This
article discuss about the limitation in the government literature as definition
vagueness of the e-government construct with emphasis political and
institutional environments, and various methodical limitations, and to much
focus on process-oriented e-government studies. Technology in government as
peripheral concern rather than as a core management function. But, until now
technology in government organizations to be one of the core management, such
as the automation of mass transactions like as financial transactions. the
purpose’s using internet and personal computer in government was to enhance the
managerial effectiveness of public administrators while increasing government
productivity, but in practice, that make dependent between administrator and
computer system. In addition, IT were isolated functional and executive
oversight. Since information technology was used automation operation and
efficiency administrator activities, government IT professionals were isolated
from functional and executive oversight. That can make abuse of power.
Definitions and Model e-Government
According UN & ASPA, E-government is defined as utilizing the
internet and the world-wide-web for delivering government information and
services to citizens. Means and Schneider define e-government as the
relationship between governments, their customers (business, other governments,
and citizens), and their suppliers (again, business, other governments, and
citizens) by the use of electronic means. Brown and Brudney define e-government
as the use of technology, especially web-based applications to enhance access
to and efficiently deliver government information and services. They categorize
e-government efforts into three broad categories of Government to Government
(G2G), Government to Citizen (G2C), and Government to Business (G2B). One may
include two additional categories in this list: Government-to-Civil Societal
Organizations (G2CS) and Citizen-to-Citizen (C2C).
Subcategories
of e-government
Parties
of communication
|
Content
|
Dominant
characteristic
|
Definition
|
Example
|
Government to
Government
|
Government information
and services
|
Communication,
coordination, standardization of information and services
|
e-administration
|
Establishing and
using a common data warehouse
|
Government to
Citizen
|
Communication, transparency,
accountability, effectiveness, efficiency, standardization of information and
services, productivity
|
e-government
|
Government organization web sites,
e-mail communication between the citizens and government officials
|
|
Government to
Business
|
Communication,
collaboration, commerce
|
e-government,
e-commerce, e-collaboration
|
Posting government
bids on the web, e-procurement, e-partnerships
|
|
Government to Civil
society Organizations
|
Communication, coordination,
transparency, accountability
|
e-governance
|
Electronic communication and coordination
efforts after disaster
|
|
Citizen to Citizen
|
Communication,
coordination, transparency, accountability, grass roots organization
|
e-governance
|
Electronic
discussion groups on civic issues
|
The first model argues that e-government projects evolve through
four stages of development. The first stage is cataloguing, providing
government information by creating government agency Web sites. The second
stage is transaction, agencies at this stage can provide online transactions
with government agencies. The third stage is the integration of government
operations within functional areas. Agencies working in the same functional
area integrate their online operations. The fourth stage is horizontal
integration.
The
second model of e-government development was it proposed a five-stage model of
development. The first, emerging stage. Second, the number of government sites
increase in number and become more dynamic in this ‘enhanced’ stage. The third
‘interactive’ stage enables the users to download forms and interact with
officials through the Web. In the fourth ‘transactional’ stage, users have the
ability to make online payments for transactions. The final ‘seamless’ stage
makes the integration of electronic services across government agencies possible.
Moreover, Fountain introduced the technology enactment framework
that has three elements. That is First, application of IT to an organization
changes the objective form of that technology due to its adjustment to the
organizational form. Second, there is a two-way interaction between the
existing institutional arrangements and organizational forms. Third, the first
two elements, that is, adoption and implementation processes, transform the
objective form of technology to its enacted form. But, the Fountain idea was
criticized by other scientist for three reasons. First, the framework is so
abstract and generalized that it is difficult to use it for prediction. Second,
Fountain's research agenda is not well-linked to the previous literature in
both public administration and IT. Third, Fountain's limited focus, as the book
uses examples only from the U.S. federal government.
Limitations of The e-Government Concept
The e-government
concept is limited in four ways. First, e-government don’t has standard
definition of concept, because e-government is a concept defined by the
objective of the activity (transfer of government information and services
among governments, their customers and suppliers), rather than by the specific
technology used, provider of the service/ information, or clear-cut activities
of the related actors. Second, e-government is one of those concepts that mean
a lot of different things to a lot of different groups. For example, identifies
different parts of e-government as e-service delivery, e-democracy, and
e-governance. Third, as if it is not enough for the real substance of the
concept to be ambiguous, poorly defined and/or context-dependent, e-government
contains much hype and promotional efforts/literature as well, similar to the
concepts of “knowledge management” or “management by objectives”. Fourth, one
might ask how substantial a change is required to meet the criteria for a
government technology project to be titled as an e-government project. For
example, are static Web sites or e-mail addresses of public managers enough? Or
is some level of interactions required? Lyne and Lee answer this question with
their stages of e-government growth model.
Suggestions
In
the part of policy process and political nature of government has four
suggestion. The first suggestion is to examine and better explain the processes
of, and participation patterns in, e-government projects. The second suggestion
is to address the problem of underspecification in the e-government literature.
The third suggestion is to explain the policy-making processes in e-government
projects in a complex political environment. Fourth, The final suggestion is to
tie the subject of e-government strongly to mainstream public administration
research.
In the part of methodological suggestion is the change the view to
see e-government from output to process. examine and explain the non-technical
and political nature and processes of e-government may help to protect the
public interest when spending large amounts of government money on e-government
projects. Only when we understand the processes of e-government policy making,
we can evaluate the true merits of e-government initiatives. Moreover, this new
understanding may enable public administrators to be ready to make the
technical, managerial, and political adjustments to the policy-making
processes.
A new
categorization of e-government research
Dimension
|
Orientation
|
||
Output
|
Outcome
|
Process
|
|
Focus
|
Web sites,
online government services, front office
|
How does an
e-government application affect a certain variable such as trust,
accountability, transparency, corruption, government effectiveness, users
perceptions of service quality
|
Process of
decision making, planning, implementation, back office
|
Method
|
Content
analysis, determining best practices, benchmarking, surveys, case studies
|
Interview,
archival analysis, discourse analysis, case studies
|
|
Data
|
Primary and
secondary
|
Primary and
secondary
|
Primary
|
Mode of analysis
|
Outside-in, deductive
|
Outside-in, deductive
|
Inside-out, inductive
|
Outcome
|
Descriptive, Exploratory
|
Descriptive, Exploratory
|
Theory generation, explanatory
|
Examples
|
Bauer and
Scharl (2000; Cohen and Emicke (2001); Hernon (1998); Stowers (1998); West,
2003a, 2003b
|
Cullen and
Houghton (2000); Gant and Gant (2002); La Porte, at al. (1999); Mahmood
(2004); Torres et al. (2005)
|
Bellamy and
Taylor (1998); Fountain (2011); Jonas (2000); Yildiz (2004)
|
Summary of Mete Yıldız paper in Government Information Quarterly Journal (2007)
