Stakeholder Adoption of e‐Government Services: Driving and Resisting Factors

E‐parliament and ICT‐based Legislation: Concept, Experiences and Lessons

Edited by Mehmet Zahid Sobaci

IGI Global/Information Science Reference

Hershey, PA

2012

353 pp.

Price not reported hard cover

9781613503294

Electronic Governance and Cross‐boundary Collaboration: Innovations and Advancing Tools

Edited by Yu‐Che Chen and Pin‐Yu Chu

IGI Global/Information Science Reference

Hershey, PA

2012

422 pp.

Price not reported hard cover

9781609607531

Active Citizen Participation in e‐Government: A Global Perspective

Edited by Aroon Manoharan and Marc Holzer

IGI Global/Information Science Reference

Hershey, PA

2012

631 pp.

Price not reported

9781466601161

These four books are compendia of articles reflecting academic research into the ICT‐mediated interaction between government and citizens. Collectively they illustrate the wide diversity of approaches and highlight what is being done in various countries at different levels, and what is still to be achieved.

For the last 20 years governments around the world have trying to increase their efficiency and effectiveness by applying Information Technology to their operations. However, the success of these initiatives depends crucially on user acceptance of e‐government.

In Stakeholder Adoption Shareef and his colleagues present us with a collection of articles examining the factors that influence end user adoption at the various stages of e‐government based on empirical investigations in developed and developing countries. Unlike most studies of e‐government the focus of this book is the demand side, how users react to the computerization of government services. The articles identify positive and negative factors found, and the final chapter suggests ways to measure the success of e‐government from a user perspective.

E‐parliament and ICT‐based Legislation has a rather limited audience: persons directly involved in the administration of legislatures and legal services personnel who work with the drafting and interpretation of legislation. Parliaments and legislatures are being affected by the same forces that are driving the rest of government to computerise. Legislators have to review their procedures, integrate with other departments and communicate with their stakeholders. This book shows how they are going about the task. What the articles show is that parliaments are still in the process of learning how to use ICT to achieve their goals and that not all are doing so successfully.

The book provides case studies that highlight the necessary conceptual frameworks and the lessons that have been learned. The overall lesson is that computerizing legislatures is hard: putting up a website and opening access to documents is not enough, and that it will take many years before the institution knowledge is sufficiently advanced to ensure full participation.

The title of Electronic Governance and Cross‐boundary Collaboration is a little misleading. “Cross‐boundary” in this context means the interfaces between different government departments and services, not between governments. The book addresses the growing empowerment and expectations of citizens created by the widespread adoption of personal IT products such as smart phones and iPads. These enable the ordinary citizen to access online resources of multiple agencies easily and seamlessly on demand.

These articles investigate how government agencies are attempting to provide citizen‐centric information and services through horizontal and vertical integration. The articles describe how the implementation of the concept is affected by competing political interests, conflicting agency goals, incompatible systems and standards, and a lack of fundamental theory informing good practice. They contribute to providing policy and implementation frameworks, understanding the dynamics of cross‐boundary stakeholder groups, and by providing evaluation tools and techniques that can be used to improve e‐governance performance.

Active Citizen Participation in E‐government makes the point that full democratic participation has long been held out as the ideal of government but has mostly fallen short. The early stages of participation were typically one way, making information available to citizens via websites of varying levels of complexity and inclusiveness. The second stage currently being rolled out in countries everywhere aims to enable true two‐way participation, so that citizens can actively participate in decision making. Like all e‐government initiatives there are challenges around adoption and implementation.

As with all the books in this group the emphasis in Active Citizen Participation is on empirical research, describing practical methods of improving interaction and identifying problems with the technology, the projects and the attitudes of the target citizenry. The conclusion is that, although Internet technologies allow the possibility or full engagement, the reality is still some way off.

Taken together, these four books cover the full range of e‐government ICT initiatives and provide a good basis for understanding how government and public agencies are addressing the issues and opportunities of a fully wired society.