Knowledge Management for Public Administrations: Technical Realizations of an Enterprise Attention Management System

The improvement of governments’ efficiency has gained great importance and validity especially in the current times of economic downturn. E-Government constitutes the most contemporary techno-managerial proposition in the track of possible interventions. The paper addresses, more specifically, empowerments necessitated by Public Administration (PA) organizations. Anchored on the needs of three real-life cases, the paper describes the conception and the realization of an IT artefact together with its methodological appeals aiming at improving information access and delivery and thus PAs’ decision making capacity. Our proposition constitutes a novel approach for managing users’ attention in knowledge intensive organizations which goes beyond informing a user about changes in relevant information towards proactively supporting the user to react on changes. The approach is based on an expressive attention model, which is realized by combining ECA (Event-Condition-Action) rules with ontologies. The technical realizations described in the paper constitute the underlying infrastructure of an Enterprise Attention Management System

Transaction stage of e-Government systems: identification of its location & importance

All e-Government maturity models identify a Transaction stage along the pathway to full systems integration. The evidence suggests that a significant number of project failures occur at this stage and thus frustrate the endeavour to achieve a coherent uniform means of access to Government. Clearly, research to identify and overcome the challenges presented at this stage is critical. In this paper the Transaction stage is clearly delineated as the point at which online technology ceases to be peripheral to the agency’s activity. Hence, it presents the first real organisational challenge and an appropriate research strategy is defined to uncover the problems that arise at this point

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

Mapping factors influencing EAI adoption in the local government authorities on different phases of the adoption lifecycle

Several private and public organisations have adopted Enterprise Application Integration (EAI), however, its application in the Local Government Authorities (LGAs) is limited. Although, there exist few EAI adoption models, these models mainly focus on a number of different factors (e.g. benefits, barriers, cost) influencing the decision making process for EAI adoption. Moreover, these models do not illustrate which factor(s) influence the decision making process for EAI adoption on the adoption lifecycle phases. Literature indicates that the adoption process involves a sequence of phases an organisation passes through before taking the decision for adoption. This exemplifies that LGAs may also have to pass through several adoption phases before taking the decision to adopt EAI. However, due to the: (a) multiplicity of diverse EAI adoption factors and (b) not able to recognise which factor(s) influence EAI on adoption lifecycle phases, it may not be easy for LGAs to take decisions to adopt EAI by merely focusing on different factors. This may impede the decision making process for EAI adoption in LGAs. Notwithstanding, the implications of EAI have yet to be assessed, leaving scope for timeliness and novel research. Therefore, it is of high importance to investigate this area within LGAs and result in research that contributes towards successful EAI adoption. This paper makes a step forward as it: (a) investigates and proposes four adoption lifecycle phases, (b) validates the adoption lifecycle phases and (c) mapping the factors influencing EAI adoption on the adoption lifecycle phases, through a case study. Hence, it significantly contributes to the body of knowledge and practice. In doing so, providing sufficient support to the decision makers for speeding up the decision making process for EAI adoption in LGAs

Attitudinal and behavioural determinants influencing decision makers when adopting integration technologies in local government

Over the last few years, the advent of innovative or revolutionary integration technologies has influenced pivotal decisions within top management to strategically transform Local Government Authorities (LGAs). These technologies may represent a huge cost for adopting LGAs, but may also offer the chance to achieve competitive advantage through superior service delivery. With the emergence of electronic Government (e- Government), LGAs are turning to integration technologies to fully automate and e-enable their business processes and integrate their IT infrastructures. While prior research on the adoption of integration technologies in the private and public domain has considered several determinants (e.g. benefits, barriers, costs), little attention has been given to investigate the attitudinal and behavioural determinants influencing top management’s decision making process for the adoption of integration technologies in LGAs. Notwithstanding, the implications of this research have yet to be assessed, leaving scope for timeliness and novel research. Therefore, it is of high importance to investigate this area within LGAs and contribute to the area of strategic decision making by examining attitudinal and behavioural determinants of top management in relation to integration technologies adoption

Electronic information sharing in local government authorities: Factors influencing the decision-making process

This is the post-print version of the final paper published in International Journal of Information Management. The published article is available from the link below. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. Copyright @ 2013 Elsevier B.V.Local Government Authorities (LGAs) are mainly characterised as information-intensive organisations. To satisfy their information requirements, effective information sharing within and among LGAs is necessary. Nevertheless, the dilemma of Inter-Organisational Information Sharing (IOIS) has been regarded as an inevitable issue for the public sector. Despite a decade of active research and practice, the field lacks a comprehensive framework to examine the factors influencing Electronic Information Sharing (EIS) among LGAs. The research presented in this paper contributes towards resolving this problem by developing a conceptual framework of factors influencing EIS in Government-to-Government (G2G) collaboration. By presenting this model, we attempt to clarify that EIS in LGAs is affected by a combination of environmental, organisational, business process, and technological factors and that it should not be scrutinised merely from a technical perspective. To validate the conceptual rationale, multiple case study based research strategy was selected. From an analysis of the empirical data from two case organisations, this paper exemplifies the importance (i.e. prioritisation) of these factors in influencing EIS by utilising the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique. The intent herein is to offer LGA decision-makers with a systematic decision-making process in realising the importance (i.e. from most important to least important) of EIS influential factors. This systematic process will also assist LGA decision-makers in better interpreting EIS and its underlying problems. The research reported herein should be of interest to both academics and practitioners who are involved in IOIS, in general, and collaborative e-Government, in particular

The interaction between policy and education using stroke as an example

This paper discusses the interaction between healthcare policy at the European, UK and Scottish levels and the funding of education that underpins specific health policy priorities. Stroke is used throughout to illustrate the relationship between a designated European and UK health priority and the translation of that priority into clinical delivery. The necessity to build a responsive and sustainable culture to address the healthcare education that underpins changing healthcare policies is emphasized