general IS efforts, associated with considerable risk. As eGovernment matures and interoperability becomes more ingrained in eGovernment efforts, it will be interesting to explore how the increased complexity affects risk. Still, research on risk management in the context of eGovernment is sparse and our understanding of the phenomenon equally so. This qualitative study investigates risk management in the Norwegian public sector. Based on 11 interviews with experts from nine public organizations, we identified six barriers and eight enablers to risk management in eGovernment settings. Our findings suggest that interoperability has important implications for how r…

An exploratory approach for benefits management in e-government: Insights from 48 Norwegian government funded projects

Author's version of a chapter in Proceeding of 41th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. Also available from the publisher at http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/HICSS.2008.55 Efforts to improve governance and government functions through the use of information technology continue to draw considerable parts of the budgets of government agencies. To meet public and political demands for increased visibility of effects of e- Government investments, there is a trend to extend existing practices of evaluation towards more holistic management practices, commonly referred to as benefits management. However, benefits management practices and effects of such practices are poorly documented. Th…

Introduction to the Transformational Government: Governance, Organization, and Management Minitrack

Issues of adopting benefits management practices of IT investments in municipalities: A Delphi study in Norway

Author's version of a chapter in Proceedings of the 40th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. Also available from the publisher at http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/HICSS.2007.303 The concept of benefits management highlights explicit practices to facilitate benefits realization from information technology (IT) investments, in addition to plain project management focusing on information systems (IS) deliverables as such. This article presents preliminary results from a Delphi study of identifying critical issues to facilitate adoption of benefits management practices in Norwegian municipalities. Three expert panels were established, representing three stakeholder groups within…

Benefits Realization in eGovernment: Institutional Entrepreneurship or Just Hype?

As development practices of eGovernment gradually mature, there appears to be an increasing focus on documentation of innovation processes and documentation of realized benefits. Although research on benefits realization provides some guidance to these issues, there is a lack of empirical research to validate central tenets in the literature and to provide the level of detail necessary to understand the impact benefits realization practices can have on organizations. To address these issues, we carried out an in-depth longitudinal case study of a large-scale benefits realization effort in Norway. Institutional theory was used to analyze the organizational impact. Our findings show that the …

The shape of eParticipation:Characterizing an emerging research area

Author's version of an article published in Government Information Quarterly, 25 (2008), 400-428. Also available from the publisher at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2007.04.007 The phenomenon of eParticipation is receiving increasing attention, demonstrated by recent technology implementations, experiments, government reports, and research programs. Understanding such an emerging field is a complex endeavor because there is no generally agreed upon definition of the field, no clear overview of the research disciplines or methods it draws upon, and because the boundaries of the field are undecided. Using conventional literature review techniques, we identify 131 scientific articles consid…

Managing Benefits in the Public Sector. Surveying Expectations and Outcomes in Norwegian Government Agencies

Published version of a chapter in Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 5184, 98-110. Also available from the publisher at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-85204-9_9 Government agencies currently experience increasing pressure to document benefits from spending on eGovernment efforts. Hence, structured methods for benefits management (BM) are being developed. However, hardly any studies have investigated how such approaches are used and experienced. This study addresses this practice-research gap by reporting a study of a project involving 30 Norwegian government agencies using a common BM approach.A questionnaire was answered by project managers. Results show that that some 80 % of the ma…

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