Joined-Up ICT Innovation in Government: An analysis of the creation of eIDM systems from an Advocacy Coalition and social capital perspective

This chapter introduces the subject of this thesis – joined-up ICT innovation in the public sector. The first section demonstrates that scientists and policy makers fully agree that ICT innovation should be a joint effort involving multiple public sector actors. To solve today’s urgent social problems, specific government agencies have to jointly rethink and improve practices – including their ICTs. However, as section two demonstrates, there are some severe barriers to joined-up ICT innovation. Evaluation studies consistently show that government agencies often fail to realize cooperative change. The third section provides a review of literature that attempts to explain the difficulties. The conclusion is that current public administration theories merely provide a fragmented picture of determining variables. The Advocacy Coalition Framework is introduced as it aims to overcome this theoretical fragmentation. The framework offers a broad overview of all kinds of factors that determine policy change. A confrontation between the variables of the model and innovation literature reveals strong similarities, which indicate that the model can also be applied to ‘innovation’. The fourth section identifies a critique of the social subsystem of the model. Social capital theory is introduced in order to address this critique as it can contribute to the operationalisation of the Advocacy Coalition Framework and hence strengthen its explanatory value. In section five, the unit of analysis is confined to a specific joined-up ICT innovation, namely the joint development of electronic identification systems. Section six defines the central research question, which combines the key elements: (a) the difficulties of joined-up ICT innovations, (b) the use of the Advocacy Coalition Framework to explain those difficulties and (c) social capital theory to enhance the framework. The chapter concludes with the theoretical and social relevance of the study

Measuring the Immeasurable? the Intangible Benefits of Digital Information

The benefits of digital information are mostly viewed as intangible, meaning that they can be hard to measure. This lack of measurements makes the benefits difficult to compare and communicate, creating problems for e.g. decision-making and the strategic development of specific digital information. Therefore, I conducted a literature review to find out how the combination of intangible benefits and measurements are dealt with in the information systems field. I found that we measure the intangible benefits of information systems or information technology. Here, the measurement method is divided into input, rule, and output. The input consists of predetermined individual benefits, areas of predetermined benefits, or interpreted benefits from respondents. The rule follows an accepted theory or contextual adjusted rules, and the output (benefit) can be seen as either financial or non-financial. The avenue for further research focuses on the digital information as the primary resource, not information systems or information technology

Towards an Economic Approach to Identity and Access Management Systems Using Decision Theory

Nowadays, providing employees with failure-free access to various systems, applications and services is a crucial factor for organizations’ success as disturbances potentially inhibit smooth workflows and thereby harm productivity. However, it is a challenging task to assign access rights to employees’ accounts within a satisfying time frame. In addition, the management of multiple accounts and identities can be very onerous and time consuming for the responsible administrator and therefore expensive for the organization. In order to meet these challenges, firms decide to invest in introducing an Identity and Access Management System (IAMS) that supports the organization by using policies to assign permissions to accounts, groups, and roles. In practice, since various versions of IAMSs exist, it is a challenging task to decide upon introduction of an IAMS. The following study proposes a first attempt of a decision support model for practitioners which considers four alternatives: Introduction of an IAMS with Role-based Access Control RBAC) or without and no introduction of IAMS again with or without RBAC. To underpin the practical applicability of the proposed model, we parametrize and operationalize it based on a real world use case using input from an expert interview

Clinical Decision-Making by Acute Medicine Advanced Nurse Practitioners

Background The Acute Medicine Advanced Nurse Practitioner (ANP) role has become one of the innovative strategies employed by the National Health Service (NHS) to address the challenges of the speciality of Acute Medicine. Clinical decision-making is regarded as the cornerstone of accountability. Nursing has a much shorter tradition of medical clinical decision-making. There continues to be a battle between specifying the philosophies underpinning education, preparation and the expectations of the public. The current literature is heavily influenced by theoretical discussion around the definition of an ANP, the conceptualisation of Advanced Practice, the quest for autonomy, the medicalisation of the nursing profession influencing scope of practice and the integration of evidence based practice. There is no previous research into clinical decision-making by Acute Medicine ANPs. To ensure quality clinical decision-making and enable appropriate education and training it is imperative to gain a thorough understanding of the factors that influence the clinical decisions of Acute Medicine ANPs in the context of real life practice. Methods An ethnographic case study approach was employed to examine clinical decision-making by ten Acute Medicine ANPs in Acute Medicine from three NHS sites (Site 1: 6 Acute Medicine ANPs, Site 2: 2 Acute Medicine ANPs and Site 3: 2 Acute Medicine ANPs). The research study was conducted in the context of the natural world of the research participants. Data were gathered through varying levels of observation from unobtrusive to participant during Acute Medicine ANP clinical encounters with patients and during the following informal interviews. Field notes from the clinical encounters and the informal interviews were documented in a double-entry notebook. The field notes were then expanded into descriptive text and then further into extended narratives to encompass forty case studies (Site 1: 24 case studies, Site 2: 10 case studies and Site 3: 6 case studies). Data collection for the fifteen formal interviews conducted away from the clinical environment (Site 1: 9 formal interviews, Site 2: 4 formal interviews and Site 3: 2 formal interviews) were audio-recorded and transcribed to provide an accurate account and contributed to extended narratives. The data collection phase of the research study reached saturation after one year. The analysis of the data was an iterative process that required ongoing comparison and contrasting between incidents found in the data and the emerging theoretical concepts. Quirkos (computer software designed to aid qualitative data analysis) was employed to assist in the organising and analysis of the large volume of data. This process was enhanced through a shared experience by exposing the themes to the research participants and research supervisors to ensure that the data had descriptive value. 4 Findings Acute Medicine is a complex and nuanced healthcare environment characterised by an atmosphere of unrelenting tension and high pressure demands. The discussion is organised around Dual-Process Theory, clinical decision-making and the themes: Decisiveness (the ability to commit to a decision); and Indecisiveness (the consideration of multiple alternative possibilities) identified in the data. System 1 reasoning processes are connected to experience and priori knowledge. The abstract hypothetical thinking of System 2 reasoning processes are required in situations of complexity, uncertainty and in the absence of an anchor. The Acute Medicine ANP is more decisive when there is no gap between what is known and what needs to be known. The degree of uncertainty or certainty varies depending upon how much knowledge can be established regarding the presented clinical situation. The absence or limitation of unknown factors lends itself to less potential for uncertainty to intrude upon the clinical decision-making process. The concept of ‘common’ and ‘decisiveness’ are linked and that the combination of these two lends itself to the notion of experience. Conclusion Clinical decision-making by the Acute Medicine ANP is a process of diverse levels of complexity that they undertake multiple times on a daily basis. This research has identified constructs, patterns of behaviour and attitudes that may be comparable and translatable to other similar complex and nuanced healthcare environments and the ANPs that ply their trade in them

The Impact of Social Computing on the EU Information Society and Economy

This report provides a systematic empirical assessment of the creation, use and adoption of specific social computing applications and its impact on ICT/media industries, personal identity, social inclusion, education and training, healthcare and public health, and government services and public governance.JRC.J.4-Information Societ

Exploring Data Security Management Strategies for Preventing Data Breaches

Insider threat continues to pose a risk to organizations, and in some cases, the country at large. Data breach events continue to show the insider threat risk has not subsided. This qualitative case study sought to explore the data security management strategies used by database and system administrators to prevent data breaches by malicious insiders. The study population consisted of database administrators and system administrators from a government contracting agency in the northeastern region of the United States. The general systems theory, developed by Von Bertalanffy, was used as the conceptual framework for the research study. The data collection process involved interviewing database and system administrators (n = 8), organizational documents and processes (n = 6), and direct observation of a training meeting (n = 3). By using methodological triangulation and by member checking with interviews and direct observation, efforts were taken to enhance the validity of the findings of this study. Through thematic analysis, 4 major themes emerged from the study: enforcement of organizational security policy through training, use of multifaceted identity and access management techniques, use of security frameworks, and use of strong technical control operations mechanisms. The findings of this study may benefit database and system administrators by enhancing their data security management strategies to prevent data breaches by malicious insiders. Enhanced data security management strategies may contribute to social change by protecting organizational and customer data from malicious insiders that could potentially lead to espionage, identity theft, trade secrets exposure, and cyber extortion

Journal of the House of Representatives of the 77th GA Vol. 1, no. 2, 1997

The published daily journals of the transactions of the House of Representatives for the current legislative session and the official bound journals printed after adjournment for previous legislative sessions