Generating citizen trust in e-government using a trust verification agent: A research note

Generating Citizen Trust in e-Government using a Trust Verification AgentThis is an eGISE network paper. It is motivated by a concern about the extent to which trust issues inhibit a citizen’s take-up of online public sector services or engagement with public decision and policy making. A citizen’s decision to use online systems is influenced by their willingness to trust the environment and agency involved. This project addresses one aspect of individual “trust” decisions by providing support for citizens trying to evaluate the implications of the security infrastructure provided by the agency. Based on studies of the way both groups (citizens and agencies) express their concerns and concepts in the security area, the project will develop a software tool – a trust verification agent (TVA) - that can take an agency’s security statements (or security audit) and infer how effectively this meets the security concerns of a particular citizen. This will enable citizens to state their concerns and obtain an evaluation of the agency’s provision in appropriate “citizen friendly” language. Further, by employing rule-based expert systems techniques the TVA will also be able to explain its evaluation.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council-UK (grant GR/T27020/01

Evaluating the transition of e-Government: A review of local authorities in England

The goal of e-Government is seen as a panacea for governmental authorities. The emerging needs of citizens, their inclusion and engagement in policy development, political and participatory processes have meant new perspectives on e-Government are required. This paper seeks to identify and evaluate the preparedness of 10 UK-based local authorities to transition from basic e-Government to a more sophisticated and integrated e-Government. A categorical assessment of e-Government characteristics is made and these authorities are ranked accordingly. Our findings reveal the majority of local authorities sampled had reached a high percentage of informational and transactional e-Government but few had reached the interactional level and none had achieved assimilation. This suggests that local authorities seem to have focused on basic e-Government services. There is a need now to forge ahead to integration and assimilation of e-Government in order to address the critical objectives of citizen inclusion and engagement, and alignment of institutional processes to provide an infrastructure for the transition to e-governance and e-knowledge

A value oriented conceptual model for innovation in local government

The political rhetoric that accompanied the introduction of eGovernment expected it to produce innovation in the way government agencies conducted themselves with citizen and business alike. It was assumed that innovation was both "good" and inevitable. This paper challenges these assumptions and presents a more realistic model of how innovation might occurs in UK local government. The model is supported by anecdotal evidence, literature and a recent study of eGoverment achievement in the UK - VIEGO. A key element in the model is the notion of innovation value

"Hey You? Get Off My Cloud": Evaluation of Cloud Service Models for Business Value within Pharma X

Recent reports note that managers need to operate at the intersection of business and current innovative technology. Most notably, "Strategy is not just informed by technology but powered by it". The opportunity to evaluate aspects of "cloud service models", as critical new systems, is therefore invaluable. Our research offers a pragmatic view of the characteristics of these technologies and a useful approach for identifying which may be most suitable in relation to the generation of business value. An example is provided of cloud service requirements within a multi-national pharmaceutical company (Pharma X) which is considered as a complex organizational context of significant interest. A highly qualitative methodological approach was adopted from personal interviews with a number of senior managers involved in new technology adoption. The extent of "benefits", "risks", "when to use" and "when not to use" were determined for a variety of common cloud service models to provide a schematic of important issues for evaluation and development. The research is insightful for large private sector multinational organisations which extends an analysis beyond the usual public sector studies. We conclude with lessons learned which demonstrate the most appropriate cloud enabled business models that support senior managers engaged in cloud service processes

Measures for improving information security management in organisations: the impact of training and awareness programmes

Security breaches have attracted corporate attention and major organisations are now determined to stop security breaches as they are detrimental to their success. Users’ security awareness and cautious behaviour play an important role in information security both within and outside the organisation. Arguably the most common factor contributing to these breaches is that of human behaviour towards security, which suggests that changes in human behaviour can have an impact on improving security. One of the measures suggested to modify employee behaviour is through training and awareness-raising. However, before effective training and awareness programmes can be developed to achieve this aim, it is essential to understand what factors influence user behaviour and attitudes to information security. For this study, interviews with employees within the public and private sector were conducted to explore factors that influence security behaviour when using information. Our findings offer some preliminary recognition of implications for the designs of more effective training and awareness programmes that assure and sustain, in the long term, the appropriate behaviour towards security

Understanding the Corpus of E-Government Research: An analysis of the literature using co-citation analysis and social network analysis

YesThe growing body of published e-government literature highlights the importance of e-government in society and the need to make sense of e-government by academia. In order to understand the future of e-government, it is important to understand the research that has been conducted and highlight the issues and themes that have been identified as important by empirical study. This paper analyses the corpus of e-government research published from 2000 to 2013 using Bibliometric and Social Network Analysis (SNA) methods to develop an intellectual structure of e-government research. Factor analysis, multidimensional scaling and centrality measurement are also applied to the e-government dataset using UCINET to identify the core influential articles in the field. This study identifies three core clusters of e-government research that centre around (i) e-government development models (ii) adoption and acceptance of e-government, and (iii) e-government using social media and highlights areas for future research in the field. Discover the world's researc

Digital Government Implementation in Chaotic Environment - Case Study of Libya

YesNot many studies are available to address whether it is possible to offer and implement e-Government services in places suffer from chaotic situation. This paper is intended to study the opportunity of implementing such services in a chaotic environment. An exploratory study was conducted in March/April 2015 using government officials of the state of Libya that survived a transition period upon the revolt of 2011. The study found that the Libyan government has recently and successfully implemented online services namely: National Identity Number - NID and e-Passport. The finding indicated that there are opportunities to establish e-services in countries regardless of their environmental status and clearly showed similar Critical Success Factors are need to be considered whether in chaotic or stable environment. However, their rank of importance will be differ. Lessons learned from the implementation of both services showed that Government determination has played crucial role in achieving this factual success

The Prospects of E-government Implementation in Chaotic Environment – Government and Citizens’ Perspectives - Case Study of Libya

yesUsing compulsory e-government services is increasingly difficult and challenging given the impact of corruption, political instability, armed conflict, and a chaotic environment. Post the 2011 uprising, Libya experienced serious and deep-rooted conflicts. The chaos destabilized and dismantled government institutions throughout the country. Utilizing the lens of institutional theory, this paper presents the pressures experienced by the formal institutions in the absence of law and safety, to implement the necessary e-government services and provide it to citizens all over the country. In addition, to explore the role of informal institutions in providing and using the compulsory services offered by the government and to what extent alternative services could be made available. Two qualitative pilot studies, conducted in 2015 and 2016, explored the feasibility of implementing e-government from both the government officials and the citizens’ perspectives, respectively. From the e-services provided during this time period, only the E-passport and National Identity number were found to be the only successful. Critical Success Factors - CSF of e-government implementation were defined from conducting an in-depth literature review; these were compared with our findings. Both the government officials and the citizens found corruption, infrastructure and geographical nature to be influencing factors. The social collaboration between citizens was found to be the driving factor in the success of the e-passport, despite the difficult geographical nature and the limited infrastructure all over the country

Procurement practices in project based manufacturing environments

Procurement is one of the processes that cannot be separated in a business. To be able to run a business, it certainly needs to go through procurement stage that involves purchasing raw materials and services. There are many procurement practices in different kinds of business environment such as manufacturing business and construction business. Competitive strategies application within procurement in this manufacturing is very important in order to win a tender for material procurement required in projects. The paper examines how competitive strategies are applied within procurement practice in project-based manufacturing environment. This research studies in the literature of management in engineering, competitive strategy, procurement integration, and case study that takes a sample from the examples of procurement practice application in large organisation such as that of McDermott. The research aims to conduct a qualitative research method based on the discussion and analysis of literature reviews and case study to build conclusions. The findings suggest business players should have core competencies and develop factors such as superior quality, price advantage, on-time delivery, flexibility, and innovation through technology in order to win the competition