Enabling Practices for Information Systems Adoption in the Complex Context of Greek E-Government

The Greek administrative context is characterized by a centralized and bureaucratic culture and is heavily influenced by the ongoing financial crisis. E-government is under development and remains greatly fragmented while adoption is low and resistance by public agencies and citizens is often high. Against this background, this paper provides an in-depth study of four nation-wide e-government projects recently adopted in Greece that were successfully implemented and widely adopted by their intended stakeholders. The study of these projects reveals common enabling factors. Based on our find-ings, we propose a framework that links together three enabling practices for the adoption of e-government projects, namely, top-down pressures, agency ownership and user engagement. We dis-cuss how these are interrelated and their implications for improving e-government adoption ‘against the odds’

Incentives for the adoption of e-government by Greek municipalities

Purpose: The research aims to identify the incentives that play an important role in the evolution of e-government in Greece at local scale and its actual development level. It also investigates the factors and the perceived barriers that affect the development of local egovernment in Greek Municipalities, as well as the benefits they derive from it. Design/Methodology/Approach: The research is based on a survey that was conducted through a questionnaire to all 325 Municipalities of the country and includes data from 109 Municipalities that participated in the quantitative approach. Findings: While e-government is spread at a relatively satisfactory level, it appears that only a few Municipalities are performing well. Results highlight also the two main incentives that motivate Municipalities to adopt e-government: The first is the improvement of the efficiency of information exchange with the external environment and the second is managing internal issues-relationships in conjunction with the existence of prominent IT departments. Amongst the main factors that affect e-government adoption by Local authorities, budgetary constraints stand out, while the lack of personnel specialized in Information Technologies is identified as common obstacle. Practical Implications: Findings suggest that an integrated approach to e-government is needed in order to enable organizations to minimize failures and to overcome barriers and counter risks. The capacity to align e-government applications with the increasing and evolving needs and requirements of the citizens is the key to optimizing the benefits of eGovernment at local scale. Originality/Value: There is no similar empirical research in the context of Greece; hence, it seems important to increase the knowledge about the drivers of e-government adoption, especially in the public sector at the local scale.peer-reviewe

E-government process in the public sector and the barriers against its implementation: A case study in Greece

Copyright @ 2013 EMCIS.The study aims to gain insight into the of e-government as it has started taking place within the public sector and access the barriers that are related to its organizational structure and consequently prevent the fully incorporation and implementation of such technological efforts. In order to obtain vital and accurate information, the study adopted quantitative research methodology by using the tool of self-completion questionnaires. More precisely, this study is based on a single case study, the public administration in Greece. Moreover, the sources of data collection were relied upon primary data. Furthermore, this study revealed the organizational barriers against e-government by focusing on the major impediments as the participants captured them. Non-availability of high IT-staff, age of employees and the structure of the political regime as well as the way that the central government operates affect the structure of the public sector and are considered the most important barriers that guide to difficulties as far as e-government adoption is concerned. Indeed, Greek Public sector is facing many organizational problems and should eliminate the majority of them by undertaking radical changes and effective measures

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

Enabling Semantic Interoperability in e-Government: A System-based Methodological Framework for XML Schema Management at National Level

Articulating semantic interoperability in e-Government remains in question as long as the international standardization efforts do not reach a consensus on how to semantically annotate and exchange data, but merely focus on the syntactic aspects by publishing sets of XML Schemas. As one-stop governmental services at national and cross-county level become an imperative, the need for standardized data definitions, codification of existing unstructured information and a framework for managing governmental data in a unified way emerges. Effectively applied to the Greek e-Government National Interoperability Framework, this paper proposes a methodology for designing semantically enriched XML Schemas with which homogenized governmental information complies, based on the UN/CEFACT Core Components Technical Specification (CCTS). A discussion around a prospective architecture for managing large sets of XML Schemas is also motivated in order to recognize the necessary components and the key issues that need to be tackled when designing a Governmental Schema Registry

Making The Policy-Makers: Askesis, Or To Continuously Work On Oneself

This paper uses a Foucauldian discursive approach to shed light into how organisational actors are ‘made’ to act as strategists, incorporating into their work practices the demands and expectations of what it means to be a strategist in a specific context at a specific time. It draws on a Foucauldian understanding of governing and self formation to explore the ways in which actors work on themselves in order to act meaningfully as strategists. I argue that, rather than organisational identities being static or finished, organisational actors actively say and do things in their continual attempts to attain a more complete, acceptable and congruent identity. In contexts with high degrees of uncertainty and heavily power- and conflict-laden relationships, both discourses of how strategy is made and the practices involved in it can be seen as exercises (askesis) which strategists actively perform to better embrace their responsibility of rendering the future governable for others. The paper brings together the literatures on identity and on strategic practices to show the dialectic relationship between them

Information systems and healthcare XXIV: Factors affecting the EAI adoption in the healthcare sector

Recent developments in the field of integration technologies like Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) have emerged to support organizations towards improving the quality of services and reducing integration costs. Despite the importance of EAI, there is limited empirical research reported on its adoption in the healthcare sector. Khoumbati et al. [2006] developed a model for the evaluation of EAI in healthcare organizations. In doing so, the causal interrelationship of EAI adoption factors was identified by using fuzzy cognitive mapping. This paper is a progression of previous work in the area and seeks to contribute by validating the model through a different case environment. Thus, this paper contributes by deriving and proposing the MAESTRO model for EAI adoption. MAESTRO identifies a set of factors that influence EAI adoption and it is evaluated through a real-life case study. It provides an understanding of the EAI adoption process through its grounding on empirical data. In doing so, the MAESTRO model supports the management of healthcare organizations during the decision-making process for EAI adoption

Overview and Analysis of Practices with Open Educational Resources in Adult Education in Europe

OER4Adults aimed to provide an overview of Open Educational Practices in adult learning in Europe, identifying enablers and barriers to successful implementation of practices with OER. The project was conducted in 2012-2013 by a team from the Caledonian Academy, Glasgow Caledonian University, funded by The Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS). The project drew on data from four main sources: • OER4Adults inventory of over 150 OER initiatives relevant to adult learning in Europe • Responses from the leaders of 36 OER initiatives to a detailed SWOT survey • Responses from 89 lifelong learners and adult educators to a short poll • The Vision Papers on Open Education 2030: Lifelong Learning published by IPTS Interpretation was informed by interviews with OER and adult education experts, discussion at the IPTS Foresight Workshop on Open Education and Lifelong Learning 2030, and evaluation of the UKOER programme. Analysis revealed 6 tensions that drive developing practices around OER in adult learning as well 6 summary recommendations for the further development of such practices

Necessary but not sufficient: the role of the EU in resolving Turkey's Kurdish question and the Greek--Turkish conflicts.

The article presents a comparative analysis of the role of the European Union (EU) in resolving Turkey's Kurdish question and the Greek-Turkish conflicts. The results yield important insights, both in terms of evaluating the role of the EU in conflict resolution and of assessing the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Conflict Resolution and European Studies literatures

Management Accounting Change: A hybrid institutional and managerial perspective : The case of the Greek Higher Education Institutions

The responses of certain organisations, such as Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs), to the demands of their institutional environment are central to this study. In today’s economic climate and under the existing political and social conditions, it is inevitable for organisations to consider and/or undergo some form of change and to reform the existing management practices so that to become more efficient and accountable regarding the acquisition and use of the public sector resources thus, adopting the New Public Management principles. In this vein, accounting was expected to play a major role in providing new forms of financial information. This information would then be utilized towards the improvement of the public sector’s performance and accountability in order to achieve efficiency, effectiveness and economy and the presence of the accrual basis accounting system has constituted an important change component. The current study focuses on providing an answer to the question of how HEIs in Greece responded to governmental pressures for accounting reform during the decade of 1998-2008; specifically, it focuses on the extent to which HEIs implement the accrual accounting system and the influence of the isomorphic and intra organizational dynamics on its implementation. The aim of this enquiry is to assist in providing a deep understanding of the external and internal dynamics that influence the adoption and implementation of the Management Accounting (MA) systems, resulting thus, to new daily accounting practices within certain organizations. The current study is not limited in researching the various ways in which the Greek HEIs cope with the management of the change pressures but also aims towards studying the effect of the internal and external institutional environment within which organizations operate. This institutional environment exerts influence on the behavior of the organizations with regard to change. The theoretical framework employed various institutional theory strands and perspectives on change management theories regarding change management processes that consider the ways in which MA practices can undergo change. Consequently, a hybrid institutional approach of MA change derived from the integration of various strands of institutional theory, such as Old Institutional Economics (OIE) and New Institutional Theory (NIS) and perspectives on change management theories. The adoption of a subjectivism interpretive philosophy has been suggested as the most appropriate and a case study research strategy has been adopted for the scope of this study including an in part survey strategy. The Greek higher education system is considered to be the case study under investigation. The complexity of the phenomena under investigation implied the need for a sequential mixed method approach in order to best understand and explain the phenomenon under investigation. The current research aims to contribute to the growing body of literature of MA and change management that combine OIE and NIS perspectives with change management theories and to provide major implications for the successful MA change in certain organizations, such as higher education sector institutions. With respect to this specific research area, twofold objectives have been considered to be achieved via this study concerning theoretical and practical aspects equally. The theoretical objective of this thesis was to develop a valuable theoretical framework by using complementary various theoretical strands and perspectives. The second objective was the empirical investigation of the accrual accounting system implementation in certain organizations such as the Greek HEIs. The findings of the empirical study have been expected to provide organizational actors with a further understanding of the MA change and the influence of isomorphic and intra organizational dynamics in the accounting change process. This thesis has provided evidence of how the intra organizational dynamics have been activated towards the implementation of the new accounting system under the government pressure and the isomorphic forces enacted for. Furthermore, it resulted in that the implementation of the accrual accounting system and the attempted MA change were dependent on the activation and interaction of the isomorphic forces as well as of the intra organizational dynamics which guided the whole process of change from the starting point to its resulting thus to the new daily accounting practices and routines up rising as taken for granted. In particular, based strictly on an investigation of the existing literature and the analysis of the derived findings by the survey structured questionnaire and the face-to-face interviews, it is assumed that isomorphic forces have been insufficiently activated by the external environment in order to push the Greek HEIs forward towards the adoption of the accounting reform demanded by the legislator (Presidential Decree 205/1998). It is also supported that the intra organizational dynamics, activated within each individual HEI that implemented the accrual accounting system, have not resulted sufficiently to the development of new accounting routines, considering them as the positive outcome of the successful accounting change process