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

Introducing e-Gov: History, Definitions, and Issues

The e-Gov field (also called Electronic Government, Digital Government, Electronic Governance, and similar names) emerged in the late 1990´s. Since then it spurred several scientific conferences and journals. Because the field grew considerably in size, both its contents and position with respect to other research fields and disciplines need to be explained and discussed. What is e-Gov? What is e-Gov research? What does it mean for the field of Information Systems? This paper briefly sketches the short e-Gov history and current status, and discusses the content of the field as it appears in current research. We conclude with a discussion of e-Gov as a research field of interest both as a new application area for IS theories and methods and as a source of new insight

Challenges in Delivering Cross-Agency Integrated e-Services: The OBLS Project

This case study describes how the Ministry of Trade and Industry and the Infocomm Development Authority, as lead agencies, jointly initiated and managed the implementation of a one-stop business licensing portal called OBLS (Online Business Licensing Service, https://licenses.business.gov.sg/) in the Singapore public sector. While the mandate from the top for this strategic cross-agency project was strong, there were many hurdles in the form of people, process and technology that had to be overcome. The case study highlights these issues and challenges, and illustrates how they were successfully overcome for delivering cross-agency integrated e-Service for new business license application

e-Customer Relationship Management in the hotel sector: Guests\u27 perceptions of perceived e-service quality levels

The notion of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has been shown to be a worthwhile strategy in many service industries. This coupled with Internet advances means that it is now possible and even beneficial to extend CRM practices on the Internet (eCRM) and integrate them with the offline CRM programme. eCRM has can boost guests\u27 satisfaction and patronage in the hospitality industry, as Internet business models have empowered guests with a great amount of information which, in turn, makes them more price sensitive, less brand loyal and more sophisticated. However, although research has concentrated so far on CRM and eCRM implementation and its operational requirements, CRM implications from the customer perspective have been ignored. This paper aims to fill in this gap by examining the impact of eCRM on guests\u27 perceptions of service quality on the Internet (e-service quality). It is advocated that eCRM enhances e-service quality by allowing guests to participate in service processes (e.g. service production, delivery, design) and so improving guests\u27 cognitive and emotional evaluations of service quality performances. Research propositions were tested by applying Critical Incident Analysis and conducting in-depth interviews with nine international hotel guests using eCRM. In general, findings mainly stressed the need to integrate eCRM with off line hotel strategies and operations providing several guidelines for further development and improvement of eCRM hotel practices. Future directions of research are also proposed

Integrated Curriculum for a Bachelor of Science in Business Information Systems Design (BISD 2010)

Commentators on Information Systems (IS) education have urged the IS community to develop new and alternative IS curricula. The IS 2002 model curriculum has recently been revised. The new IS 2010 curriculum guidelines for undergraduate degree programs in Information Systems [Topi et al. 2010] has a curriculum structure to accommodate the education of several different professional roles within IS. This paper identifies one such role, the Business Information Systems Designer. It presents and argues for a new, integrated Bachelor of Science curriculum for Business Information Systems Design (BISD 2010) to educate for this role. The proposed curriculum focuses on the design and use of IS in business and has a strong design focus. The education focuses on developing and training a set of capabilities that enables the Business Information Systems Designer to participate in the design of business and IS in concert. Some examples of capabilities are communication and presentation skills, business and industry understanding, and high-level modeling. Consequently, the curriculum adopted a capabilities-driven pedagogical model in order to train specific skills. The paper presents the BISD 2010 with its specific expected learning outcomes, structure, and pedagogy, and also how the students should be able to fulfill the learning outcomes. The proposed curriculum differs from much of the current IS model curriculum discussions in a number of respects: (1) it is built on a notion of design, design science, and design as a profession, (2) it is based on a capability driven pedagogical model, (3) the curriculum is modeled for a European higher education context and the Bologna accord, and (4) it is not a model curriculum, but a specific, comprehensive, and ambitious curriculum for a degree program

e-Customer Relationship Management in the hotel sector: Guests\u27 perceptions of perceived e-service quality levels

The notion of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has been shown to be a worthwhile strategy in many service industries. This coupled with Internet advances means that it is now possible and even beneficial to extend CRM practices on the Internet (eCRM) and integrate them with the offline CRM programme. eCRM has can boost guests\u27 satisfaction and patronage in the hospitality industry, as Internet business models have empowered guests with a great amount of information which, in turn, makes them more price sensitive, less brand loyal and more sophisticated. However, although research has concentrated so far on CRM and eCRM implementation and its operational requirements, CRM implications from the customer perspective have been ignored. This paper aims to fill in this gap by examining the impact of eCRM on guests\u27 perceptions of service quality on the Internet (e-service quality). It is advocated that eCRM enhances e-service quality by allowing guests to participate in service processes (e.g. service production, delivery, design) and so improving guests\u27 cognitive and emotional evaluations of service quality performances. Research propositions were tested by applying Critical Incident Analysis and conducting in-depth interviews with nine international hotel guests using eCRM. In general, findings mainly stressed the need to integrate eCRM with off line hotel strategies and operations providing several guidelines for further development and improvement of eCRM hotel practices. Future directions of research are also proposed

User Acceptance Evaluation of E-Government Services, Impact of Unified Approach Framework on the Government. Cloud Sultanate of Oman as a Case Study; Government and Citizens Perspectives

Oman has adopted e-government services, but according to the United Nations E-Government Development Index classification, such services are not fully utilised. E-government classification of Oman shows a lack that motivated this research. The aim is to provide a framework that can help the Omani government to better implement e-government services. As a result, Oman classification is expected to be improved. Such framework may also help similar developing countries in implementing their e-government services. This work aimed to address both; government and citizens prospective, also aiming to help conducting a sold research a good implementable framework. Therefore, an interview with 21 government participations from different institutions was conducted followed by citizens that attracted 400 qualified responses. The research process has led to the suggestion of using another approach of e-government services, the unified e-services portals. The outcomes of this research show; both government and citizens are in favour of using unified definitions in portals. In addition, a proposed framework is presented based on supported findings that is believed to better utilising e government services hence leading to improve ranking. It is also believed that the UN assessing committees would benefit from the unified approach. Simply, it unifies the definition of each service based on the published academic definitions and work. The evaluation of the proposed framework is outside this research and can be addressed by a further research as recommended. Implementing the unified approach portals is another front that attracts implementation and evaluation

The Activities , Drivers and Barriers of ‘Electronic Public Service Delivery’ in Dubai’s public organisations

Abstract The quest to transform the delivery of government services through innovative and electronic means has been embraced by public organisations worldwide in an ever rising phenomenon, sought after to reap some of the potentially rewarding benefits of the digitisation of government services. In this study, the author reports the experiences of four major public organisations in Dubai as its governing office have imposed a deadline for all of its public agencies to transform and deliver 100 per cent of their services electronically by the end of year 2009. Notably, despite the fact that worldwide reports have placed Dubai as the leader among its Arab peers in the provision of e-government services, technological infrastructures, government’s transparency and internet and mobile penetration rates. Yet, Dubai has missed its 2005 target of transforming 70 per cent of it services electronically facing a dilemma with its digital implementation efforts with achieving less than 45 per cent transformation rate. With e-government deployment failure rates reaching levels of 60 per cent worldwide, the challenges arising from the development of e-government initiatives have proven to be extensive. The complexity of the nature of e-government initiatives as well as the ambiguity surrounding its e-services development process makes reasonable justifications for the high failure rates associated with its deployment efforts all over the world and not just in Dubai. Furthermore, the lack of a universal model and theoretical studies to guide the deployment of this phenomenon have lead researchers and practitioners alike to focus their attention on finding ways and means of improving the adoption and implementation of e-government initiatives. Thus, it was established that it was necessary to find answers for the following questions: How are public organisations in Dubai are going about the diffusion of their egovernment initiatives and what determinates are necessary to be considered in the development process to achieve the initiatives’ success? In response to the aforementioned issues and in order to respond to the research’s objectives and questions, a theoretical framework guided by Roger’s (1995) Organisation Innovation Process theory and extended by Tornatzky and Fleisher’s Technological, Organisational, Environmental (1990) model have been developed to gain a holistic understanding of the phenomenon. The author reported using a multiple in-depth case study research design, drawing on empirical data from semi-structured interviews with e-government participants and gathering evidence from organisations’ documents and proceedings from local and regional Arabic e-government conferences, as well as on-site participants’ observations. This study documented the e-service development activities and identified the influential attributes driving the e-government phenomenon using both a descriptive and exploratory research strategy. Content analysis of the interview transcripts was used to extract answers given during the semi-structured interviews and to identify new themes that emerged from the data. Revision of research findings and comparison with literature have taken place from May, 2011 till April, 2012. The review has contributed to adding over 100 pages to the literature review chapter and over 20 pages to the final chapter of recommendation and conclusion. xi Upon the conclusion of the study’s data presentation and analysis, a further literature review has provided a significant improvement in refining the study’s conceptual framework. It has provides additional theoretical elaboration of key ideas, clearer definition and articulation of the e-services development process and contributed towards the formation of fourteen propositions. The empirical findings indicated three main stages (planning, transformation and deployment) similarly delineated by Rogers’ (1995) Organisation’s Adoption Process theory (initiation, adoption and implementation). However, the stages emerged in a more interactive looping patterns unlike Rogers’ linear model. Additionally, fourteen technological, organisational and environmental factors were indicated as being responsible for influencing the development process of e-services in Dubai public organisations. These propositions are to provide concerned academics with some guidance for further investigation into the e-services’ development practices in the region. This study also attempts to assist and guide government reformers, technological innovations’ team leaders and the implementing staff in Dubai in initiating, deploying, and sustaining their technologically integrated initiatives in a systemic and educated manner