بهبود روند ابتکار دولت الکترونیکی : مطالعه موردی عمیق از اجرای GIS مبتنی بر وب

Research on E-Government has largely focused on understanding the “outcomes and outputs of the E-Government project” [Yildiz, M. (2007). E-Government research: Reviewing the literature, limitations, and ways forward. Government Information Quarterly, 24(3), 646–665.]. It is argued that the existing research on E-Government tends to oversimplify the phenomenon. To address the call, the current study focuses on the process of an E-Government initiative by loosely drawing on the ‘technology enactment framework,’ in conjunction with the ‘systems development life cycle’ approach. Using a case study orientation, this study describes in detail how a geographic information systems implementation project is conducted at a local government in the United States. Insights into E-Government initiatives are presented and discussed.

E-Government is a special type of electronic business with particular objectives and characteristics (Garson, 2004). It utilizes the internet and web-based technologies to provide government services online to citizens, businesses, and other government agencies so as to bring about economic benefits (Andersen and Henriksen, 2006, Layne and Lee, 2001, Sprecher, 2000 and Stratford and Stratford, 2000). There have been many E-Government initiatives for the sake of obtaining benefits in recent years. As E-Government becomes mature, the expectations for more interactive and responsive E-Government have also been growing (Norris & Moon, 2005). Implementing E-Government however requires careful planning as it is concerned with many issues ranging from managerial, organizational, and societal matters to technological, legal, and regulatory matters (Borins, 2002 and Jaeger, 2002). Some of the issues may be concerned about the uniformity and accuracy of information and data, the compatibility between the legacy and new information technology (IT), the regulation and procedure placed by different level of government, etc. These challenges need to be carefully dealt with in order to achieve the intended goal of E-Government initiatives. Much research in the field of E-Government has investigated the outcomes of E-Government and the factors that influence the effectiveness of E-Government. While it is important, such research provides little insights into the complex nuances of E-Government initiatives. Understanding of the process of E-Government implementation is still limited and largely remains as ‘black box’ (Yildiz, 2007). Recently, there has been a call for researchers to pay more attention to the process of E-Government. Yildiz (2007, p. 647) claims, “E-Government research up to date for the most part limited itself to the study of the outcomes and outputs of the E-Government project. Thus, understanding the political process behind E-Government development is vital for overcoming both definitional and analytical limitation,” and also argues, “such an effort requires a historical understanding of the relationship between technology and administration”. To respond to this call, the current study conducts an in-depth analysis of an E-Government initiative in order to gain a deeper understanding of the realities. We draw on the data from a Geographic Information System (GIS) development project conducted by a local government in the United States over several years, and conduct a case study analysis of employing observation, document review, and unstructured interviews, which allow us to study E-Government processes and the context of the phenomenon (Kaplan and Maxwell, 1994 and Yin, 1994). To provide detailed views of the case, we follow the systems development life cycle (SDLC) to highlight the activities and decisions made along the process of the GIS implementation. While analyzing the process, we loosely draw on concepts from the “technology enactment framework (TEF)” (Fountain, 2001). TEF is an approach to capture the complexity of the interaction between cognitive, cultural, institutional structures and the individual player's assessment regarding every stage of adopting IT process. It stresses three issues that include (1) each instance of technology enactment is contingent on the organizational and institutional context, (2) how the IT is perceived, and (3) who attempts to shape the use of IT (Danzieger, 2004). This explanatory framework suggests that E-Government difficulties may lie rather in overcoming organizational and managerial challenges in creating new skills, new work rules, and new organizational structures to deal with new technology, but not just in achieving the technical capability of E-Government. The purpose of this study is to provide insights for researchers and practitioners conducting E-Government initiatives, and to improve the process used for conducting E-Government initiatives. This study presents an approach that highlights the importance of IT governance in E-Government initiatives to effectively deal with external environments, as well as the internal environments confronting various challenges. This study contributes to both research and practice in two-folds. First, this study is one of few research articles in the E-Government literature that employs a process-based perspective on E-Government initiatives. Second, this study provides theoretically grounded understanding of the dynamics of planning, producing, implementing and managing of E-Government initiatives. It utilizes the technology enactment framework and the traditional SDLC process in order to formulate an approach for properly handling challenges and constraints in government organizations and enhancing the coordination in the E-Government initiative environment. The rest of this paper is organized as follows. The next section provides a brief overview of the technology enactment framework, the challenges and constraints for E-Government initiatives, and the information systems development process. The research method is then presented followed by an in-depth description of the case. After that, we discuss the implications of this study with respect to TEF and propose an approach that addresses challenges and constraints faced by the E-Government initiative. The possible merits of the approach to overcome some challenges of the future E-Government initiatives are discussed. Finally this study concludes with a discussion of possible future research directions.

E-Government initiatives can range from a simple website presence to fully integrated E-Government services across government administrative boundaries. Each E-Government development stage is associated with the triggers and activities that take place in a unique way such that it is critical to understand where the current E-Government initiative under study stands in a continuous E-Government process. It is noted that the E-Government literature lacks the study on the process of E-Government implementation, thus providing little insights both for managers in practice and for research. To bridge the gap in the literature, the current study discusses in detail an E-Government development initiative to develop a web-based GIS application, which will be used by a local government to provide online government services. While describing the case, we loosely draws from the theory of TEF, challenges and constraints commonly encounter by E-Government initiatives and the traditional systems development life cycle approach to gain insights to managing the process of E-Government initiatives. Our analysis of the study provides a deeper understanding of the phenomenon which allowed us to propose an approach to further improve the process of E-Government initiatives. This approach highlights the need for the government's capability to be able to adjust to dynamic challenges in the field of technology, culture, regulation, and economics in order to succeed in E-Government initiatives. There are numerous future areas of research related to E-Government that uses information systems to provide government services online in an efficient and effective manner. Further understanding of the activities and relationships between citizens, businesses, and other participants in the public sector will be needed in order to insure that effective processes and systems are developed in the future. It will be particularly interesting to understand how information systems audit functions in government play a complementary role in delivering E-Government initiatives in a more efficient and effective manner.