ICT–supported reforms of service delivery in Flemish cities: testing the concept of 'information ecology'

This paper explores organizational reforms in Flemish cities related to making the cities’ individual service delivery more efficient, customer orientated, customer friendly and integrated. The paper is the first one of a recently started research project and PhD research about the complexity of managing ICT-supported change of ‘individual’ service delivery. The overall objective of this paper is to set the stage for the research project’s research design in terms of its theoretical framework. Therefore, we report about our first explorative, inductive and descriptive findings related to this type of change within one city. We firstly inductively report about the objectives and the objects of change. Secondly, we develop a provisional theoretical framework. We therefore take the notion of an information ecology as a conceptual starting point and use a combination of elements of neo-institutional theory, system theory and a political perspective on organizational development. In order to explore the potentialities of this approach, we test the framework’s value for understanding the changes within the city. The framework enabled us to describe and analyze this type of reforms without neglecting the complexity of these changes. It tries to link some important public administration theories to the study of the e-government phenomenon that is still an important challenge. The most important lesson is that further refinement of the conceptual framework is needed. Although the analysis shows that the framework offers a conceptual basis to analyze front and back office reforms within public organizations, it still lacks a full and straightforward operationalization of its components, constructs, relations, etc

Innovating the delivery of individual services within Flemish cities: inventory of ICT-driven heterogeneity

Flemish cities are setting up large scale reform trajectories to make their transactional service delivery more customer orientated, customer friendly and integrated. The implementation of new ICTs plays a key role in these innovation processes; there seems to be a great, technological deterministic, belief in the possibilities offered by for example mid office technologies. In this paper, we explore and compare such innovation trajectories within two Flemish cities. We describe the context, the object, the process and the evaluation of change. Based on this inductive analysis, we reflect upon the dependent and independent variables that structure the processes of change. We make use of a ‘neo-institutional theoretical lens’ to identify relevant internal and external institutional factors that shape the implementation context for the organizational changes. The analysis generates interesting findings. Whereas the external environment to a large degree functions as a stable variable, the heterogeneity between both cities is much more determined by the organizational ‘path’, i.e. the management model, capacities, subcultures, existing ICT-infrastructure, etc. Further research is needed as important questions remain unanswered. For example: does the mixed set of organizational, technological and cultural changes also actually produces the outcomes that were formulated in terms of both increased effectiveness and efficiency

Analyzing the performance of third party implementation arrangements a casestudy of private business counters asone-stop-shops: a casestudy of private business counters as one-stop-shops

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the performance of third party implementation arrangements as a specific new mode of governance (Schuppert, 2011). Third party governance is the extension of the state or jurisdiction by contracts or grants to third parties (Frederickson, 2004). To assess the performance of these arrangements, we will make use of the conceptual framework for assessing the performance of policy networks (Voets, Van Dooren & De Rynck, 2008; Voets, De Rynck & Van Dooren, 2010). The framework is composed of three dimensions: product performance, process performance and regime performance. Each dimension consists of multiple components or criteria and cost factors. Empirical data were gathered by means of a single case study. The case concerns the cooperation between private “business counters” that function as one-stop-shops for starting businesses and the Belgian federal government that contracted out a number of public processes towards these “business counters” (see Vander Elst & De Rynck, 2011). Application of the framework leads to the following research questions: •Product performance: does the policy network (or the arrangement being studied) meets its objectives in terms of an increasing service delivery effectiveness? What is the cost per unit of outcome? •Process performance: has the arrangement obtained formal and informal legitimacy? Does the policy network gives accountability to its members, the community and its parent organizations? Is the policy network being held accountable for the network activities? Is there accordance in terms of issues offered for consent, mechanisms to give consent and status of consent? What is the time or money invested to ensure certain levels of legitimacy, accountability and/or accordance? •Regime performance: how does the number of members affect the performance of the policy network? To which degree has the network achieved in acquiring an institutional position? What is the quality of the relationships between the actors involved in the policy network? What are the costs linked to ensuring regime performance? The second objective of our paper is to consider the value of the theoretical model by determining its surplus to empirical analyze third party implementation arrangements and the correctness of its use of underlying assumptions and building blocks: a multidimensional performance concept, a multi-level performance concept and multiple levels of assessment. Assessing the performance of third party implementation arrangements is both useful from an academic point of view as from a practical perspective because the increase in government contracting over the past several decades presents additional challenges to accountable, representative government (Cohen & Eimicke, 2011) and because the amount of evaluative research about the performance of specific governance arrangements remains limited (Klijn, 2008)

Local governments' participation in intergovernmental e-government projects: a comparative network analysis of two case study's

Both the Belgian federal and Flemish regional government have framed the development of a series of authentic information sources as a key solution to reduce administrative burden for companies and citizens as these crossroads banks allow the sharing of information between different government agencies at different levels of government. The ultimate goal is to realize a more integrated, efficient and effective government service delivery towards citizens and companies. In our paper, we will compare the results of two case studies that elaborated on the participation of local governments within these intergovernmental data sharing projects. In the first case study (Snijkers, 2006a, 2006b), the connection of Flemish local welfare agencies on to the Crossroads Bank for Social Security (CBSS) was analysed. The second case study provides insights in the disclosure of the Crossroads Bank for Enterprises (CBE) towards Flemish cities and municipalities. Both case studies made use of network literature to explain the participation of local governments agencies within the projects. In particular, the authors (Snijkers, 2004; Snijkers, 2005; Vander Elst, Rotthier & De Rynck, 2011) mainly made use of Snellen’s (2003) theoretical framework complemented with other theoretical insights about how networks function (see Kumar & van Dissel, 1996; Schermerhorn, 1975). Following Snellen, networks consist of three different dimensions: a strategic, a power and an institutional dimension. The power dimension refers to the dependencies between the network’s stakeholders (e.g. money, expertise, information, …). The strategic dimension refers to the degree to which the objectives of the different members of the network con- or diverge to each other. Finally, the institutional dimension concerns the degree to which the interaction between the different stakeholders has been institutionalized. Both studies offers us the opportunity to conduct a reliable comparison as they are conducted based on a similar research design in terms of the research strategy (case study), the research method ((semi structured) interviews with key actors) and the theoretical framework being applied (Snellen’s framework). Moreover in both studies, the same variables were operationalized: conflict, cooperation, dependency, independency and the con- and divergence of the stakeholders’ objectives. In particular, our comparison will focus on how these variables have influenced local welfare agencies and municipalities to connect on to respectively the CBSS and the CBE. Next, we will identify the similarities and differences between both cases and explain these differences based on the network features that characterize both intergovernmental data sharing projects. The objective of this comparative analysis is to generate new empirical findings in how governments are setting up intergovernmental data sharing projects as insights in this phenomenon have remained rare (see for example Yang & Maxwell, 2011; Gil-Garcia, Ae Chun & Janssen, 2009). Next to our ‘empirical objective’, we also want to elaborate on the surplus of using network theories when analysing the development of intergovernmental eGovernment projects and the participation of local government agencies within these projects. In this way, this paper proposal also meets the call for papers in which an appeal is made to elaborate on “which theoretical lenses could be used to help us understand and explain what is happening and it relationships with citizens, business (…)” and to drew attention on to the “the nature and impact of ICT-enabled changes in the public sector and its external relationships.”

Confidenties van Meijer in Speyer: verslag van een academisch gesprek over de elektronische overheid

We sluiten dit themanummer af met reflecties van Prof. Dr. Albert Meijer. Hij promoveerde in 2002 aan de Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam op een proefschrift over parlementaire en juridische controle in het informatietijdperk. Sinds 2002 is Albert Meijer verbonden aan het departement Bestuurs- en Organisatiewetenschap van de Universiteit Utrecht. Zijn onderzoek gaat over de relatie tussen technologie en bestuur. We spraken hem in Speyer (Duitsland), in de marge van de e-government workshop, een jaarlijkse ontmoeting van wetenschappers in de schoot van de European Group of Public Administration (EGPA). Albert Meijer zit die workshop voor samen met Frank Bannister (Ulster University College, Ierland)

Elk zijn e-gov

''Vlaanderen: radicaal digitaal'. De nieuwe slogan van deze Vlaamse regering belooft dat ICT de dienstverlening van de overheid drastisch zal verbeteren. Zoals dat nu gebeurt, is e-gov zelf een probleem dat leidt tot minder efficiënte dienstverlening', schrijven Filip De Rynck en Simon Vander Elst van de UGent

Lokale besturen als participanten in een interbestuurlijk egovernment: casestudie van de Kruispuntbank van ondernemingen

In dit onderzoeksrapport bestuderen we de participatie van steden en gemeenten in het interbestuurlijke eGovernmentproject “Kruispuntbank van Ondernemingen”. De basis van dit rapport zijn de bevindingen uit het verkennende onderzoek waarbij we het gebruik van (V)KBO-gegevens binnen steden en gemeenten hebben beschreven. In dit rapport zoeken we naar verklaringen voor deze verkennende onderzoeksresultaten. We gaan na hoe de kenmerken van steden en gemeenten interageren met de kenmerken van het interbestuurlijke project (ib-project). We hanteren het “dimensiemodel” van Snellen (2003) om de con- of divergentie van doelstellingen (strategische doelstelling), de (on)afhankelijkheden op het vlak van hulp- en machtsbronnen (de machtsdimensie) en de mate van samenwerking en conflict (de institutionele dimensie) in het KBO-netwerk te bestuderen. Wat de strategische dimensie betreft is er sprake van toenemende convergerende doelstellingen: federale, Vlaamse en steeds meer lokale overheden streven naar een meer efficiënte, effectieve en geïntegreerde dienstverlening ten aanzien van ondernemingen gebaseerd op een (inter- en/of intrabestuurlijke) uitwisseling van gegevens uit authentieke bronnen of organisatiebrede databanken. Convergentie van doelstellingen impliceert echter niet dat de samenwerking in het netwerk optimaal is. De analyse van de machtsdimensie toont de lokale afhankelijkheid van externe actoren op het vlak van ondernemingsgegevens aan. Een groot aantal gemeenten hebben bijgevolg (V)KBO-gegevens geadopteerd. De analyse van de adoptie en het feitelijke gebruik van deze gegevens toont een opvallende discrepantie aan: percepties van gemeentelijke ambtenaren over het gebruiksnut van de gegevens en de gebruiksvriendelijkheid van de ontsluitende toepassingen zorgen ervoor dat het effectief gebruik lager is dan de initiële adoptie. Lokale ambtenaren maken melding van foutieve, niet up-to-date gegevens, ontbrekende en moeilijk te interpreteren gegevens en ontsluitingstoepassingen die niet voldoen aan hun behoeften. Gemeenten nemen daardoor op het vlak van ondernemingsgegevens een positie in tussen een markt- en hiërarchisch model van informatievoorziening. Ze vullen de officiële (V)KBO-gegevens (centrale databank opgezet volgens het hiërarchisch model) aan met informatie afkomstig van eigen waarnemingen en databanken (marktmodel). Daarnaast onderscheiden we een aantal institutionele kenmerken die het verloop van het interbestuurlijke project beïnvloeden. Ten eerste oefent een aantal instituties invloed uit op de datakwaliteit: de capaciteit van sommige initiatoren en de juridische setting van waaruit deze initiatoren opereren zijn twee voorbeelden. Ten tweede is er in de onderzochte casus een gebrek aan samenwerking tussen de datagebruikers enerzijds en de data-eigenaars en de ontsluitende instanties anderzijds. Het juridisch kader dat de basis legt voor de federale KBO beantwoordt vandaag niet aan de doelstelling om de KBO te laten groeien tot een interbestuurlijke sectorale authentieke bron met ondernemingsgegevens. Een gevolg daarvan is dat op andere bestuursniveaus de voorkeur wordt gegeven aan gegevensintegratie en dat er niet wordt overgegaan tot dienstenintegratie. Daardoor ontstaan indirecte ontsluitingsnetwerken. De institutionele setting oefent een grote invloed uit op de lokale percepties over (V)KBO-gegevens. Zo blijkt de structurerende werking van regels de input en de kwaliteit van KBO-gegevens op meerdere vlakken te beïnvloeden: de logica’s en informatiebehoeften van federale instanties die de input van gegevens determineren, sluiten niet altijd aan bij deze van lokale ambtenaren, sommige juridisch vastgelegde voedingsprocessen zijn niet op elkaar afgestemd, andere processen worden in de praktijk niet door alle ondernemers nageleefd en niet alle voedingsprocessen zijn voldoende performant. Op het lokale niveau bemerken we andere beïnvloedende institutionele kenmerken; bijvoorbeeld: de technische capaciteit van gemeenten heeft een negatieve invloed op de operationalisering van de gegevens in lokale processen en er is vaak geen organisatiebrede implementatiestrategie. De adoptie en het gebruik van (V)KBO-gegevens hangt nog grotendeels af van individuele ambtenaren die het initiatief nemen om met deze gegevens aan de slag te gaan. Het gevolg van deze institutionele setting is dat het interbestuurlijke project een procesdynamisch karakter krijgt. Dit impliceert dat de institutionele setting van het project doorheen de tijd steeds evolueert. Op het lokale niveau heeft dat bijvoorbeeld geleid tot de ontwikkeling van nieuwe gebruikstoepassingen binnen een intergemeentelijk samenwerkingsverband (de Bedrijvengids van IC Leiedal) en op het provinciale niveau (de provincie West-Vlaanderen). Finaal komen daardoor de initiële kenmerken van het project en de doelstellingen van de verschillende actoren in zekere mate onder druk te staan. Het onderzoek toont aan dat de operationele doelstellingen van de actoren actief binnen verschillende subnetwerken meer aan elkaar moeten gelinkt worden. Lokale en regionale gebruikservaringen met de KBO-gegevens zouden bijvoorbeeld bij de verdere ontwikkeling van het project best meer in rekening worden genomen. We sluiten onze analyse af met een pleidooi voor een gemeenschappelijke interbestuurlijke visie voor het KBO-project, gebaseerd op een fundament van intensieve samenwerking en overleg tussen de verschillende actoren in het netwerk

Diving in the dynamics of alignment processes in public organizations lessons for a reconceptualized alignment framework

In the literature about IT- and organizational change, the concept of alignment has received great attention. The basic idea behind the concept is that an organization should find a fit between its IT strategy and its business strategic orientation (Meijer & Thaens, 2010). In this paper, Business-IT alignment is viewed in terms of the strategic alignment model (SAM) of Henderson & Venkatraman (1993). This widespread framework of alignment describes Business-IT alignment along two dimensions. The dimension of strategic fit differentiates between external focus, directed towards the business environment, and internal focus, directed towards administrative structures. The other dimension of functional integration separates business and IT. (Silvius et al., 2009; Henderson & Venkatraman, 1993) (see scheme) We connect the SAM to the analysis of long term reforms in public organizations, with the focus on the Flemish cities’ service delivery architectures. All major Flemish cities have expressed the ambition to replace their existing supply-orientated service delivery architecture by a more customer-oriented service delivery architecture. These ambitions lead to changes of the business component of the organization, i.e. organization structure (for example: more integrated front desks, multichannel service delivery) and the business processes (cross-departmental) on the one hand; and IT-related changes on the other hand, i.e. the implementation of new organization wide IT-systems, supporting communications between different front- and back office units, and the different service delivery channels. Despite undoubted progress in the research field of IT alignment, the review article of Chan & Reich (2007) shows that many questions remain unanswered and research gaps still exist in the alignment literature. Chan & Reich (2007: 298) for example state that the alignment research is mechanistic and fails to capture real life, and alignment is not possible if the business strategy is unknown or in process. Another critique is that the alignment theory neglects important insights from theories on organizational change, for example: neo-institutional theory. These critiques are important, especially because we deal with public sector organizations. For these public organizations, concepts like ‘the management’, ‘the CEO’, ‘the CIO’, business strategy, etc. are more ambiguous than in private organizations because (1) of the presence of both political and administrative managers; (2) the interactions within and between the two groups, (3) the wide variety of services delivered by the Flemish cities; touching different types of strategy at the same time; and (4) the institutional environment in which those city administrations (have to) work. It leads to the question whether the alignment concept can be applied to public sector organizations and to the (reversed) question: how we should adapt the concept to grasp the complexity of those types of public organizations. In order to answer the research question, we work in two steps. Firstly, we scan the literature and summarize the theoretical roots of the business-IT alignment research and the critiques that have been formulated in relation to the alignment concept. This leads to the argument that the alignment literature is not in tune with the theoretical progress made in the field of organizational and IT change. The alignment literature lacks the incorporation of a political perspective on organizations and the influence of the institutional context surrounding organizations (see infra). Secondly, we make use of the results of a case study research in one Flemish city. The objective of the case study was to retrospectively and inductively reconstruct the development of the city’s service delivery architecture and the processes and interactions between the actors involved, determining the features of the city’s service delivery architecture. By means of the case study results, we analyze the dynamics of organizational and IT change within the Flemish city, and illustrate the discrepancies between the alignment theory and the observed IT and organizational changes