The Value of Local eGovernment : a study of electronic service delivery performance measurement

At the local government level, where a significant number of citizen-to-government transactions occur, eGovernment can be as much a barrier as it can be an enabler for citizen access to information and services. Municipal councils need to ensure that they are effective in delivering the services that are transferred to the electronic domain. As local governments increasingly turn to ESD, it is essential that they put in place performance measurement processes that ensure that they are effectively in achieving their desired aim. Public accountability particularly for more efficient and effective service delivery requires performance measures incorporating both financial and non-financial elements. The substantial reforms to the local government sector, however, brings with it a risk that councils will turn to eGovernment with the primary aim of reducing internal costs. This research examines the progress local governments in Victoria, Australia have made towards utilising the Internet to enhance the delivery of services and the methods they use to measure performance. Using a case study of two councils, the research found that councils concentrate more on the cost benefits of ESD rather than on the quality or effectiveness of the service. It also found that council staff do not incorporate on-going evaluative processes in changes to ESD. Moreover, it found that staff are often reluctant to undertake internally initiated reviews, and often rely on easily quantifiable measures such as hits or visits as justification for ESD

The Use of ICT to support Regional Developments: Contributions from the Bled eConference

The Bled eConference quite often gets connected to the notion of eRegion. Therefore in this paper we will have a closer look at how the idea of an eRegion has been addressed by the conference over the past. After briefly looking at the emergence of the term eRegion, we summarize the contribution of the Bled eConference to the field of eRegion in the Research Track as well as in the Business Track. Whereas in the Research Track contributions have focussed mostly on developing existing regions through ICT means, the Business Track activities tackle especially cross-border challenges between regions

E-Political Marketing Tools in Modern Democracies: The Nigerian Perspective

Despite an increasing presence of political consultants, all indications are that elections- promotional activities are relatively static in some countries. These election promotional activities in some nations include professionally produced television advertising; media relations experts who wage spin control; and planned events such as leader tours and television debates. Nowadays, campaigns are conducted by telephones instead of foot soldiers or door to door canvassing. Perhaps the most visible modernization in recent years has been parties' mediocre websites that provide daily campaign updates and which is sometimes mirrored by candidates' amateurish online presence. But, to what extent is American style of political marketing creeping into other countries' electioneering campaigns (Nigeria inclusive). This is the crux of this study. The study surveyed 400 political marketers from the two dominant political parties in Nigeria to identify thee-political marketing tools currently used to reach their electorates on one hand, and factors affecting the choice of the tools on the other. The result shows that there are two categories of e-political marketing tools in use. These are Internet marketing tools and mobile marketing tools. In the same vein, the factors that influence the choice of the tools are impact, convenience, expose reach, cost, time, and frequency. Based on these findings, political managers are advised to take advantage of the tools which are in tandem with global best practices in modern democracie

Exploring strategic leadership challenges in achieving an ICT enabled transformational government

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel UniversityThis empirical research focuses on exploring the role of strategic leadership in the shift from Electronic Government (eGovernment) to Transformational Government (tGovernment). Despite the fact that many countries have implemented eGovernment, the literature reports a number of themhave failed to reach the promised seamless transformation. Moreover, there is a dearth of research into the domain of tGovernment; the research which exists is limited in extent thus leaving scope for timely and novel research contributions. This thesis reveals that a valuable contribution to knowledge could be derived from exploring the domain of transformational government. The leadership motivationand incentives to conduct a radical government organisational change have become an area of great importance. There is limited research on the strategic role of leadership in achieving transformational government domain; hence, the implications of seamless integration for transformational government have yet to be explored. This research discusses transformational government by using a qualitative, multiple case study research strategy. Data is triangulated and analysed according to its explanatory properties and underlying structural context. This researchextends established norms in literature for tGovernment implementation by incorporating established theories in organisational change from other related disciplines. This is to explain the significance of the underlying philosophical nature of the emerging themes, thus enabling government leaders to create robust strategic proposals for tGovernment. This empirical research is conducted in a Middle Eastern cultural context based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The research arrives at several key findings and themesthat contribute to the body of knowledge. A primary finding is the need for a radical change and an innovative managerial approach in using ICT to enable radical change in government organisations. A related finding of this research is that many assumptions underlying the various tGovernment models for transformation fall short to empirically explain the transformational government domain.The government visionary leadership has been proven to be a powerful driver for change in terms of initiating and leading the process for transformational government

Evaluation of eGovernment websites usability in Jordan

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University on 20/12/2011.In the Information and Communications Technology era, eGovernment projects present a great opportunity for governments to offer better and quicker services to their users from the public. However, the success and the failure of these projects to achieve the expected goals depend heavily on some important aspects, mainly websites usability. The research in this thesis focuses on the usability of eGovernment websites in Jordan as a case study, as it is one of the developing countries facing problems due to websites usability. Hence, the main aim of the research was to investigate the situation of the Jordanian eGovernment websites with a view to improving usability, as well as to propose a roadmap to reinforce websites usability in order to achieve better utilisation and a more successful eGovernment project in Jordan. This research work achievement and major contributions have been accomplished through three stages; the first stage investigated the level of usability of eGovernment in Jordan from a manager‟s perspective. The study for this stage involved a sample of 37 managers who are in charge of managing and maintaining eGovernment projects in Jordan. The research revealed that the main problems undermining Jordanian eGovernment usability are the lack of the general usability awareness amongst management, the lack of clear usability standards and guidelines, the insufficient level of end-user involvement in the process of design and maintenance of eGovernment services, limited budgets and the lack of expert web-designers. The second stage was to build a clear overview about the status of eGovernment websites usability in Jordan by investigating main aspects related to design that affect the success of eGovernment websites in Jordan from an end-user‟s perspective. The study for this stage involved 155 participants for testing five Jordanian eGovernment websites. It was revealed that the Jordanian eGovernment websites generally do not have a high level of usability, and that there is a lack of understanding of the needs and requirements of the end-users. In addition, the study discovered a lack of testing and monitoring of the websites, a lack of involvement of end-users, poor collaboration and coordination among government agencies, poor standardisation, and lack of trust/satisfaction. The outcome from the early mentioned studies was used in the third stage, which has been used to establish the model to improve the usability of eGovernment websites in Jordan through a clear roadmap. The model has four components: website manager and designer, end-users, usability committee (advisory, executive), design process (usability requirements, pre-implementation test, post-implementation and maintenance). The model which was established and evaluated can be very beneficial for promoting eGovernment websites usability, in Jordan particularly and in other countries with similar backgrounds and situations.Kingdom of Jorda

An institutional perspective on information and communication technologies in governance

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are becoming increasing relevant in policy making and governance activities. However, the broad effects of digital governance have not been adequately conceptualised; conflicting assumptions vary from rather optimistic accounts of empowered citizens to even completely dismissing the potential of engagement through technical means. This research attempts to reposition the impact of ICTs on policy making and political communities. Drawing from institutional studies, an integrated perspective is synthesised to guide case investigations in three main directions: (1) the way influences from the institutional environment are understood and balanced locally, (2) the co-evolution of institutional and technological configurations and (3) the dynamic response of institutional actors to the challenge of online engagement. The empirical part focuses on two different contexts (local government authorities and a trade union federation) that cover the holistic objective of this study. The findings inform on the extent to which ICTs are actually merging with existing governance structures. Both studies show that policy making is fundamentally different from other activities at the general intersection of Internet and politics. Citizens form online communities to organise ad hoc around single issue movements. However, this does not necessarily translate into sustainable and meaningful participation in formal politics. Hence, adapting institutional structures emerges as a complicated challenge beyond fitting technical means into existing engagement activities. On this basis, the thesis questions the extent to which policy making mechanisms are able to enact engagement from the grassroots, as for example encouraged by the social media collaboration philosophy. Implications for practice show how the alignment between new tools and the existing norms has the potential to identify paths of least resistance, and then exploit them to accomplish positives changes whose beneficial effects should not be taken for granted.Department of Information Systems and Computing, Brunel Universit

Using goals to model strategy map for business IT alignment

Strategy Map (SM) is one of the widely used methods to create business aligned IT strategy map providing valuable insights to business executives. However, problem with strategy map method is that it is not easy to use which can lend itself to various interpretations. This is because linkages between the strategic objectives in the four strategy map perspectives are not explicit which makes SM ambiguous. Goal modelling approaches from Requirements Engineering (RE) have proven rigorous in elicitation and representation of information system requirements. In an attempt to make explicit the causal relationships of SM linkages meaningful this research proposes the use of goal modelling approach i*

Open Standards and Government Policy: Results of a Delphi Survey

In an increasing number of countries governments consider to stimulate the role of open standards in public Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure development. The aim of this work is to identify important issues related to government policy with regard to open standards and the development of public ICT infrastructure. This multi-method research presents results from an exploratory literature review and multi-round Delphi survey of key experts in the field of standardization