Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

This research explores how UK local authorities and their partners work together in sub-regional e-government partnerships. The paper first introduces the literature in four key areas: local e-government, partnership working, local governance and social networks. It goes on to explain the methodology adopted during the study: comparative case studies of three sub-regional e-government partnerships using social network analysis and qualitative interviews. The findings from the first case study show that the partnership is working productively and is delivering a number of projects, but that the partnership is largely IT-led and has little representation from citizen-facing directorates. The initiatives being pursued have so far been essentially administrative reforms driven by efficiency and have yet to impact directly on the citizens of the sub-region. The emphasis has been on improving existing local authority ways of working rather than advancing local democracy or improving policy making.

This article examines the diffusion of an e-government innovation – called SMS-alert – among Dutch police forces. A conceptual framework for the diffusion of e-government innovations in the public sector is developed which combines a functional and a constructivist (or cultural) approach of diffusion. The framework focuses on diffusion as a mutual process of communication, learning and sense making. Based on this framework and by using data from documentation, websites and interviews, the process of diffusion and adoption of SMS-alert is reconstructed and the factors and mechanisms explaining this process are identified. The case study demonstrates that although SMS-alert has diffused rather rapidly until now, the diffusion process is currently facing some difficulties, mainly due to the existence of competing innovations. By demonstrating the importance of both the functional, political and institutional meaning of the innovation, the article confirms the value of combining different approaches in studying the diffusion of e-government innovations.

Not having access or having a disadvantaged access to information, in an information-based society may be considered as a handicap [5]. In the last two decades scholars have gradually refined the conceptualization of digital divide, moving from a dichotomous model mainly based on access to a multidimensional model accounting for differences in usage levels and perspectives. While models became more complex, research continued to mainly focus on deepening the understanding of demographic and socioeconomic differences between adopters and non-adopters. In doing so, the process of basic IT skills acquisition has been largely overlooked. This paper presents a metaphorical interpretation of the process of IT skills acquisition derived from empirical evidence. The analysis highlights the presence of three distinct IT skills acquisition approaches, as well as the key role of self-learning. These preliminary results represent a useful starting point for the design of more effective and sophisticated inclusion policies.

The dematerialisation of the document flows received and sent by the public administrations (PAs) is one of the main cornerstones of the Italian e-government programme. The empirical data relative to the diffusion of the new document management systems reveal that today less than half of Italy’s central PAs have attained an adequate level of project advancement in terms of the Computerised Correspondence Register (the system whereby each document is automatically filed and retrieved), despite the fact that the deadline for compliance was 1 January 2004. The paper develops a number of reflections to understand the idea of change that guided first the legislator and then the monitoring authority. The thesis advanced is that also when implementation seems problematic, the rhetoric of managerialism dominates the e-government discourse. Through our reconceptualisation we argue that e-government reveals its organisational implications only when the statements of principle are translated into concrete actions and decisions.

Online questionnaires are frequently used to monitor the quality of municipal and other governmental websites. In the present situation, many government organizations seem to reinvent the wheel and develop their own questionnaire. This leads to the undesirable situation that website quality is often assessed with instruments that are not comparable with each other and are not empirically validated. This article presents a generic Website Evaluation Questionnaire (WEQ) for the evaluation of informational websites. The WEQ was developed on the basis of the literature on usability and user satisfaction and was tested and revised in several rounds. This has resulted in a reliable questionnaire measuring clearly distinct quality dimensions of informational websites. The WEQ can be used by governmental organizations for evaluating their websites and for benchmarking their results against each other.

Many surveys and studies to date have pointed out that there is a considerable gap between expressed interest from potential users and the actual use of e-government information and services. However, the factors influencing that gap have not yet been fully explained and understood. This paper therefore investigates the real driving forces concerning the ‘demand’ side of egovernment and the take-up of public e-services. The paper summarises the findings of similar studies carried out in other countries and compares them with the results of the extensive study carried out in Slovenia during 2004 and 2006, with a focus on user expectations and satisfaction.

This paper presents a quality ontology that formalizes all the needed knowledge for the realization of a multi-perspective and adaptive evaluation of e-government services. Different perspectives are taken into account and the mappings between them are defined using the presented ontology, enabling a comprehensive and holistic view of quality. Based on the quality ontology presented, the evaluation can be organized in a way to serve every citizen individually, increasing the efficiency of e-government services’ evaluation. The quality ontology can form the basis for the future construction of an ontology-based system which implements the customized and multi-perspective assessment of public e-services.

Contemporary public administrations have become increasingly more complex, having to cordinate actions with emerging actors in the public and the private spheres. In this scenario the modern ICTs have begun to be seen as an ideal vehicle to resolve some of the problems of public administration. We argue that there is a clear need to explore the extent to which public administrations are undergoing a process of transformation towards a netowork government linked to the systematic incorporation of ICTs in their basic activities. Through critically analysing a selection of e-government evaluation reports, we conclude that research should be carried out if we are to build a solid government assessment framework based on network-like organisation characteristics.

This paper adopts a communication perspective on public electronic forms (e-forms). By doing so we define forms as instruments for communication and, thus, also instruments through which citizens perform different communicative actions towards government agencies. As such instruments, the forms might be more or less useful. The purpose of this paper is to explore what features of an e-form that increase the communication quality. We conduct a theoretical synthesis of three existing approaches for designing information systems. The result is a combined theory on key features of an e-form that make the establishment of communication quality more likely. The result consists of four key concepts, each of which give rise to one set of design principles for communication from the issuer of the e-form to the user (citizen), and one set of design principles for communication from the user (citizen) to the recipient of the e-form.

This paper will deal with the question of what the influence is that Geographical Information Systems have on policy design in, e-government and e-democracy. A conceptual model of policy design is used with which two case studies will be analyzed in which GIS was used to encourage participation of citizens in urban planning and redevelopment. It will become clear that the potential of e-government cannot be reached while governments, citizens and the institutional setting have not adapted to the reality of e-government as of yet. Demonstrated will be that certain groups stay excluded in the policy process and that e-government is limited by the risk averting behavior of governments. However it will also be shown that e-government can help bridge the gap between government and citizen and can lower the scope of conflict between the two.