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This paper aims to discuss the cost of e‐participation from the managerial perspective.

The use of digital media to consult and engage citizens and companies in the decision‐making process is a way of improving the design and legitimatization of decisions, as well as potentially increasing the likelihood of successful implementation of policies. This paper discusses if the potential economic benefits from increased or qualitatively improved involvement inherently are long term and have to compete with other activities undertaken by government.

There are great uncertainties regarding the magnitude of the positive effects on governance since there are not only positive, but also negative externalities of e‐participation; thus, there are major challenges in measuring and capitalizing on the e‐participation. Part of the reason for the uncertainty is the lack of explicit awareness of the choice of technology, communication style and institutional approach to implementing e‐participation. Further, there is the need to be aware of the administrative costs in transferring e‐participation practices and techniques.

The perspective on cost of e‐participation is not well explored. The discussion raised emphasizes the urgency of the issue.

Business process reengineering, although initially developed for and within the private sector, is an approach that can form a valuable part of information age reform if it can transform the work processes of public sector organisations. Information technology (IT) has played a central role in reengineering. This chapter therefore describes many ways in which IT can be used to support public sector reengineering, including applications identified from analysis of the ‘political value chain’. Nevertheless, IT-supported reengineering originated from technical/rational organisational models that do not necessarily reflect the realities of the public sector. The chapter therefore proposes the concept of public sector process rebuilding (PUPREB): an approach to reengineering that includes a special awareness of the public sector context.

The purpose of this paper is first to present a case study where standardized case handling processes have been transferred from a manual system to an IT system, and then to demonstrate the implications of implementing an electronic records management system (ERMS) in an environment – the Punjabi province of Pakistan – which is unfamiliar with the features embedded in ERMS.

The methodology is a case study with first hand data observations, meetings, log files and secondary data (reports).

Although ERMS implementation to date has been limited, the ERMS has led to increased efficiency and effectiveness of the government, increased transparency and accountability in decision making, and enhanced delivery of efficient and cost effective public services to citizens. Furthermore, the case indicates that IT implementation challenges are universal rather than dependent on the nature of the country.

Lack of adequate training and design of user interface are key indicators of the limited success of implementation of ERMS in the department under investigation. Power and control are major challenges in ERMS implementation in Pakistani government departments.

This paper investigates ERMS in local government in Pakistan, which is unfamiliar with the features embedded in ERMS.

The purpose of this study is to develop a more comprehensive framework that would provide better insight into the characteristics of organisational transformation (OT) of the public sector organisations in the e-government era. Despite the widespread opinion that successful implementation of information communication technology (ICT) is strongly correlated with the appropriate OT of the public sector, a critical analysis of the available literature within the field indicates that this important dimension of e-government development has been dealt with only partially. Accordingly, the paper attempts the following: to develop a more comprehensive framework for observing OT, to empirically explain the framework through analysis of three Slovenian e-government projects and to develop some general characteristics of ICT-induced OT in the public sector.

The development of the framework is based on an analysis of the available literature, whereas the explanation of such is based on a multiple-case study approach.

The paper contributes to a clearer understanding of what the main characteristics of OT in the e-government era are and how they should be observed.

The findings can help researchers to more accurately focus their attention on the most critical aspects of OT. The identified attributes can provide an important basis for future research, particularly from the methodological perspective.

The framework can help public managers to focus their attention on the most important attributes of ICT-induced OT to exploit ICT potentials more efficiently.

The paper attempts to demystify the concept of OT in the e-government field and place it in a more solid theoretical and empirically explained framework.