Editorial

Citation

Irani, Z. and Kamal, M. (2013), "Editorial", Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, Vol. 7 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/tg.2013.32607baa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, Volume 7, Issue 2

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the second issue of the seventh volume of Transforming Government: People, Process, and Policy. This issue includes the publication of one invited paper and five selected papers researching e-government and public sector domain challenges from the European, Mediterranean and Middle Eastern Conference on Information Systems (EMCIS) 2012 (www.emcis.org). Over the years, the constant update of the journal’s scope to advocate theoretical as well as empirical research has led to an increase in quality of submissions (in regular and special issues). In this issue there is an extensive and exploratory nature of research covering contemporary issues associated with local government and e-government (e.g. information sharing through inter-organisational systems in local government; analysing challenges, barriers and factors influencing e-government adoption; proposing and validating a framework for e-government implementation; exploring factors influencing e-government adoption; and proposing a reference model for citizen-centric evaluation of e-government services) and seamless public sector service delivery (e.g. technology adoption within justice system).

This issue commences with an invited paper by Ali Ziaee Bigdeil, Muhammad M. Kamal and Sergio de Cesare, entitled “Information sharing through inter-organisational systems in local government”. In this paper the authors argue that most of the extant research studies primarily focused on central or federal level organisations, and in doing so, failed to seizure the broader picture of information sharing in an inter-organisational and inter-departmental setting. Notwithstanding, the authors further claim that the implications of information sharing through inter-organisational systems have yet to be assessed, leaving scope for timeliness and novel research. As a result, this paper investigates the barriers and enablers of information sharing in local government. The latter is achieved with the aim to clarify, first, the differences in sharing information in local government and central/federal government and second, the rationale(s) as to why the existing innovation adoption theories are not ample enough to explore an inter-organisational phenomenon. Relevant literature indicates that information sharing among governmental agencies has the ability to enhance the productivity and performances of government operations, improve policy-making and provide improved services to the citizen. Hence, during the last decades, several local government authorities have started to employ inter-organisational systems to support information sharing and networked collaboration within their departments. The latter analysis is based on a systematic literature review on information sharing in the public/private sector, inter-organisational systems adoption, and inter-departmental collaboration, so as to select a suitable theoretical lens. Thus, this research results in the development of a conceptual framework that can be used as a tool for decision-making while sharing information electronically.

Following the invited paper is a literature review on e-government presented by Nripendra P. Rana, Yogesh K. Dwivedi and Michael D. Williams, entitled “Analysing challenges, barriers, and CSF of egov adoption”. This is a profiling research paper that presents a systematic review of the literature (i.e. assessing 78 relevant research papers out of the total 448) and examines the critical challenges and barriers of e-government adoption. There are numerous challenges/barriers on the way to successfully implement e-government initiatives (e.g. lack of security, privacy, resources, and trust; digital divide, etc.). The literature also provides insights to a number of critical success factors (e.g. user satisfaction, perceived usefulness, etc.) related to e-government adoption. Here the authors argue that none of the extant research studies have systematically analysed the challenges, barriers, and the critical success factors leaded to the successful implementation of e-government services. In realising this literature void, the authors examine e-government adoption-research literature for systematically reviewing its challenges, barriers, and critical success factors towards suggesting the researchers about their current states. As reflected in this paper, the authors claim that such profiling research will facilitate exploratory research in providing not only a brief account of the issues experienced in the e-government research but also support in prescribing guidelines for the governments to consider when exploring certain issues before successfully implement their e-government initiatives.

Thereafter, we have a research paper by Qasim Al-Mamari, Brian Corbitt and Victor Gekara, entitled “E-government adoption in Oman: motivating factors from a government perspective”. The authors argue that there is limited research conducted on e-government initiatives in the context of developing countries specifically in relation to government perspective. This paper, as a result, attempts to fill the literature void and proposes a theoretically driven and empirically validated framework of government motives for implementing e-government in Oman. The latter argument is based on the view that although human factors have proved a significant force for or against successful implementation, and use by citizens of e-government, current literature on e-government has focused mostly on technological factors with limited attention given to implementation motives from a government perspective. The proposed framework is empirically validated through qualitative case study based research using semi-structured interviews as the main tool of data collection and hermeneutics as the technique for data analysis. The semi-structured interviews were conducted with those participants (e.g. responsible for setting the strategic plan for e-government implementation in Oman and other who were involved in the actual e-government implementation process) who were purposefully selected to answer the core research question of the study: what motivates the government of Oman to implement e-government?). The empirical investigation was preceded by a content analysis of research and public official artefacts relating to motivation for engagement with e-government in 70 developing countries. The authors claim that the proposed framework strives to be both comprehensive and integrative, based on interrelated theoretical elements, as compared to existing frameworks which mostly focus on the end-user adoption of e-government services.

Then we have research conducted on e-government adoption in the context of Pakistan by Muhammad Ovais Ahmad, Jouni Markkula and Markku Oivo, entitled “Factors affecting e-government adoption in Pakistan: a citizen’s perspective”. This research investigates factors influencing the end-user adoption of e-government services in Pakistan. The extant research studies have mainly covered the issues related to services deployment from the supply side. Whereas, limited research is conducted on services adoption in the developing countries context, especially Pakistan from a citizen’s perspective. Consequently, knowledge and understanding of the factors influencing the service adoption from the users’ point of view is a vital question for developing countries. Governments are investing resources into developing and deploying services for their citizens, but success depends on acceptance by the users. In doing so, this research addresses this challenge and employs the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology model to examine the influential factors of the adoption and use of e-government services in Pakistan from a citizen perspective. An online survey was conducted and a statistical descriptive analysis was performed on the responses received from 115 Pakistani citizens. The research finding clearly indicates that performance expectancy, effort expectancy, facilitating conditions and social influence are the factors that affect the user’s adoption of e-government services in Pakistan. In addition, the results demonstrate that lack of awareness, user data privacy, lack of appropriate support and assistance hamper this process. The authors claim that this research study is one of a kind, and investigates and examines the factors influencing citizen’s adoption of e-government services in South Asian region.

We then have a paper by Aggeliki Tsohou, Habin Lee, Zahir Irani, Vishanth Weerakkody, Ibrahim H. Osman, Abdel L. Anuze and Tunc Medeni, entitled “Proposing a reference process model for the citizen-centric evaluation of e-government services”. The authors report that the availability of electronic public services (“supply-side”) has been the primary focus of e-government studies and policymaking, but over the past years, citizen usage of e-government services (“demand-side”) has also become a priority issue. Hence there is an increasing demand on establishing citizen-centric evaluation methods for assessing e-government services since the existing widely applied ones neglect to incorporate citizens’ satisfaction metrics. The purpose of this study is twofold:

1. 1.

   to contribute to the understanding of citizen-centric e-government evaluation and unify existing key performance indicators (KPIs); and

2. 2.

   propose a reference process model of a novel evaluation approach that uses the unified KPIs to facilitate the creation of a “know-how” repository.

This paper presents a quantitative research approach for the evaluation of e-government services based on data envelope analysis (DEA). The empirical research presents a survey conducted for the evaluation of 13 e-government services in Turkey. Based on its empirical application, the proposed e-government evaluation method was proved valid and DEA enabled the identification of insufficient e-government services and the provision of suggested improvements. This paper presents a reference process model based on the experience gained by applying the method in Turkey. This is the first application of DEA in the e-government field, enabling assessment results with suggestions for strategic improvement of the public e-services. The proposed evaluation method, in comparison to other user-oriented ones, provided assessments with richer explanation, rather than traditional statistical measurements, such as structured equation modelling. The reference process model constructed is based on empirical research and is expected to accelerate the citizen-oriented evaluation of e-government and promote impact-oriented indicators.

Finally, we have Wan Satirah Wan Mohd Saman and Abrar Haider presenting their research paper entitled “E-Shariah in Malaysia: technology adoption within justice system”. This research reports that the relationship between ICT and law has brought forward a significant change in the administration of justice. The use of ICT within the judicial sphere is increasing in scope, e.g. the use of video conferencing, digital documents, photographs and recordings, computer animation and simulations, and videotaped evidence through the most sophisticated integrated case management systems, audio video court hearing recording, automated transcribing system, queuing system and online case registration and filing systems are proliferating in court proceedings. In the context of developing countries, this paper attempts to answer the research question of “How ICT allow for better management of court records and information in Malaysia”. The focus is on the intelligent use of technology to advance the pace of the administration of courts reflected in E-Shariah project in Shariah Court systems in Malaysia through various electronic applications. The authors argue that records management has technical, organisational, social, cultural dimensions, thus knowledge of reality can only be gained through social constructions such as consciousness, shared meanings, documents, tools and other artefacts. This research, therefore, follows a qualitative interpretive approach with exploratory case study approach to explore the scenario of IT adoption in courts of law in Malaysia through interviews, observation and document reviews. The authors propose a research framework that incorporates IS based adaptive structuration theory and assert that it will benefit the policy makers in the Malaysian judicial domain in better management of the court proceedings.

We hope you will find this issue interesting and though provoking, and hope to receive your valuable contributions for the forthcoming issue.

Zahir IraniEditor

Muhammad KamalRegular Issue Guest Editor