Improving E-government Performance through Innovation

Jin Li Business Administration Department

Henan University of Urban Construction Pingdingshan city of Henan Province, China

jinli@hncj.edu.cn

Abstract— E-government has now become a reality for the vast majority of developed countries and is also beginning to take root among the developing nations. Public administrations must make a greater effort to implement e-government systems that allow fluid communication with the general public, thereby achieving a greater degree of participation, which is the key to the success for e-government. This article gives some suggestions as to how to improve e-government performance from the point of view of innovation. Keywords- E-government; Innovation; Performance

I. INTRODUCTION The demands made by citizens on their governments,

particularly in developed countries are becoming increasingly difficult to meet. We live in an environment that makes huge steps, technologically speaking each day, especially in terms of communication. People are becoming used to the fact that they have everything within their reach from the comfort of their own homes and at the click of a mouse. The idea of having to put up with long queues, take time off work, deal with bureaucracy and, at times, the inefficiency of state institutions is a concept that is in obvious opposition to the modus vivendi of a large part of society across the world. The explosive growth of the Internet and the rapid development of e-business have served to put pressure on governments in such a way that they have been obliged to serve their citizens electronically. In just a few seconds, we are capable of booking a holiday, consulting bank accounts and carrying out transactions, and sending messages or reports either via computer or cell phone. Governments are now forced to open up new means of communication with its many and varied stakeholders. It is the job of those organizations charged with implementing and activating e-government, to provide citizens with smooth, practical and attractive access to services and to begin to enable the kind of communication and interaction that will galvanize public awareness and place some of the power back in the hands of citizens, firms and all types of nongovernmental organizations.

II. WHAT IS E-GOVERNMENT E-government was introduced in the field of public

administration in the late 1990s, though it has not been clearly defined and understood by scholars and practitioners of public administration. The term e-government arises by analogy to the concepts and practices of electronic commerce applied to the public sector, referring to the delivery of government services to the public ‘on-line’ (typically over the Internet) or

to the technological infrastructure required to deliver those services. E-government denotes the strategic, coordinated use of ICT in public administration and policy decision-making. According to World Bank, e-government means to governmental use of information technologies (such as Wide Area Networks, the Internet, and mobile computing) that have ability to transform relations with citizens, businesses, and other agencies of government. The World Bank definition indicates the areas of operation of the concept and also lays down the broad benefits accruing out of this utilization of ICT to the field of governance, namely, to promote citizen empowerment, improve service delivery, strengthen accountability, increase transparency, or improve government efficiency.

A. What should E-government Entail E-government has been defined as the use on the part of

governments of innovative information and communication technology, in particular based on web and intranet applications, in order to offer their citizens and firms easy, 24-h access to information and government services, thereby improving their quality and profitability and providing greater opportunity for public participation in institutions and democratic processes (Fang 2002). This author also identifies the characteristics of e-government that are essential for the success of e-government projects, stating that e-government should be:

1) Comprehensible. As far as possible, citizens should be able to carry out all dealings with local and central government from their own homes, accessing necessary services through a single governmental portal. 2) Integrated. All e-government applications should form a part of an integrated system, and thus avoid citizens having to provide the same information over and over again. 3) Ubiquitous. The system should be in continuous development and movement. Access to areas on the Electronic governmental portal and related sites and applications should be made available to all users/citizens. 4) Transparent/easy to use. In Electronic administration, sites should be designed and operate in such a way that those with little IT experience and knowledge can easily locate the information they need, provide any information required by government bodies with whom they interact as well as carrying out all e-government transactions. 5) Accessible. The down-up design and implementation of

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e-government systems must take into account the specific special needs of people with disabilities or disadvantaged groups and provide equal opportunities for all users and stakeholders. 6) Safe. Governmental Electronic Systems need to be capable of protecting and maintaining the confidentiality of data provided by citizens, the registers it creates and stores, along with the content and existence of operations carried out between the government and the citizens via the Internet. 7) Re-engineered. It is not enough to repeat current processes and procedures in electronic administration. It is essential to make an in-depth re-evaluation of the general mission and go on to design a digital structure that creates a government-citizen interface that simplifies and speeds up each individual transaction along with the whole process of government administration.

B. Four Stages of E-government’s Evolvement Lee et al. (2005) provide a comprehensive idea of how

technological advancement has and will continue to change the face of the way private citizens interact with government bodies. The desired progression from a purely informative service into a democratic process that provides efficient citizen-friendly support and communication is shown in Fig. 1.

Information (stage 1) The mere publication of information on services or means of accessing them. ↓↓ Interaction (stage 2) Possibility of online communication and some basic interaction with the site (e.g. downloading forms). ↓↓ Transaction (stage 3) Possibility of completing an entire bureaucratic process online (e.g. request for licenses and payment through the website). ↓↓ Integration (stage 4) Possibility of gaining access to any government service from a single access point, thanks to a totally integrated, horizontal system of government departments. Fig. 1 how e-government should evolve. Source: adapted from Lee et al. (2005)

C. The Significance of E-government Electronic government has been widely endorsed as a

solution to a range of predicaments in the public sector. With promises of decreasing corruption, cutting red tape, reducing government costs, and fluctuating participatory governance, the governance revolution has swept most nations, capturing the imaginations of policy makers and attracting the interests of citizens and business alike. For example, reporting taxes, renewing vehicle licenses, and applying for jobs, passports, or loans via government websites cut the costs dramatically.

The recent United Nations Report entitled e-Government Survey 2008: From e-Government to Connected Governance succinctly illustrates the importance of e-governance:

‘E-government can contribute significantly to the process of transformation of the government towards a leaner, more cost-effective government. It can facilitate communication and improve the coordination of authorities at different tiers of government, within organizations and even at the departmental level’ (UN 2008, p.xii).

Compared to the Max Weber’s ideal-type of bureaucracy characterized as strict hierarchy, control, and chain of command, e-government not only remarkably reduces the distance between service providers and service demanders through cyberspace, but it also helps government organizations to be more flexible and organic. Government effectiveness could significantly contribute to the development of web-based government-to-citizen (G2C) services; government-to-business (G2B) digital procurement processes and government-to-government (G2G) connect activity.

In a word, Electronic government is expected to lead public management to be more transparent, more accountable, more responsive, and more efficient through structural and behavioral adjustments or adaptations, while reducing red tape, rigidity, secrecy, and corruption.

III. INNOVATION: DEFINITION AND FUNCTION Innovation refers to novelty in ideas, approaches, methods,

processes, structures, behaviors, attitudes, and cultures, as well as in technologies and skills. It also refers to the knowledge base that is used to produce new products and deliver services, to govern and administer societies, and to manage organizations of all types. This broad definition is obviously not conclusive but it covers the main realm of the innovation concept. Generally speaking, innovation may be viewed, among other things, to serve several functions as follows:

Innovation as a concept. Conceptualization is a useful way of expressing creativity through modeling and establishing frames of reference that serve as guideposts to observation and experiential as well as metaphorical phenomena. Innovation as a concept serves as a guide to explanations, but it also serves as a transition to reality, to practice, and future actions. Conceptualizing innovations in public administration is both helpful and necessary, as it is a building block to strategy formulation and development for capacity building and enhancement in governance and administration. This is an absolute necessity for national development process.

Innovation as a response to needs or problems. The old notion that ‘need and necessity lead to creativity and invention’ holds true in case of innovations. Domestic and international environmental pressures, constraints, and uncertainties dictate a need for innovations, creativity, and self-reliance, which itself serves as a key impetus for further innovations in government administration. Innovation is an answer to constantly challenging problems and changing needs and expectations, obligations, and responsibilities governments face all the time, especially in the age of rapid globalization. To be responsive, it is imperative to innovate.

Innovation as a mind-set. Treating innovation as a mind-set is like navigating in an ocean with full alert senses, radar systems, and the capacity to create and find new ways of breaking through storms and barriers as well as clear and calm

realms of sailing process. Having a campus is not enough for a captain of a ship; what is more important is a restless and creative mind-set that is always seeking new ways of naval operation. Innovation will become a key strategic instrument of progress, development, high performance, and organizational and system legitimacy.

IV. SUGGESTIONS TO IMPROVE E-GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE

There are two sides to empowering people via the Internet. One side promotes easy access to services and easy communication from the comfort of home. The other side is that the faceless government could become even more faceless behind a computer screen. The innovation and careful thought of how to present and provide information and services will be the key in drawing the attention and convincing a greater number of citizens that the way forward is via the use of ICT. The administration has to make the change over from traditional channels of communication to the use, principally, of the Internet as smooth and user friendly as possible. Major governments the world over have made a sizeable effort to bring their services up-to-date. Most have a separate section for services specifically designed for businesses, as well as providing information and downloads of forms for completing bureaucratic transactions. Blogs provide a space for citizens to air their views on any topic related to e-government and many services target specific groups such as the elderly or ethnic minorities. Cultural aspects of national importance take a prevalent place, while some governments lay particular emphasis on social affairs.

A. Improving Interoperability in E-government Interoperability involves the collaboration of various public

and private entities in the provision of services, whether these are government administrations, hospitals, or schools. Interoperability often requires communication between different computational systems, although these systems are based on different technologies, suppliers, and platforms in different agencies, departments, and administrative units. One solution for providing interoperability is the adoption of organic structure. There are two kinds of organizational structures. One is bureaucratic structure, adopted by most big organizations and governments around the world. This structure relies on standardized processes for coordination and control, and is mechanistic. Another kind of structure is the organic model, which uses cross-hierarchical and cross-functional teams and involves high participation in decision making. A mechanistic structure is designed to induce people to behave in a predictable way. An organic structure promotes more flexibility and encourages organizational change. The paradigm of e-government emphasizes coordinated network building, external collaboration, and one-stop customer services to facilitate efficient service delivery to citizens, and, thus, contrasts sharply with the traditional bureaucratic paradigm, which stresses standardization, departmentalization, and division of labor.

B. Promoting Accessibility of the E-government When a user is not able to achieve his/her goals while

interacting with a computational system, the usability of the system relative to this user is jeopardized. Accessibility,

therefore, is necessary for quality of use in interactive computational systems, and this is a definite requirement for e-government systems. Various countries have established national guidelines for the promotion of Web accessibility. These are often based on the recommendations of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The USA, for example, developed Sect. 508 Standards, whereas Brazil has developed a similar model (eMAG). These models provide recommendations for making information technologies accessible to people with disabilities, as well as encouraging the development and adaptation of information about the government for access on Internet. These recommendations suggest that Web site developers should use semi-automatic accessibility tools to create and evaluate sites, as well as assistive technologies to facilitate access by users with disabilities, such as the use of screen readers to facilitate access by the blind.

Accessibility in e-government systems goes beyond access by people with disabilities. It also involves socio-cultural issues, which influence the way information should be provided. Especially in countries with a significant number of functionally illiterate people and large numbers of economically disadvantaged who lack physical access to the Internet, accessibility must encompass additional aspects. In addition to the possibility of access to the Web via a personal computer, services should be made available in public access booths and from mobile phones. Since the direct participation of all citizens is important, e-government must deal with such alternative needs from the beginning of the design and development process. Services must be provided via flexible access, in such a way that different users, experiencing different environmental conditions and/or using different means of access, can be accommodated without discrimination.

C. Handling ‘Digital Divide’ Problems ‘Digital divide’—exclusion of groups within the population

to get access to a computer. Many governments across the world have taken up measures to lessen the magnitude of the problem. Some countries have facilitated this partly by providing free or subsidized access to computers (and Internet) in designated public places. Telecommunications infrastructure is relatively problematic, although there are examples of significant public intervention. For direct subsidies for computer-based services, especially for education and health, free access to electronic services through libraries, schools, and hospitals would be an alternative. Some countries provide not only mandatory education for citizens but also computer education in elementary and secondary schools for the young.

D. Promoting Interaction between MPs and Citizens through Internet Promoting interaction between MPs and citizens through

Internet helps the former to better understand citizens’ opinions, grievances, and demands, while the latter participates in scrutinizing public policies and laws. Every government needs to implement the practice, contextualizing it to the local conditions, to boost up contact between government employees and citizens, a pre-requisite for ensuring good governance. Lack of civil liberties, including free expression

of opinions about government activities or citizens’ demands via government websites, would lead e-government to a billboard for one-way communication with the public. For two-way communication with the public and to be interactive, civil liberties are not only widely permitted available, but government websites also should have enough areas in which citizens voice their opinions, make suggestions for better government services, provide comments and feedbacks about government actions, or monitor government programs and functions. Further, public officials are expected to appropriately respond to citizens’ suggestions, comments, feedbacks, and monitoring via online and equitably represent them in decision-making processes.

E. Developing Public-private Partnership(PPP) An important challenge to e-government implementation in

developing countries is the lack of financial resources. Especially in some developing countries, the case is very much the same. To continue the systematic implementation of e-government even during the sluggish economy, public-private partnership is a necessary strategy for the avoidance of huge initial investment costs. Public-private partnership PPP is now a common strand of ‘third way’ government policy, with better efficiency promised e-government. In this perspective, governments may consider to build PPPs as a potential strategy to deliver effective and efficient services to the citizens. The successful implementation of the program will surely change the public administration landscape and enable the government to deliver services to a transparent, accountable, and client-focused environment.

V. CONCLUSIONS Motives identified for the slow spread of e-government

services range from inertia to a lack of trust in the technology used or a lack of computer skills. The key to success in e-government does not reside in technology, nor human resources, nor in Business processes, but in understanding that it is a mixture of these and other Concepts, whilst bearing in mind that the crux of the matter is to improve services, thereby improving the lives the nation’s citizens.

Numerous factors come into play here, one of which is overcoming the barrier of fear of change. Both on the part of those involved in administration and for the general public.

Public administration has to face up to the new challenge of putting e-government projects into place. These projects need not only to be efficient and practical but also creative and attractive in order to win over the support and participation of citizens. There is clearly a split in terms of the general public between those that are frequently in contact with advanced communication technologies and demand a rapid, efficient use of Internet facilities to carry out their dealings with government and others, perhaps the older generation and those that are not in daily contact with ICT who are more reluctant to take advantage of the tools put at their disposal by their respective governments.

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