The Impact of Smart City Initiatives on Human Rights

Abstract: A smart city is a phenomenon where municipalities engage with stakeholders to use ICT for increasing efficiency, sustainability, and quality of life for its citizens and city operations. However, smart city initiatives can at times challenge human rights. While particular human rights such as privacy have been subject to analysis in the digital government field, a complete view on human rights in smart cities has so far been missing in our discipline. It is mainly studies from other disciplines that voice comprehensive concerns about potentially negative impacts of smart cities on human rights. However, they often lack the technological background. This paper reports on a pilot study as an initial exploration of the phenomenon in the digital government field. In our research, we studied both the positive and negative effects of smart cities on human rights by conducting qualitative interviews with citizens and municipal employees with central roles in smart city initiatives. Our results suggest that in addition to privacy and security, the human rights of freedom of expression, adequate standard of living, and equal access to public services are likely to be affected by smart city initiatives.publishedVersio

Stakeholder Contradictions in Early Stages of eHealth Efforts

Use of information and communication technology (ICT) in healthcare has increased substantially over the past decades. Implementation of ICT in municipal health services (eHealth) involves a variety of stakeholders, and may lead to changes in the roles of providers and patients. Coordination, communication, early identification and involvement of key stakeholders in eHealth projects have been highlighted as important. However, research often takes a narrow perspective and pays scant attention to conflicting drivers. This study used a qualitative approach to identify and investigate contradictory stakeholder interests in the early phase of a municipal eHealth project. Analysis using Stakeholder Theory (ST) and Dialectic Process Theory revealed two important contradictions; 1) effective service versus efficient service and 2) technology enthusiasm versus reluctance to change. The analysis illustrated the usefulness of combining these theories in eHealth efforts. Implications from our research suggest that stakeholder management should be considered to prevent conflicts in eHealth projects

Stakeholder Governance: Adapting Stakeholder Theory to E-Government

The e-government field, like most young fields, lacks a strong body of well-developed theory. One strategy for coping with theoretical immaturity is to import and adapt theories from other, more mature fields. This study reviews Stakeholder Theory (ST) and investigates its potential in relation to e-Government. Originally a management theory, stakeholder theory advocates addressing the concerns of all stakeholders in a firm, as opposed to concentration on the interests of senior managers and stockholders. Apart from its original profit focus, there is no serious conceptual mismatch between stakeholder theory and government\u27s objective of providing policy and services for citizens and organizations - society\u27s stakeholders. Potential problems with adapting a management theory to a government setting are discussed. The paper further discusses how information technology impacts a stakeholder model of governance. Finally, the paper makes recommendations for future work in adapting ST to the e-government context

The role of digital technologies in global climate negotiations

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The shape of eParticipation: Characterizing an emerging research area

The phenomenon of eParticipation is receiving increasing attention, demonstrated by recent technology implementations, experiments, government reports, and research programs. Understanding such an emerging field is a complex endeavor because there is no generally agreed upon definition of the field, no clear overview of the research disciplines or methods it draws upon, and because the boundaries of the field are undecided. Using conventional literature review techniques, we identify 131 scientific articles considered important for the field's theoretical development. This sample provides the starting point for a grounded analysis leading to the development of an overview model: the field of eParticipation seen from a researcher's perspective. The model provides structure for understanding the emerging shape of the field as well as an initial indication of its content. It also provides the basis for developing research agendas for the future

Privacy violations in light of digital transformation: insights from data breaches in Norway

Privacy violations are an important unintended consequence of digitalization. Privacy and security have been studied within single, or a limited set of, organizations thus providing only a limited perspective of the nature of the phenomenon. Further, emerging technology developments related to platforms, IoT and big data may introduce new threats to security and privacy. In this paper we analyse 835 records of privacy violations in Norway. This allows us to report on the nature and consequences of privacy violations from a large number of cases based on a rich and current set of data. We apply a sequential mixed-method to explore the data set and theorize on the impact of digitalization on privacy. Our research contributes to an improved understanding of security and privacy concerns associated with digitalization

Introduction to Transformational Government: Governance, Organization, and Management Minitrack

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The role of digital technologies in global climate negotiations

Digital technologies are increasingly used in global climate negotiations to enhance interaction and participation. However, global climate negotiations are characterized by paradoxes and tensions that complicate the resolution of the problem. Thus, the use of digital technologies can only be effective if orchestrated with an understanding of underlying global climate negotiations paradoxes. The objective of this paper is to identify research needs related to the intersection of global climate negotiations, paradoxes, and the use of digital technologies. We propose a research agenda based on paradoxes of global climate negotiations at different levels of online interaction. Two streams of research inform our research agenda: paradox theory and research on online communities. We illustrate our reasoning by discussing digital support for the United Nation's Conference of the Parties (COP) meetings for climate negotiations. The research agenda contributes to the digital governance field by sensitizing the community of the underlying paradoxes in global governance. The combination of online communities research and paradox theory offer novel guidance on complexity and potential challenges when applying digital technologies in global climate negotiations. Our research agenda can be used to develop appropriate response strategies as it highlights challenges in need of attention.publishedVersio

Local E-Government in Norway: Current Status and Emerging Issues

Recent studies indicate that e-government initiatives have not held their promise of improving government services. The majority of efforts to benchmark e-government have had central government as the unit of analysis. This study employs the MeGAP-3 (The Municipal E-Government Assessmen Project) assessment tool to assess the status of municipal e-government in the Agder region in southern Norway, an area with high Internet penetration and mature information and communication technology (ICT) use. MeGAP-3 proved effective in providing a relative positioning of these Norwegian municipalities, but we argue that country specific assessment indicators are needed to complement the tool and enable cross-country comparisons by relative scores. Surprisingly, the results show that the sophistication of local government web sites was fairly low. A series of qualitative interviews were conducted to explore the factors that shape the development of municipal egovernment. The evidence suggests that the dominant stakeholder in development is the bureaucratic administration rather than citizens or politicians. This group has a strong focus on internal efficiency and cost reduction. The majority of respondents report cost reduction as the major driver behind egovernment development. However we also identified a more citizen-centric approach that stresses the need for improving access and service quality for citizens. The study outlines a number of areas where further research will be needed to fully understand the development of e-government in Norway