استفاده از نظریه‌ی نهادی و شبیه‌سازی پویا به منظور درک پدیده‌های پیچیده‌ی دولت الکترونیک

Governments around the world have developed e-Government programs expecting to obtain important benefits such as improved efficiency or greater transparency. However, many e-Government projects fail to deliver their promises in terms of specific outcomes. Some of such failures are the result of a lack of understanding about the relationships among technologies, information use, organizational factors, institutional arrangements, and socio-economic contexts involved in the selection, implementation, and use of information and communication technologies (ICT), producing mismatches and unintended consequences. This paper proposes the use of institutional theory and dynamic simulation, particularly system dynamics, as an integrated and comprehensive approach to understand e-Government phenomena. Combining a sound theory and a sophisticated analytical technique will help to improve our understanding about ICT in government settings. The paper draws on the case of the e-Mexico program, particularly on the strategy to create web-based content portals for citizens in the areas of education, health, economy, and government. Using the same technological infrastructure and under the leadership of the same Federal Ministry, four different networks of government and non-government organizations engaged in the creation of internet portals and their content. The results provide evidence to demonstrate important bidirectional relationships between formal processes (institutions), agency networks (organizational forms), and the resulting characteristics of the four thematic portals (enacted technology).Research highlights► We model interorganizational networks which develop government content portals. ► We create four simulation scenarios grounded in Mexican interorganizational networks. ► Organizational engagement and content creation form a key reinforcing process. ► Processes legitimacy influences both organizational engagement and content creation. ► Inertia from previous collaborations also influences organizational engagement.

Electronic government (e-Government) has been recognized as a powerful strategy for government transformation. In the last 10 years, governments around the world have developed e-Government programs hoping to obtain important benefits such as cost savings, improved service quality, increased accountability, and more public participation, among others. However, many e-Government projects fail to deliver their promises in terms of specific outcomes (Heeks, 2003). Some such failures are the result of a lack of understanding about the complex relationships among technologies, information use, organizational factors, institutional arrangements, and socio-economic contexts involved in the selection, design, implementation, and use of information and communication technologies (ICT), producing mismatches and unintended consequences. In order to improve this situation, we need to put together theories and analytical techniques, which allow identifying and capturing the complexity of the relationships between relevant variables. Therefore, it seems necessary to develop analytical approaches that combine a sound theoretical basis with innovative and sophisticated research methods. Within the last decade, several researchers around the world have been exploring such approaches. This paper illustrates one of these approaches, which has already proven to be useful and promise to be distinctively powerful in the near future given the complex and emergent nature of new ICTs and e-Government initiatives (Luna-Reyes, Black, Cresswell, & Pardo, 2008). The paper proposes the use of institutional theory and dynamic simulation, particularly system dynamics, as an integrated and comprehensive approach to understand e-Government phenomena. Institutionalism is a powerful theory that helps to understand the intertwined and complex nature of the relationships among technology, organizational factors, institutional arrangements, and the socio-economic context in which they are embedded (Fountain, 2001). System dynamics has also been an effective research method to understand complexity and time trends in e-Government and other ICT related domains. This paper applies this integrated research approach to the case of the e-Mexico program, particularly to the strategy that created web-based content portals for citizens in the areas of education, health, economy, and government. Using the same technological infrastructure and under the leadership of the same Federal Ministry, four different networks of government and non-government organizations engaged in the creation of internet portals, which included relevant content in these four areas. The case is interesting because it illustrates the ways in which differences in institutional arrangements (formal processes) and organizational factors (agency networks) resulted on different technology enactments (characteristics of the technological artifacts and how they are perceived by social actors). Therefore, the purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it shows the importance of specific institutional arrangements and organizational forms on the characteristics of the resulting technology (enacted technology). It also demonstrates the recursive and complex nature of the relationships between these three variables: enacted technology, organizational forms, and institutions. Second, the paper shows the advantages of combining a sound theory and a sophisticated analytical technique in order to explain complex e-Government phenomena. Institutional theory is accepted as a powerful lens, but has been used at a very abstract level. System dynamics requires the specification of the variables and their relationships and, therefore, provides institutional theory with a systematic way to operationalize abstract theoretical concepts in specific and practically relevant variables. Together, they demonstrate the great explanatory power of sound theories and computer simulation as an integrated research approach. The paper is organized in five additional sections after this introduction. The next section includes a brief review of institutional theory and the ways in which it is connected to system dynamics. The third section includes the data gathering and analysis methods. The fourth section is a description of the e-Mexico program, particularly its strategy on internet-based content creation. The fifth section describes a preliminary model based in the case, including some simulation experiments. Finally, the last section includes some conclusions and final remarks.