The internet and public bureaucracies: towards balancing competing values

Innovation in public administration is one of the central aspects of public sector reforms. Given the procedural nature of government tasks, the adoption of the Internet and related information and communication technologies (ICT) has become critical for government organisations. The aim of this paper is to discuss the implications of the diffusion Internet led innovations in the public sector on balancing public values. Rather than diminishing their benefits, we aim at highlighting challenges and dilemmas that can emerge from ICT implementation in the public sector. The paper starts by reviewing the main trends of e-government research and show a dominant view towards managerial and private sector values embedded in the literature. To propose an alternative approach, we then draw on an empirical example from Mexico, that of the Federal Transparency and Access to Government Information Law. Using Mexico’s available statistics and secondary data, the case explores how a quicker ICT-mediated interaction between citizens and government can result in social and political dilemmas. We propose to bring into play the public value paradigm to highlight these issues. Conclusions follow

Improving Public Administration Performance through Electronic Government Applications

Electronic Government applications have been the focus of hundreds of local and national government administrations all over the world during the past decade. The emphasis of most of these applications lies in their effort to improve the experience of the user in interacting with public administration services and to minimise waiting times in completing transactions public services and citizens. Early applications were relying mainly on the speed and simplicity of submitting a request by the user while most of the work beyond the web based interaction was carried out as in the era before the introduction of the web based applications. The benefits from such endeavours have been short lived as citizens are looking for real enhancements in they way public administration serves their needs and responds to their requests. The authors argue that for e-government applications to succeed changes would have to be effected in the way public administration organizes itself and how it utilizes information management systems to respond to user / citizen requirements including and addressing the goals of all stakeholders involved. Currently the number of successful applications to that end is quite low when compared to the projects implemented so far. The authors propose steps that would maintain the focus of future implementations in doing so

Pest activity prognosis in rice fields using fuzzy expert system approach

Logik kabur merupakan satu bentuk perwakilan pengetahuan bagi konsep yang tak dapat ditakrifkan secara tepat tetapi bergantung kepada konteks penggunaannya. Sistem Pakar adalah program komputer yang menggunakan pengetahuan manusia untuk menyelesaikan masalah khusus yang memerlukan kepintaran manusia. Oleh kerana pengetahuan yang terlibat dalam pengurusan serangga adalah tidak lengkap dan kabur, maka logik kabur diintegrasikan ke dalam sistem pakar untuk mengendalikan penaksiran anggaran. Sistem Pakar dan Logik Kabur mempunyai kelebihannya tersendiri dan gabungan kedua-dua teknologi yang membentuk sistem pakar-kabur dapat meningkatkan keupayaan sistem (Herrmann, 1996). Berdasarkan keupayaan logik kabur dan sistem pakar, peramalan aktiviti serangga di sawah padi menggunakan pendekatan pakar-kabur telah dibangunkan untuk menyediakan maklumat kepada petani dan penyelidik melalui Internet. Oleh kerana beras merupakan makanan ruji rakyat Malaysia dan Kedah merupakan kawasan utama penanaman padi di Malaysia, kajian ini memfokuskan kepada aktiviti serangga di sawah padi. Dalam MyPEST, jenis serangga yang mengakibatkan kerosakan pada tanaman padi ditentukan oleh sistem pakar, manakala Logik Kabur digunakan untuk meramalkan tahap aktiviti serangga. Ixii penting supaya rawatan awal dapat dilakukan sebelum kerosakan bertambah buruk. Sistem MyPEST membantu pengguna dengan mengendalikan rundingan pakar yang dikawalselia oleh sistem pakar dan logik kabur untuk peramalan dan menguruskan ketidakpastian data menggunakan pembolehubah lingistik. Sistem berasaskan web ini juga membantu petani dan institusi pertanian untuk menguruskan ladang dengan cekap dan dapat meningkatkan kualiti serta kuantiti beras yang dihasilkan. Dalam kajian ini, proses peramalan menggunakan lebih daripada satu attribut telah dikaji. Dapatan kajian menunjukkan sekiranya lebih daripada satu atribut terlibat, graf keputusan 3-dimensi yang kurang tegar dihasilkan. Penentuan jenis serangga adalah dalam fasa pertama MyPEST dan diikuti oleh peramalan aktiviti serangga yang dikenalpasti. Sistem ini telah disemak oleh pakar serangga di MARDi dan disahkan membawa manfaat kepada penyelidik di MARDI, MADA dan DOA khususnya dan petani secara keseluruhan

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA): Background, Legislation, and Policy Issues

[Excerpt] The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA; 5 U.S.C. §552) allows any person—individual or corporate, citizen or not—to request and obtain, without explanation or justification, existing, identifiable, and unpublished agency records on any topic. Pursuant to FOIA, the public has presumptive access to agency records unless the material falls within any of FOIA’s nine categories of exception. Disputes over the release of records requested pursuant to FOIA can be appealed administratively, resolved through mediation, or heard in court. This report provides background on FOIA, discusses the categories of records FOIA exempts from public release, and analyzes statistics on FOIA administration. The report also provides background on several legal and policy issues related to FOIA, including the release of controversial records, the growth in use of certain FOIA exemptions, and the adoption of new technologies to improve FOIA administration. The report concludes with an examination of potential FOIA-related policy options for the 113th Congress

The elicitation of key performance indicators of e-government providers: A bottom-up approach

Copyright @ 2013 EMCIS.Delivering an adequate e-Government service (e-service) is becoming more of a necessity in today's digital world. In order to improve e-services and increase the engagement of both users' and providers' side, studies on the performance evaluation of such provided e-services are taking places. However a clear identification of the key performance indicators from the e-Government providers’ side is not well explored. This shortcoming hampers the conduct of a holistic evaluation of an e-service provision from the perspective of its stakeholders in order to improve e-services as well as to increase e-services take-ups. In this paper, a systematic process to identify indicators is implemented based on a bottom-up approach. The process used three focus-group meetings with providers, users, and academics in Qatar, Lebanon and UK to collect, identify and validate key indicators from the perspective of e-services’ providers. The approach resulted in the identification of five factors levels (service, technology, employees, policy and management and social responsibilities) with fifteen sub-categories of SMART variables. Hence, leading to the development of a new model, STEPS, that can fully explain and predict e-government success from the providers’ point of view. It will work as a strategic management tool to align various stakeholders on common goal and values based on evidence based evaluation of e-services using smart measurable indicators for the improvement of an e-service at the engagement level in the field of e-government. In addition, other fields can benefit from the outcome of this work, such as logistics service providers, who make their services available across new and existing relationships between the Internet commerce firms, their customers, and their vendors

EMPOWERING CITIZENS’ VOICES IN THE ERA OF E-GOVERNMENT: IMPLICATIONS FROM SOUTH KOREAN CASES

The rise of the Internet sparked an intense debate on the democratic potential of information and communication technologies (ICTs). This research illustrates how web technologies enable ordinary citizens to articulate their interests in policy processes and enhance the organizational intelligence of local governments. The two South Korean cities introduced in this article adopted internet applications that allowed citizens to contact public officials or city mayors directly, resulting in dramatic increases in online civic input into local governance. Citizens’ political efficacy was encouraged both by government feedback and by the system that enabled their evaluation of the feedback. Despite the substantive contributions of the applications to local governance, formalistic responses from some public officials indicate challenges in building citizens’ trust in government through the use of ICTs. To address the challenges, it is necessary to cultivate the innovative leadership of senior public mangers and develop the institutional mechanisms encouraging public officials’ sincere responses to citizens’ online requests.E-government, Internet, Citizen Participation, Civic Engagement, Urban Governance.

Impact of New Technologies on Public Organisations

ICTs impact is important on organisational structure and organisational culture.IT offers options for the design of organisational culture,the interaction by means of new modalities ,joint fonctions and objectives,faciliting the set up of working groups with a determined term,as well as communication on large areas. The use of effective IT could provide an attractive work environment ,and could motivate the employees by means of job enrichment. ICTs represent a catalyst for the public sector,in order to improve the decisions making process, efficient management of resourses,to increase productivity in the public sector.Public organisations, new technologies, e-administration

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

A comparison between e-government practices in Taiwan and New Zealand.

Few studies have focused on comparing the state of e-government in Western- and Non-Western settings, where the political, social, economic, and cultural environments can be markedly different. This paper compares the views of local authority policymakers in Taiwan and New Zealand, in order to judge the sophistication of their e-government initiatives via the formal and informal policies underpinning website development. Good level of agreement were observed between the Taiwanese and New Zealander respondents for the high levels of significance they attached to 3 key issues, which the authors argue are critical for successful e-government: Accessibility, Security and Privacy. Similarly, the policymakers agreed on a medium level of significance for the 7 key issues: E-procurement, Digital Divide, Private Sector, Taxation, Cultural Obstacles, IT Workforce, and Social Effects (and on a low level of significance for E-Tailing). It was concluded that government policymakers in both countries, in an era of commercial online social networking, are continuing to favour pushing(what they deem to be important) information to citizens, rather than creating collaborative service channels with citizens, contractors and suppliers or integrating separate service processes to satisfy all stakeholders. An attendant lack of commitment to promoting heightened (e-)democracy was also noted, especially in New Zealand