Diffusion of personalized e-government services among Dutch municipalities: An empirical investigation and explanation

This article describes the trend of personalization in electronic service delivery, with a special focus on municipal electronic service delivery in the Netherlands. Personalization of electronic services refers to the one-to-one citizen orientation using authentication, profiling and customization techniques. The percentage of Dutch municipalities offering services through personalized electronic counters has increased from 14% (2006) to 28% (2009). Using binary logistic regression analyses of 2008 survey data, it is concluded that personalization is positively associated with size of municipalities but not with e-government and policy innovation statements, nor with explicit political responsibility with respect to e-government development. Based on these findings, alternative explanations for the adoption and diffusion of personalized e-government services are suggested. Copyrigh

Exploring Liminality from an Anthropological Perspective

The transition from the real to the digital requires a shift of consciousness that can be theorised with recourse to the concept of liminality, which has multidisciplinary currency in psychology and other disciplines in the social sciences, cultural, and literary theory. In anthropology the notion of liminality was introduced by the ethnographer Arnold van Gennep in the context of the development of the rite of passage. Since van Gennep{\textquoteright}s discussion of the concept, the term has been used in a variety of contexts and disciplines that range from psychology, religion, sociology, and latterly in new media, where it has a renewed emphasis because of the transition from the real to the virtual space of the digital interface

L'organizzazione: concetti e metodi

Il volume affronta il problema elettivo della teoria organizzativa: la variabilit\ue0 strutturale. Da che cosa dipende la configurazione di un\u2019organizzazione? E a cosa \ue8 dovuto il suo cambiamento nel tempo? Queste domande ricevono quotidianamente risposte diversificate, e non sempre consapevoli, nella prassi di manager, amministratori, consulenti, lavoratori. Le ricca selezione di proposte interpretative qui presentata fornisce un ampio strumentario concettuale (prima parte) e metodologico (seconda parte) rispetto al problema della configurazione dell\u2019organizzazione e del suo cambiamento nel tempo e ambisce quindi a supportare il lettore nell\u2019adozione consapevole di un proprio punto di vista, teorico e pratico, sull\u2019organizzazione. Inoltre, data la variet\ue0 delle interpretazioni disponibili, il volume stimola e accompagna all\u2019esercizio critico, inteso come valutazione della coerenza interna di una proposta teorico-metodologica, nel rispetto delle scelte valoriali che la informano