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VERNOUS Guyverson
Title: The Impacts of Information Technology (IT) on Public Administration
Area: Science and Engineering
Country:
Program: PhD in Information Systems
Available for Download: Yes
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Study of Information Technology (IT) impacts on Public
Administration Performance: Survey of Haitian Information
Systems, case of a developing country.
A Doctoral Thesis Presented to
The School of Science and Engineering
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
For the Degree of PhD in Information Systems
PART I: INTRODUCTION
The Impacts of Information Technology (IT) on Public Administration
1. Introduction
1.1 Background of the research
In the last decade, much research in
information systems (Llopis, 2000)
has
presented information technology as
the fastest and most efficient way
for an
organization to go towards
performance and efficiency. The 21st
century was
claimed as the digital revolution
era. At the opening session of the
first World
Summit of Information Society (WSIS
2003), the Secretary-General of the
United
Nations, Kofi Annan, stated (UN-ICT-TF,
2005) We are going through a
historic
transformation in the way we live,
learn, work, communicate and do
business (...)
Technology has produced the
information age. Such terms like
information age,
information society and knowledge
society1 are often used to
describe the deep-
seated impact of the ICT on our
lives. Experts argue today that we
are living a
new industrial revolution more
fundamental than the former.
Tapscott and Caston
(1994:395) point out The companies
which will not be aware of this new
era and
will not know how to clear
themselves a road during the period
of transition will
be vulnerable and quickly
old-fashioned.
In the mid 1980`s, technology has
played a major role in the
development of
business in the world. Almost all
business sectors have leaned on
technology to
get into the competition in order to
survive. Information systems have
been the
key step towards efficiency when
automating different tasks in the
companies,
presumably to help reduce margin
error and realize larger savings. In
the mid
1990`s, the Internet brought a new
breath in the market when extending
the
frontiers of the globalization,
challenging time and space;
therefore, having a
profound impact on the way the world
conducts economic and business
practices.
1 Information age, information
society, knowledge society are
frequently used interchangeably
referring to a society in which the
creation, distribution, diffusion,
use, and manipulation of
information is a significant
economic, political, and cultural
activity.
© Guyverson VERNOUS School of
Science and Engineering AIU 2007
The Impacts of Information
Technology (IT) on Public
Administration - 7 -
Performance
The electronic commerce2
explosion stemmed from the new
mindset laid by the
Internet that is the
customer-oriented business. The
transformation that occurred
in the last twenty years in the
private sector has automatically and
profoundly
influenced the public administration
with regard to customer service and
information technology in business
management. Consequently, many
reforms
undertaken by governments in the
world imply somehow technology
organizational or sophisticated, if
it is not technology-centered. While
some
countries like United Kingdom and
United states have been leading
ideological
reform 3 , other countries like New
Zealand, Netherlands and Sweden have
followed a practical path when
engaging the same reform; adversely
affecting
developing nations that have pursued
this trend mainly because of severe
economic crisis or simply for the
requirements of international
lending
organizations 4 (Kamarck, 2003) took
the stampede lately and hardly.
Nonetheless the pressure of the
post-modern society characterized by
a global
economy mainly dominated by
technology ignores which nation is
rich or poor;
therefore, each government has to do
its` part to satisfy their citizens,
despite
limited resources, and at the same
time integrate this global economy
at the
dawn of the 1990s.
As the post-modern public sector
reform was offered up only on it`s
bright side, if
not imposed by lending organizations
in the case of developing nations,
the
public sector reform preachers -
lending organizations5, were in many
cases,
2 Le commerce électronique ou
e-commerce désigne l'échange de
biens et de services entre
deux entités sur les réseaux
informatiques, notamment Internet.
Il représente un marché de 10
mil iards d`euros de Chiffre
d'Affaire.
3 With Margaret Thatcher who came to
office in Great Britain in 1979 and
Ronald Reagan in 1980
in United States both running their
campaign against the old bureaucracy
in place.
4 The World Bank, the International
Monetary Fund (IMF), the
Inter-American Development Bank
(IADB) and the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD)
for Economic Cooperation and
Development
5 World Bank and International
Monetary Fund
© Guyverson VERNOUS School of
Science and Engineering AIU 2007
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Technology (IT) on Public
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Performance
impelling to enforce the reforms
undertaken by rich nations upon
developing
countries without focusing on the
social, cultural environment and the
resources
(human and capital resources) in
place to successfully pilot the
reforms. As a
result the acceptation of the term
performance is most likely a
political
construct having a different
definition for the leaders of those
nations. On the
other hand the social impact and
eventual dysfunctions was neglected
when
considering information technology
as a technical solution while the
acquisition of
such technologies are exceptionally
pricey. As well, the virtual
environment set
by the use of technology was not
controlled. However years of
implementation of
information systems in a "lack of
theoretical framework"
environment has set
grounds for uncertainties and doubts
relating to the impact of technology
on
public management performance,
especially in developing countries.
1.2 Problem's definition
The factor to consider technology:
Mainly information and communication
technology in public management as a
means toward performance. This
raises
many questions when considering
closely the virtual
environment created by
information technology, which is
very complex due to the human-factor
concept
and the polysemic character of
information that is the core
of any information
systems. Also if we consider
each country with its own
socio-cultural reality
and the root causes of the
reforms undertaken, the performance
concept
as well as the technology,
which is viewed differently.
How do developing
nations see performance relating to
technology? Can public sector of
developing
nations reach performance by the use
of information technology? In fact,
is it
rational to correlate performance to
information technology? In what
level can we
really measure the performance
achieved by an organization? What
sorts of
impacts are truly driven by the use
of technology in public
administration? How to
improve the positive impacts such as
performance and efficiency in public
administration?
© Guyverson VERNOUS School of
Science and Engineering AIU 2007
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Technology (IT) on Public
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Performance
1.3 Scope of the research
Our research seeks to answer the
above questions by analyzing the
different
scholarships and literature (see
literature review) over performance
concepts and
information systems with regard to
public administration. Two key
concepts must
be considered in order to prop up
this research:
1. The concept of performance will
be approached on two sides. The
performance of the technology used
and the performance of the public
organizations (administration) using
the technology, but first a basic
knowledge on public management
reform is vital.
2. The information technology
concept, which has not a
well-defined theory.
This concept will automatically
drive to study the virtual
organization
concept and certainly the
information systems theory.
To outline the impact caused by the
use of technology in public
administration,
we will consider two schools of
thought: These are the positive
impact and
negative impact proponents. Thereby,
the entire above-questions in the
definition
problem section should lead to the
answer of the following questions
which both
constitute the main posit of the
research: What are the economic
and social
impacts of the information
technologies on public
administration
performance in developing
countries? How to evaluate
performance in the
context of public organization
using information technology and how
to
improve the performance of the
public managers using the
information
technology to perform
administration tasks?
However the main hypothesis which
leads our research is as follows:
The
utilization of information
technology in public administration
has positive
as well negative impacts on
public sector performance, but those
impacts
© Guyverson VERNOUS School of
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Technology (IT) on Public
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Performance
must not be viewed as a pure
result of information technology
when
considering the complex
"techno-politico-social environment"
in which
evolve both public managers and
the technology.
1.4 Chapter summary
In addition to the introduction and
the conclusion, the research is
divided in two
major parts the theoretical analysis
component and the empirical analysis
both
allotted in 6 chapters:
-) Synthesize the chapters here
1. Theoretical body:
1. The public management in the
context of the IT era
2. Information technology
a. Information
b. Virtual environment
c. Information systems and
e-government systems
d. The challenges of IS in public
management
3. The performance concept
4. Impacts of the ICT on performance
and evaluation of impacts
5. How to improve the impacts
6. Empirical body:
a. The case of Haitian public
management
1.5 Literature review
-) Redo this figure adding Woodrow
Wilson and order dates
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Technology (IT) on Public
Administration - 11 -
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Figure 0.1 Literature review
© Guyverson VERNOUS School of
Science and Engineering AIU 2007
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Technology (IT) on Public
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Performance
PART II: THEORETICAL STUDY
SECTION
© Guyverson VERNOUS School of
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Performance
Chapter 1: The public
administration from 20th to 21st
century
Many acute observers argue that
ascendancy of one trend over another
owes
more to rhetorical devices and
selective emphasis from this corpus
of conflicting
ideas, together with an inherent
cyclical dynamic in professional
fields argues
Hood (1994). This observation may
explain why each new movement fails
practitioners of every field in ___
succeeding deterministic thought,
which always
leads to a distorted view of a
phenomenon (Not sure if this is the
thought you
want). Due to concerns like
corruption, waste and incompetence,
there have
arisen several movements in public
management fields in order to solve
radically these deficiencies. We may
identify principally two successive
major
trends: Bureaucracy and the
Post-Bureaucracy which includes:
Progressive
public administration, new public
administration and today networked
administration or e-government. Then
what is public administration? What
do we
learn from those successive
movements? What is the impact of
technology on
each of these public sector
movements? May we consider
e-government as the
completed form of the old thought in
a new technological environment?
1.1. The public administration
The Public Administration is a field
of social science and a discipline,
which is
generally described as the marriage
of public policy and public good.
This term is
often referred to government and
bureaucracy. Yet the
cross-disciplinary and
intertwined character of the public
administration makes it useless to
be summed
up to one definition (Stillman and
Stillman, 20006). Accordingly,
Mosher (1956)7
posits, It is best that it (Public
Administration) not be defined. It
is more an area
of interest than a discipline, more
a focus than a separate science ...
It is
necessarily cross-disciplinary. The
overlapping and vague boundaries
should be
6 Richard J. Stil man, Richard
Joseph Stillman, Public
Administration: Concepts and Cases,
2000.
7 Frederick C. Mosher, Research in
Public Administration. (Public
Administration Review, 16
summer 1956) p. 177
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Technology (IT) on Public
Administration - 14 -
Performance
viewed as a resource, even though
they are irritating to some with
orderly minds".
Parker, the most skeptical scholar
regarding Public Administration,
asserts
"There is really no such subject as
Public Administration`, no science
or art can
be identified by this title, least
of all any single skill or coherent
intellectual
discipline. The term has no relation
to the world of systematic
thought... It does
not, in itself, offer any promising
opportunity to widen or make more
precise any
single aspect of scientific
knowledge 8 ". Dwight Waldo, more
considerate,
mentioned the identity crisis of the
public administration field.
Nonetheless the
public administration is
traditionally defined as the power
of law (Rosembloom,
1998), which refers to regulations
for administrative processes, and
constitutional
law for civil rights matters. Over
the year law and regulations
themselves do not
suffice to maintain satisfactory
condition for quality public sector
performance.
True they furnish grounds for
healthy organization and
constructive outcomes,
but do not account for its
effectiveness and efficiency
(Vigoda, 20029). Let us
review basic scholar definition over
the past decade in order to
comprehend the
contour of the Public
Administration.
Public Administration is the
production of goods and services
designed to serve
the needs of citizen-consumers.
Dimock and Fox (1983)10.
We suggest a new conceptual
framework that emphasizes the
perception of
public administration as design,
with attendant emphasis on
participative
decision-making and learning,
purpose and action, innovation,
imagination and
creativity, and social
interaction and "co production".
Jong S. Jun11
8 Robert S. Parker, The end of PA.
Public Administration, 34 (June
1965), p. 99
9 Eran Vigoda-Gadot, Eran Vigoda,
Public Administration: An
Interdisciplinary Critical Analysis
2002
10 Marshal Dimock, Gladys Dimock and
Douglas Fox, Public Administration
5th edition, 1983
11 Jong S. Jun, Public
Administration, 1986
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Performance
In ordinary usage, PA is a
generic expression for the entire
bundle of activities
that are involved in the
establishment and implementation of
public policies. Cole
Blease Graham, Jr, and Steven W.
Hays12
Public Administration is a
cooperative group effort in a public
setting; it covers all
three branches (executive,
legislative, and judicial) and their
interrelationships.
Public Administration has an
important role in the formulation of
public policy,
and is thus part of political
process. It is different in
significant ways from private
administration. Public
Administration is closely associated
with numerous private
groups and individuals in
providing services to the community.
Felix A. Nigro and
Lloyd G. Nigro13.
Public Administration is
centrally concerned with the
organization of government
policies and programs as well as
the behavior of officials (usually
non-elected)
formally responsible for their
conduct. Charles H. Levine, B. Guy
Peters, and
Frank J. Thompson14.
The practice of Public
Administration involves the dynamic
reconciliation of
various in government's efforts
to manage public policies and
programs. Melvin J.
Dubnick and Barbara S. Romzek15.
Public Administration may be
defined as all processes,
organizations, and
individuals (the latter acting in
official positions and roles)
associated with
carrying out laws and other rules
adopted or issued by legislatures,
executives,
and courts. George J. Gordon and
Michael E. Milakovich16.
12 Managing the Public Organization,
1986
13 Modern PA seventh Edition, 1989
14 Public Administration:
Challenges, Choices, Consequences,
1990
15 American Public Administration:
Politics and the management of
expectations, 1991
16 Public Administration in America,
1995
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Technology (IT) on Public
Administration - 16 -
Performance
Public administration is the use
of managerial, political, and legal
theories and
processes to fulfill legislative,
executive, and judicial governmental
mandates for
the provision of regulatory and
service functions for the society as
a whole or for
some segment of it. David H.
Rosembloom and Deborah D. Goldman17
Traditionally, public
administration is thought of as the
accomplishing side of
government. It is supposed to
comprise all those activities
involved in carrying
out the policies of elected
officials and some activities
associated with the
development of those policies.
Public Administration is ... all
that comes after last
campaign promise and
election-night cheer. Grover
Startling18.
Without ignoring the definitions
above, the expression "public
administration" in
this research will refer to
administrative system which is aimed
to implement
public policy and to manage (in
broader sense) public good in a
cooperative
(Simon, Thompson and Smithburg,
199119) environment. Those
administrative
tasks make information and
communication a real concern for
government, for
the function of Public
Administration is eminently related
to information and
communication. Belamy and Taylor
(1998) talk about information
polity`, other
17 Public Administration:
Understanding Management, Politics
and Law in the Public Sector fourth
edition 1997
18 Managing the public sector fifth
edition, 1997
19 Simon, Thompson and Smithburg
define Administration as cooperative
group behavior. Used
in narrower sense to refer to those
patterns of behavior that are common
to many kinds of
cooperating groups and that do not
depend upon either the specific
goals toward which they are
cooperation or the specific
technological methods used to reach
these goals. The most important
is not the methods chosen to
undertaken a cooperative task but
how the method was chosen (law
and procedures). They argue that the
activity undertaken calls for a type
of organization which is
a formal one - a planned system of
cooperative effort in which each
participant has a recognized
role to play and duties or tasks to
perform. Public Administration By
Herbert Alexander Simon,
Victor Alexander Thompson, Donald W.
Smithburg 1991.
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Technology (IT) on Public
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Performance
authors refer to government as
information broker (Add foot note)`.
Snellen
(1998) stated Public Administration
is the pre-eminent test-bed of
efficacy of the
digital age` for it manages
information in the narrower largely
internal sense, as
well as managing information within
the broader demands of the polity.
Its
tentacular handling information and
communications issues, across the
spread of
its domain`, is central or its
raison d`être. This section of the
research will
particularly focus on the
informational and communicational
aspect of the public
sector20, as well on the behavioral
facets in order to pinpoint later
the complex
social environment in which public
administrators performing public
services and
how information technology may be
used in an effort to reach
performance.
1.2.1. The different trends in
Public Management
The Anglo-Saxon`s management
scholarships carved out two main
movements:
bureaucratic management and post
bureaucratic management. The latter
encompasses the progressive public
administration, the new public
management
and the collaborative
networked-government or today
electronic government.
These trends have arisen to meet
specific politico-social concerns,
and they build
themselves upon each other and
always keep an initial thought. Let
us examine
the trends identified above and how
technology was employed in public
management.
20 Though we wil avoid the
one-sided-approach to resume the
Public Administration as public
information and communication
administrative system
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Technology (IT) on Public
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Performance
1.2.2. Bureaucracy Management
According to Max Weber21,
bureaucracy refers to a strategy for
administrative
modernization, a method to ensure
the efficiency and rationality of
administrative
action in western society during the
second half of the nineteenth
century. This
new type of organization promotes a
leadership and authority originated
with a
rational framework dominated by
rules, laws and regulations but not
with
traditional or charismatic powers.
Weber alleged that bureaucracy was
guided by
the objectives of efficiency,
calculability and predictability.
Consequently the
main evaluative goal of
bureaucracy should be maximizing
efficiency
according to him.
But he recognized the tendency of
bureaucracy to impose excessive
controls on
employees and warned that it could
turn into an end to itself when
becoming
more powerful than society. In fact
today, the word bureaucracy has a
negative
sense given that the burdensome
rules and the excessive State
domination and
control. Has the Weberian
modernization failed or is ___ its
application that has
failed? Was it designed to meet
specific needs of the heyday
bureaucratic? A
large number of studies accuse
bureaucracy of corruption, misuse of
power,
concentration of power, political
interference, low creativity and
managerial
frustrations (page 3 of Using the
lens of Max Weber`s theory of
bureaucracy
paper). But let`s consider the
following important criticisms of
bureaucracy in
order to grasp the potential flaws
of the Weberian bureaucracy:
Ludwig (1944) states, "This word
is always applied with an
opprobrious
connotation. They always imply a
disparaging criticism of persons,
institutions, or
21 Max Weber was a German political
economist and sociologist who is
considered as one of the
founders of the modern study of
sociology and public administration.
Max Weber has probably
been one of the most influential
users of the word in its social
science sense, though this word
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Technology (IT) on Public
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Performance
procedures. Nobody doubts that
bureaucracy is thoroughly bad and
that it should
not exist in a perfect world".
Goulner (1954) discovered that
the "govern by rules" Weberian
culture
encourages members of
bureaucratic organizations to follow
the minimum
possible rules in order to get
along with the structure.
Merton (1957) pointed out the
same critic did by Weber concerning
an excess
adherence to rules and
regulations which could prevent the
organization from
achieving her goals. Let alone
the application of particular rules
in unsuitable
situations could result
dysfunctional endings. Merton called
this imperfection the
"goal displacement tendency".
Burns and Stalker (1961) found
that highly bureaucratic structures
were
indisposed to change. The rigid
atmosphere of control, efficiency
and
predictability conditions the
organizational members and stops
them from
embracing new ideas and as a
result not being able to innovate.
Kilcullen (1996) proposed that
bureaucratic management means
management
under the realm of the law and
the budget. "This management type is
bound to
comply with detailed rules and
regulations fixed by the authority
of a superior
body. The task of the bureaucrat
is to perform what these rules and
regulations
order him to do. His discretion
to act according to his own best
conviction is
seriously restricted by them."
Recent theorists (Add foot note)
warned that former Weberian tenants
misread
and altered the Weber view that has
asserted that a formal rationality
is not
necessarily optimal for efficiency.
But the basic problems engendered by
the
was an English word before his
works. He is well-known for his
study of bureaucratization of
society, thus many aspects of modern
public administration go to his
credit.
© Guyverson VERNOUS School of
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Technology (IT) on Public
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Performance
Second World War and the recession
period created a solid ground for
success
to bureaucratic systems; thus it
should provide security for
unemployment and
retirement, stability after the
recession and basic sense of
fairness and equity
(Osborne & Gaebler, 1992). But this
slower-pace, hand labor workforce
and
mass-market society model will be
demised to a rapid changing global
world. The
need for new footings was foreseen.
If the public management has been
searching for (words deleted do you
mean
that you have deleted some words or
some words are missing) other trends
as
indicated below, it is worth noting
that the negative connotation
acquired by the
bureaucracy stems from formal
organizations, which have departed
from the
Weberian thought, though some
inherent imperfections are being
addressed by
others following public management
movements. Nevertheless
efficiency will
remain a principal goal of any
forthcoming tendencies. The
bureaucracy
was actually designed to meet
basic needs of its heyday but the
progressive changes of the
society will require progressive
thoughts.
1.2.2.1. The technology factor
in the bureaucracy's era
One of the main hurdles that
confronted the public administration
is the
undercapitalization; thereby the
scarce capital available is often
used to meet
constant priorities such as national
security (Radin, Hildreth and
Miller, 1998).
Due to expensiveness, technological
factors were always demised by the
human
capital factor in order to meet ends
of performance. According to Hoover
(1992)
Using existing staff to fill
internal consulting position has
been quite successful
when those staffs are properly
prepared for the task. Existing
employees bring
their experience and knowledge of
the organizations and the operating
procedures. They may be known by
others within this organization and
particularly by those with whom they
will have to work to perform
successfully
their assigned tasks. They will not
be seen as outsiders by existing
managers
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Performance
and employees. Therefore
non-sophisticated technologies like
trucks,
telephones and other materials and
equipments were used to improve
organization (Radin, Hildreth and
Miller, 1998). At this time
cost-effective and
efficiency, i.e. performance, was
not contingent to technology but to
human labor
and workforce. Three reasons for
that: lacks of diffusion of the
technology, public
administrators were not
technology-educated and third the
low paced-society
was not requiring the technological
factors as a key tool for
performance and
effectiveness. Nonetheless we must
note that bureaucracy was considered
by
Weber as a technology which should
help to modernize public
organization.
The ideal society of the 20th
century would be an organization
society according
to him.
1.2.3 The post bureaucratic
Barzelay and Armajani in their book
Breaking Through Bureaucracy
(1992)
enlightens a bureaucratic
reform vision as observed in
the US in the 90s. They
argue that this bureaucratic
paradigm though triggers important
improvement
over waste, disorder and patronage,
has become obsolete and inefficient.
The
authors contend that this new
paradigm foresees the emergence of
the post-
bureaucratic period. This new
conception stresses the delivery of
value to
customers, as opposed to the control
of costs and the struggle for
efficiency, the
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Technology (IT) on Public
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Performance
diminished of economies of scale and
the increasing relevance of
flexibility and
value delivery. This conceptual
framework proposed by Barzelay and
Armajani is
in clashes to other theoretic
propositions of other theorists
noted Dubnik (1994)
regarding post-bureaucratic tenets.
Hence he classifies the
post-bureaucratic
theories in three categories:
minimal state, deregulating
government, and
reinventing government. In this
research we resume the elements of
this
classification in the New Public
Management movement following an
intensive
use of sophisticated technology in
the post-modern period.
1.2.3.1. Progressive public
administration (PPA)
In 1980`s came the progressive
public administration, the
predecessor of new
public management move. The
progressive public administration
fosters
democratic accountability in order
to limit corruption; waste and
incompetence
(Karl, 1963) resulted by the
bureaucracy management. The PPA is
based on two
thoughts: firstly, keep the public
sector sharply distinct from the
private sector in
terms of continuity, ethos, and
methods of doing business,
organizational design,
people, rewards and career
structure. Secondly, maintain
buffers against political
and managerial discretion by means
of an elaborate structure of
procedural rules
designed to prevent favoritism and
corruption (Hood, 1995).
The credits of the progressive
movement go to Theodore Roosevelt,
Woodrow
Wilson and Louis Brandeis at the end
of 1800s and debut of 1900s who have
tried to transform the public
management in America (Osborne &
Gaebler, 1993).
As a result we had:
The formation of civil service
systems with written exams, lockstep
pay
scales, and protection from
arbitrary hiring or dismissal to
prevent the use
of government jobs as patronage.
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The independent public authorities
to keep major construction projects
-
like bridges and tunnels - out of
reach politicians.
The splitting up of management
functions and creating separately
elected
clerks, judges` even sheriffs.
The creation of city managers
profession who could run the
bureaucracy
in an efficient and businesslike
manner in order to keep the
administration
untainted by the influence of
politicians.
The progressive movement was aimed
to cure bureaucracies from
corruptions,
arbitraries and protect the public
interest. By doing this, another
problem was
created: more rules and procedures
were developed to control all the
processes;
consequently the outcomes or results
were neglected (Osborne & Gaebler,
1993).
This situation had systematically
reinforced the bureaucracy by
elaborating more
procedures to struggle with
corruption and encourage trust but
the efficiency in
term of output was ignored.
1.2.3.2. New Public
Administration (NPA)
Very soon the progressive public
administration became the New Public
Management22 with the same zeal and
determination but in new
techno-socio-
political environment. The NPA move
took the private sector management
as a
model in terms of outcomes and
management skills. Now procedures or
processes are no more the actual
issues. The vertical hierarchy cedes
its place
to horizontal authority
(decentralization) in order to give
more power to
disaggregated department of public
administration in the objective to
reach
efficiency and results by a new type
of control (Hood, 1995). Based on
the
private sector model, citizens are
seen much like customers. The NPM
move
22 In this research New Public
Management and New Public
Administration are interchangeable.
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would be the dominant modernization
process, which has led to major
reforms in
many OECD and developing countries.
The new public management is defined
as a new paradigm, which aimed to
promote a performance-oriented
culture in a less centralized public
administration (OECD, 1996). The NPA
is characterized by a closer focus
on
outcomes, a decentralized management
environments, a greater focus on
efficiency and productivity, and a
responsive administration.
This OECD statement posits well
these tenets:
"This fundamental change in
outlook has engaged all Member
countries in a
difficult process of cultural
change: Instead of thinking in terms
of due process
and rigid frameworks for service
provision, institutions and
individuals are
encouraged to focus more on
improving the results of public
interventions,
including exploring alternatives
to direct public provision" (OECD,
1996).
Holmes and Shand (1995)23 use the
following definition:
"A more strategic or
results-oriented (efficiency,
effectiveness and service quality)
approach to decision-making";
"The replacement of highly
centralized hierarchical
organizational structures with
decentralized management
environments where decisions on
resource allocation
and service delivery are taken
closer to the point of delivery,
where greater
relevant information is available
and which provide scope for feedback
from
clients and other interest
groups";
23 (Holmes and Shand, Management
Reform; Some Practitioner
Perspectives on the Past Ten
Years Governance, October, 1995, p.
551)
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"Flexibility to explore
alternatives to direct public
provision which might provide
more cost effective policy
outcomes";
"Focusing attention on the
matching of authority and
responsibility as a key to
improving performance, including
through such mechanisms as explicit
performance contracting;
The creation of competitive
environments within and between
public sector
organizations";
"The strengthening of strategic
capacities at the centre to "steer"
government to
respond to external changes and
diverse interests quickly, flexibly
and at least
cost";
"Greater accountability and
transparency through requirements to
report on
results and their full costs";
and
"Service-wide budgeting and
management systems to support and
encourage
these changes."
Hyden (1992 and 2000), Bratton & van
de Walle, (1992) noted a governance
abuse tendency in developing country
which result to: personalized nature
of rule
in which key political actors
exercise unlimited power; systemic
clientelism;
misuse of State resources and
institutionalized corruption; opaque
government;
breakdown of the public realm; lack
of delegation of power and
withdrawal of the
masses from governance. These
pathologies required critical cure,
therefore
lending organizations intervened in
early 1990`s with good governance
programs,
which mainly emphasize the NPM
tenets dominating the different
reforms
initiated in 1980`s in OECD
countries. According to the World
Bank, good
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governance consists of a public
service that is efficient, a
judicial system that is
reliable, and an administration that
is accountable to the public. Then
the Bretton
Woods institution elaborates on four
elements of good governance (World
Bank,
1989, 1992), which was the nostrum
for developing nations in order to
achieve
performance and efficiency:
1. Public sector management
emphasizing the need for effective
financial
and human resource management
through improved budgeting,
accounting and reporting, and
rooting out inefficiency
particularly in
public enterprises;
2. Accountability in public
services, including effective
accounting, auditing
and decentralization, and generally
making public officials responsible
for
their actions and responsive to
consumers;
3. A predictable legal framework
with rules known in advance; a
reliable and
independent judiciary and law
enforcement mechanisms; and
4. Availability of information and
transparency in order to enhance
policy
analysis, promote public debate and
reduce the risk of corruption.
Obviously the World Bank has mixed
up different reforms experienced by
developed nations in order to
outline an NPMlike` agenda enhancing
the
following watchwords in mid 1990`s:
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Decentralization24 to lower state
control in order to be more
responsive
and allowing the community`s
interests to be represented in
government
decision-making structures,
Privatization, which refers to the
transfer of control and
responsibilities for
government functions and services to
the private sector private
voluntary
organizations or private
enterprises.
Contracting-out 25 to realize cost
savings from inefficient public
bureaucracies that are more intent
on satisfying the wishes of producer
groups than of consumers.
This scheme constitutes the
sinequanon conditions for developing
nations to
have access to international lending
funds to overcome economic crisis
while
endeavoring to be more effective and
efficient in public service
delivery.
Consequently the good governance
reform proposed by the World Bank
should
be the shortcut to draw those
countries on applying worldwide
movement that is
the NPM. Nonetheless the pressure of
the post-modern society
characterized by
a global economy mainly dominated by
technology ignores which nation is
rich or
poor, so each government has to do
their part to satisfy their citizens
whether
with limited resources and at the
same time integrate this global
economy at the
dawn of the 1990s.
24 Decentralization can be defined
as the transfer of authority or
responsibility for decision making,
planning, management, or resource al
ocation from the central government
to its field units,
district administrative units, local
government, regional or functional
authorities, semi-autonomous
public authorities, parastatal
organizations, private entities and
non-governmental private
voluntary organizations.
25 Refers to the out-sourcing or
buying in of goods and services from
external sources instead of
providing such services in-house. It
is a method of privatization that is
increasing in popularity due
to the emphasis on efficiency and
service delivery.
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If bureaucracy was a theoretical
framework proposed by Weber, the
progressive
movement was a pragmatic framework
argued by administrators with bold
awareness pertaining to relevant
changes started in local rather than
national
governments. Among others26, Osborne
and Gaebler in their book
Reinventing
Government (1992) produced a
popular agenda for high-performance
government in United-States (1993).
However the NPA move was later
formally
addressed and embraced by academe
and schools. The Minnowbrook
Conferences (1968, 1988) held by
Dwight Waldo was the momentum in the
formation of the identity of the NPA
movement in United States. At this
conference they argued for drastic
changes, for a new public
administration; an
administration based on relevance,
participation, change, values, and
social
equity (Radin, Hildreth and Miller,
1998). Never before, had the
government been
under such pressure to change the
administration27. These changes were
aimed
to deal with a new social
environment. A global marketplace
with competitive
pressure on national economy, an
information society in which people
have
access to information almost as
quickly as their leaders do, a
Knowledge based-
society where educated people demand
more autonomy, a niche market where
customers accustomed to high quality
and extensive choice were going to
change radically the society, as
well the public administration
(Osborne and
Gaebler, 1992).
1.2.3.2.1 The technology
factor in the NPA period
The assumption of the NPA was
spurred on by many changes in the
society: the
explosion of the society that makes
it more difficult to satisfy its
needs, the
industrialization of the technology,
the explosion of PC, and its
diffusion by the
26 Christopher Hood has the same
impact on the English government in
1991
27 Consequently, the former
President Clinton (United States) in
1993 initiated a new strategic
reform named reinventing government.
The Clinton regime endeavored to end
the unresponsive
hierarchical model and top down
bureaucracy for a new public sector
both less expensive and
more efficient.
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private sector. But the effective
use by the private sector to improve
its
performance would draw serious
attention. Thus the adoption of the
technology
as the way toward performance is
followed. ---) Add more details
1.2.4 The links between the
public management trends
In the above-mentioned trends
(Bureaucracy, Post-Bureaucracy),
_____
Information technologies were mainly
used to provide technical support
for the
work of the administration. However
in the NPM period the technology was
over-
emphasized and the focus was on
problems, which could be solved by
technical
means (Traunmuller, 1999;
Schuppan/Reichard, 2002).
The figure (1) below shows clearly
that the differences between the
trends
stemmed from the social and
political conjuncture that is less
considerable (Hood,
1994). There is a permanent
connection between them, which is
the Rules or
Procedures. However, dependent on
social and political circumstances,
other
elements are stressed more than in
the former trend. The bureaucracy
for
example, supports centralization of
the public administration by
erecting rigid
rules and this was the new way to
modernize the public management. The
PPA
endorses accountability while
maintaining the centralization
thought. The NPM
also encourages accountability but
aims to unburden the public
administration by
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decentralization and focuses on
results and outcomes. Now the
e-government,
as we will see later, advocates
technological modernization while
being citizen
oriented and vertical-controlled.
Hence the modernization in
e-government
regime does not have the same
meaning as in the bureaucracy. The
e-
government modernization is by
information technology instead by
rules whilst
authors alert professionals not to
digitalize the administration but
reengineer the
administrative processes (Fountain,
2001); we will talk more about it
later.
PPA
B
Centralization
Accountability
U
R
E
Rules &
A
procedures
N
U
P
C
M
R
A
C
Horizontal control
Modernization
Y
Outcomes and Citizen
focused
E-GOVERNMENT
Figure 1.3 the links between the
public management trends
The second figure beneath
illustrates the degree of technology
employment in
the different trends studied here.
The bureaucracy used organizational
technology (telephone, trucks, and
other existent ordinary
technologies) to
strengthen the administration, while
the New Public Management deployed
information systems and other
communication technologies to reach
outcomes
and turn the administration into a
citizen-focused organization.
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PPA
B
U
More organizational
technology
R
E
Rules &
A
Organization
N
Debut of
U
procedures
al technology
P
sophisticated
C
M
technology
R
use
A
Citizen
C
Sophisticated
oriented
Y
technology
E-GOVERNMENT
Fig. 2 the use of technology
Figure 1.4 the level of
technology in public management
trends
The 3rd figure shows how information
technology was viewed with regard to
performance. As stated above, the
bureaucracy leaned toward rules and
workforce to achieve performance,
though New Public Management and
Network
government are technology centered
in the struggle for performance.
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PPA
Organizational
B
technology
U
R
E
A
Rules &
Perfor-
Information
N
U
Workforce
mance
Systems
P
C
M
R
A
C
Sophisticated
Y
technology
E-GOVERNMENT
Figure 1.5 Technology and
performance
Today, given that the ubiquity and
the power of the information
technologies,
some scholars predict that the time
to reinvent the public
administration is rung.
Other researchers argue that
information technology has the
capacity to lead to
the desperate radical`
administrative reform (Fountain,
2002), which was never
being achieved by the former
trends28. As indicated by Fountain,
Technology is
a catalyst for social, economic, and
political change at the levels of
the individual,
group, organization and institution.
This one-sided, narrow, staunch
approach
from a deterministic and utopian
view of IT ____ ignores many vital
factors that
lead to the desired change or
transformation.
28 Even after many transformational
reforms undertaken by some OECD
countries like US, many
citizens are stil complaining of the
burdensome bureaucracy of the public
sector.
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1.2.5. The nature of public
management reform
Administrative reform implies
radical and dramatic change if not
incremental low
or higher level of change (Kraemer,
2003). The different trends studied
above are
describing the several reforms taken
on by governments during the past 20
years.
Can we identify the forces, which
spur on a reform? How can we
understand the
process of reform in a developing
country?
One of the authors addressing
eloquently the administrative reform
in the context
of the post-bureaucratic period is
Bouckaert (2004); in his book
Public
Management Reform he pointed
out the main forces that have driven
reforms in
countries and how these forces can
determine the success of reforms.
According
to him, the socio-economy (which
includes the global economic forces,
the socio-
demographic change and the
socio-economic policies) and the
political system
(comprising the new management
ideas, the pressure from citizens
and the
ideas of political parties) are both
two principal forces that form a
decision
making process-fostering changes in
the administrative system (see
figure
below). Considering this framework,
we could conclude that
socio-economic
forces particularly the global
economy which alleviated effects
fostered by
lending organizations compel
developing nations to embrace new
management
ideas in condition of international
loans. As a result the decision
making process
overlooks the citizens` desiderata
and the national political ideas.
The incapability
of government in these countries to
meet basic needs do not leave them
any
alternatives but the Bretton Woods
agenda and the population while
never
experiencing a customer-oriented
approach initiated by a strong
private sector is
unable to exercise pressure for
better public services. This sad
reality constitutes
a real threat for successful reforms
in developing nations.
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1.2.6. Conclusion
At this stage we have learned that
from 19th to 21st century our
society has
experienced two main public
administration periods: the
bureaucracy and the
post-bureaucracy (New Public
Administration and the
e-government). Yet we will
read that they both respond to a
social context and technological
environment.
From a low paced-society to global
and rapid changing society, new
footsteps
were required. Although in
bureaucracy era workforce was the
key factor to
reach performance, NPA promotes
experts and technology to achieve
performance and nowadays
e-government argues that
sophisticated information
and communication technologies are
vital to attaining performance (see
Fig. 2).
The trends studied above describe
the wave of reforms carried out by
many
countries in the last 20 years,
although we learned that developing
countries
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present a particularity when the
forces driven their reforms are not
spurred on by
their political system but mainly by
lending organizations on behalf of
economic
crisis in order to guaranty
international loans. These so-called
reforms in
developing nations are culminating
very often to a performance
according to an
organizational framework from these
institutional organizations and due
to lack of
local resources and education the
use of information technology during
the
process is often not sustainable. Is
it rational then to consider
performance a
corollary of information technology?
We will later study whether
technology has
a significant (positive/negative)
impact on public administration, ___
what impact
they have and how to improve the
positive ones? At this step of the
research it is
very important to study what
Information Technology is and how
performance
can be achieved with it, while
focusing on the case of developing
nations.
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Chapter 2: Information Technology
(IT)
2.1. Information
Simon (1983) posits that in the
post-industrial age the issue for
management will
not be production organization but
processing information. This
statement makes
it clear that information would be
an important issue in our today
world. So what
is Information in the context of
management and computer science? The
literature reveals different
meanings and even counter-meanings
of information.
However let us start frankly by
saying that until now information
has not a precise
theory that could lead to a
meaningful assertion (Goguen, 1997).
If Bowker
(1994), Haraway (1991) and Agre
(1995) consider information as a
myth, Schiller
(1994) views it as commodity in the
post-industrial society. Petit
Robert
dictionary defines information as a
« useful » data on something or
someone
whom we carry in the knowledge of a
person or a public. If information
improves
the knowledge of person on a
subject, the level of utility of the
information
depends on his perception, which
depends on his environment.
According to Rigaud (1979) the
meaning of information implies four
components:
absence of uncertainty,
freedom of choice, preservation of
the organization
and evolution by exchange.
Thus information confers
opportunities and
constraint. Zardet (1986) stated,
Any message, new or repeated,
emitted by an
internal or external actor to the
company or to its environment is
information. But
Davis (1987) argues A set of data
transformed under significant shape
for the
person who receives it, having a
real value for its decisions and his
actions.
Consequently we cannot sum up
information as mere message, but
data is
more appropriate when taking into
account the richness of the
information
technology and communication used in
enterprises to transmit sound,
video,
pictures and text.
2.1.1. The value of
information
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Can we assign a value to
information? For Shanon (1949) the
importance of
transmitted information depends on
its quantitative objective contents.
The more
an event appears as improbable, the
more the information concerning this
event
becomes important, so defining the
quality of information as its level
of relevance.
In his meaning theory of the
information, Mc Kay (1969)
establishes that the
information is what forms or
transforms the representation, so
positioning in a
systematic vision. He demonstrates
that the treatment of a set of data
allows to
create the information, and thus to
reduce the uncertainty of the
decision-maker.
What do we learn from the
above-mentioned authors?
Information is an
interpretation of a configuration
of signs or data for which members
of an
organization are accountable.
Outside the organization, which is
the context,
the set of data or signs would have
any significance. Information
will have a
value when it is configured in a
context or environment where members
of
this environment will be able to
give an interpretation which is
the meaning
and its value.
Figure 2.0
2.1.2. Information as a good
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Shapiro & Varian (1999) define
information as a good and a
particular product.
According to them, Information has
several unique characteristics,
which render
it difficult to valuate. Information
is an unusual good in many aspects -
production, distribution, cost, and
consumption. Information is both an
end
product and an instrument or input
into the production of other goods,
decisions
and information. It is expensive to
produce and cheap to reproduce
(Bates 1989;
Shapiro and Varian 1999). In fact,
distribution is accomplished mainly
by
reproduction or copying. Different
media can distribute the same
content, and the
price is often derived from the
medium rather than from the value
delivered by
the content itself. In point of
fact, people consume information
both by sharing
and by purchasing, while most other
goods are consumed via purchasing
only.
The cost of information can be
either direct or indirect. The quest
for the value of
information is further complicated
by the fact that information is an
experience
good, meaning that its value is
revealed only after consumption
(Shapiro and
Varian 1999; Van Alstyne 1999).
Much research has been done in order
to set a calculation method to
information
(Repos, 1995), however we
consensually accept two approaches:
the exchange
value and the utility
value. As a result, the value of
information depends on its
usage value, though it has not an
absolute value.
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Figure 2.1 Information concept
The figure 2.1 summarizes the
different items assigned to
information in a
particular context in a certain
environment (internal and external)
transforming or
configuring the data (sign, message,
good, etc) in order having a meaning
and a
value for the actors exchanging
within and through the organization.
In this research the term
information will refer to management
context, we intend
by the word information "A set of
new or repeated data, emitted by an
internal or
external actor, to the
organization or to its environment,
allowing her to modify
her vision of the environment to
make a decision. As a result
information is
considered as major resource for
a strategic purpose in an
organizational
environment".
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2.1.3. The information system
concepts
Before defining information system,
since we have already described
Information, it might help to define
System. The understanding of System
is
a set of elements, which interact
between them by exchanging internal
and
external information with the
support of communications. (BOUZE,
1983).
Literature does not provide a unique
definition of the information system
concept,
definitions are numerous and
different. Le Moigne (1990), for
instance, defines
the information system as an
interface between the production
system and the
pilot system. Lesca and Lesca (1995)
emphasize that the information
system
connects organization, technology
and humans with the objective to
treat the
information with regard to the goals
of the enterprise. The authors
stress the idea
of a dedication of the
information system as a tool to the
service of the
organization and of its goals.
On the other hand Earl (1989) and
Courbon (1993)
define four functions of the
information system: seizing,
memorizing, treating and
communicating. Reix (1995)
completes this definition by adding
that the objective
of the information system is to
treat information to offer a more
relevant
representation of the reality, to
reduce the limited rationality
(Davis, 1987) and
award two types of objectives to
information system: Supplying the
management
(information piloting system) with
information and treating the
information to
realize activities of the company
(information production system). As
a result,
Reix (1995) defines the system
information as set of organized
resources:
material, software, staff, data, and
procedures allowing acquiring,
treating,
storing, communicating information
through the organization.
2.1.4. How we perceive
information system today
Today this expression refers mostly
to computer tools, the technical
core of the
system. Regarding technological
progress, information system
inevitably means
computer support. Indeed, the
appearance of the Information system
concept is
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not without link with the headways
of the technology in information
integrators
systems (i.e. architectures client /
server, Intranet, internet,
distributed data
bases). Additionally, this
definition also includes elements
outside the computer
tool such as the users, the
suppliers and the various sources of
information,
networks and communication
protocols, etc., for without these
elements, the
Information system would not be
dynamic. More importantly, in an
information
system, information is above all
digital whether it is text, sound,
images or video.
It can be structured (a database) or
amorphous (set of files stored in
hard disk).
According to Reix`s definition, we
name information system in this
research A
computer based system in which an
articulated set of resources like
human,
technologies, rules and
procedures permits to acquire, to
store, to treat and to
distribute information in the aim
to help people or a group of people
in decision
making process.
2.1.5. Characteristics of
information system (IS)
Every information system is
characterized by the following
elements (Leitzelman
& Dou, 1998) within an organization:
A source of information, in which is
the original information,
A user who asks question,
An interrogation module which
interprets the question of the user,
looks for the information and
restores the results,
A network and communication
protocol, which allows the
connection
between the elements of the system.
In accordance with Quinio (1997) an
information system may be:
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a) Dynamic when being organized
around a set of resources
(technical,
organizational and human).
b) An open system, which interacts
with the upper-system of the
organization. The system of
information appears as a sub-system
and is
defined as a system, which treats
the information in agreement with
the
objectives of the organization.
c) Active and adaptive: As
sub-system of the organization
system, the
information system is organized, but
must also be adaptive. Regarding
the objectives of the organization,
the information system is opened to
the environment and interacts with
it.
d) Controlled and evaluated when
being "piloted" to organize it`s
functioning,
insure its development and the
necessary corrections. The use of
information technology is crucial at
this step.
2.1.6. Typology of information
system (IS)
Zardet (1986) suggests three kinds
of information system:
1. Stimulating type: The
information system works without
major break,
it starts with the process of
acquiring, passing by the treatment
and the
circulation of information to get at
the process of decision-making. It
is
the most complete system because it
leads to decision-making
process and stimulates a decisive
action (Voyant, 1997).
2. Transformational type: The
second allows not only the
circulation of
information but its understanding
and its transformation
(interpretation)
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in the environmental context of the
organization by appealing to the
cognitive capacity of the user.
3. Basic informational type:
The last one is the basic type,
which allows
the acquisition, the treatment, the
circulation and the reception of the
information. This type does not
stimulate any decisive action and in
turn engender any economic product
for the organization.
Figure 2.2 Typology of
Information System
2.1.7. Information in a
decision making process
According to H. A. Simon (1960) we
define decision-making process as
identification and resolution of
problems faced by organization. But
the
information generated by a system is
encountering the limited rationality
of the
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user (human) because of its
cognitive character, which is going
beyond
organizational procedures. As a
result researchers establish that
information
does not automatically lead to
rational decision (Emery & Trist,
1995; Le Moigne,
1973, 1979; Gorry & Scott-Morton,
1971; Boland & Hirschheim, 1987;
Felman &
March, 1991; Silver, 1991; Boland,
1994).
As studied above, its polysemic
nature subjects information to a
variety of
interpretation that will make the
result of decision based on certain
information a
pure contingent. Bourre & Darson
(1993) observe that information
systems are
under-utilized if we consider it as
the principal step to decision. The
intuition of
human beings always drives him to
select information not regarding the
organization`s procedures but
according to his preferences
(Crozier & Friedberg,
1977). If information is important
for the decision maker the question
is what
information do we talk about?
2.1.8. The value of
information system (IS)
Therefore, how must we consider an
information system in an
organization?
Regarding the ambiguity which
characterizes the connection between
information
and decision, it would not be
rational to think that an
information system
whatsoever could provide relevant
and absolute information to a
decision maker
(Ackoff, 1967; Le Moigne, 1974,
1986; Marmuse, 1992; Bartoli & Le
Moigne,
1996). The numerous factors involved
in the process and the complex
environment of the organization
virtualized by an information system
and the
above-mentioned issues make it a
pure hazard. An information system,
whether
it is a database or electronic
government system, is useful when
being adaptive
to its environment thus to the needs
of the decision maker. This will
guaranty to a
certain degree the causation of the
information to the result of
decision.
2.2. E-government Systems
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2.2.1 What is e-government?
E-government which is an information
system refers to the use of
information
technologies such as intranet,
extranet, internet and other
networking systems to
establish a perfect availability of
information and deliver electronic
services to
citizen and businesses (public) in
order to transform the relations
with these ___
and between/within its different
agencies and organizations
(WorldBanks;
Howard, 2001; Backus, 2001).
E-government is a client-oriented
(according to
NPM trend) or citizen-oriented
approach toward efficiency and
effectiveness.
This definition may be considered
simple minded when transposing the
approach
of the private sector (ecommerce) of
the use of IT within the public
administration
without any critical observation
later we will discuss the flaws of
the e-
government idea.
2.2.2. The stages of
e-government
According to researchers and
scholars, e-government may evolve
from simple
Internet presence to fully
integrated government systems. So
the use of the
technologies and its dynamic trait
condemn any IT system and
organization IT
based to change and grow. In this
paper we will not question the
stages; we will
simply indicate them as listed by
researchers (Gartner, 2000). But it
is worth
noting that the stages hereunder are
not necessarily mutually exclusive
or
progressive, the determining factor
will be the problem tackled by
public
managers and the needs of the
citizens.
2.2.2.1. Informational stage
At this stage government and public
sector organizations have a simple
presence
on the web via static web sites
through which government provides
static
information about agencies and
services provided to citizen and
business. We
may consider this phase as the
digital brochure of the agencies
with relevant
information available on the web
that could save time for citizens
and businesses.
Listed below is information that may
be put online in the first phase:
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Information on services and
administrative processes
Performance indicators;
Environmental indicators;
Auditors results;
Management reports;
Released notes;
Geographic, demographic and economic
data;
Etc
2.2.2.2. Interactive stage
The second phase is adding
interaction on the former by
rendering possible two-
way communication between public
managers and the public (citizen &
business)
(internal and external communication
level).
Hence, the public could :
Address directly the public managers
on specific issue within different
levels of ___ public administration;
Public can use search engine to find
desired information;
Public can download forms then
complete before sending the hard
paper
form to the administration;
Public may participate in electronic
forum concerning social and
political
debates;
Etc.
2.2.2.3. Transactional stage
This stage provides an alternative
to the public (citizen & business)
not only to
download and complete forms but to
pay online. This stage completes its
predecessor by offering the public
the opportunity to be served online
without any
displacement; now a virtual
organization is established. This
stage is often called
e-services phase. Most of countries`
e-government initiatives are still
at this stage
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preparing transition for the fourth
stage by adopting new rules or
adapting former
rules in order to transform the
organizational processes.
2.2.2.4. Transformational
stage
This stage should be the favorite of
the proponents of the e-government
reform,
for this phase leads to fully
integrated services. Citizens have
access through a
single portal to all services and
pay their bill online. Now
government undertakes
institutional and administrative
reforms to transform its business
processes. This
stage is considered as the most
complex and expensive in
e-government
evolution. But the return on
investment expected, the
transparence and the good
governance promoted make it
worthwhile.
According to empirical studies,
these stages are applied in the
context of different
government administrative levels:
local, state and national. However
local e-
government initiatives are still at
their stammering phase.
2.2.3 Type of e-government
As e-government definition implies,
the use of technology is to
transform
relationships of government with
citizen and business. We identify
three types of
e-government:
1. Government to Citizen (GtoC) when
government provides information and
delivers service on line to citizen.
2. Government to Business (GtoB)
when government does the same toward
business (Business here may include
NGOs).
3. GtoG when information technology
is used to improve communication and
information management among
agencies and internal partners (like
employees).
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Level
National
Transformational stage
E-gov wave
Transactional stage
State
Interactive stage
Local
Informational stage
GtoC
GtoB
GtoG
Type
Figure 2.3 E-government type,
stage and level
2.2.4. The promise of
E-government
E-government promises to change the
delivery of public services and the
broader
interaction between the public and
government. Governance on the regime
of e-
government is promised to be global
to solve public service challenge
(Pierre,
2000). E-government should lead to
openness, participation,
accountability,
effectiveness and coherence
(According the good governance
definition of the
European Commission). The
e-government should provide new
services,
improve efficiency, enhance ___
citizen participation, strengthen
the global
information infrastructure (Bohman,
2001) and increase trust of the
public
through transparence. At the end we
should have a responsive
administration
with new organizational culture,
i.e. staff focused on performance
and services
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focused on customers` needs. This
framework should lead to whole range
of
administrative projects including
e-democracy, e-voting, e-justice,
e-education, e-
healthcare, e-agriculture, and
e-etc.
2.2.5. The Achilles' heel of
the e-government thought
As suggested by cyber-culture
definition (See virtual organization
chapter 3),
science fiction was a great
contribution to all cyber-thing or
e-thing
scholarships. As a result most of
literary relating to the subject
reflects a dual
distortion of the reality: utopia
and dystopia. The utopian school is
futuristic and
blinded optimistic. For its
proponent e-government and IT in
general will reinvent
the public administration, will
revitalize the politics, will allow
for subversive or
alternative forms and uses of
technology, will enable humans to
explore new
forms of consciousness, and will be
part of the heralding-in of a new
age (Ken
Hillis 34).
The utopian deterministic thinking
goes back to Plato`s Republic where
evils are
no more until the Thomas Jefferson`s
magic Nature. Many literary authors
place
Internet and technology on the same
pedestal where religious place faith
in
Christ. Technology is seen as
universal savior who will free
public administration
from incompetence, from corruption,
from inefficiency, and as a way
toward a
perfect and ideal administration
within a perfect society (Barlow,
1996).
The reality is that any balance
study regarding technology requires
seeing the
technology in a social environment
not the society in a technological
environment.
The reductionism and essentialist
patterns of the techno-futurism
lying in the
early scholarships reveal
astonishing thinking flaws after two
decades of the
information technology evolution.
A close look to Internet
technologies may somehow turn the
dream to a
nightmare. If we consider the
arguments of dystopian scholars,
technology can
be seen as a digitalization of
incompetence, inefficiency and
burdensome rules
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what have been reproached to the
bureaucratic administration trend.
Also the
potentiality of IT may vastly
increase opportunities for
surveillance and regulation
of staff, which could necessarily
lead to an inegaliterian system.
Given that NPM
was transposing managerial process
of the private sector in the public
sector
gives a narrow view on e-government
as a result some researchers have
seen e-
government as the
governmentalization of e-business or
implementation of e-
business in public sector. This view
may alter the way to measure
e-government
performance since government is not
pursuing profits as the private
sector.
The principal imperfection of
e-government philosophy is that it
should
cause the reform or the
so-called radical change.
Empirical studies advocate
that information technology has been
used most often to reinforce
existing
organizational deficiencies
(Attawell and Rule, 1986; Danziger,
et al., 1982;
Dutton, et al., 1987; Kraemer and
King, 1979; Laudon, 1974; Perry and
Kraemer,
1979; King and Kraemer, 1998;
Holden, 2003). Fountain (2002),
while being
considered as a proponent of the
utopian e-government thought,
recognized that
even the most innovative uses of IT
typically work at the surface of
operations
and boundary-spanning processes are
accepted because they leave the deep
structure of political relationships
intact.
We have an administrative reform
when the administrative processes
and rules
are changed dramatically. Could
e-government change rule or bring
univocally
new rules in organizational process
of public administration? In other
terms will e-
government shape public
administration? Mackenzie and
Wacjman (1985)
propose the adverse thought:
Technology does not develop
according to an
inner technical logic but is instead
a social product, patterned by the
conditions of
its creation and use (Williams and
Edge, 1986: 866). Fountain (2001)
concluded
that an enacted technology is an
outcome of the mutual interaction
between
technical and
organizational/institutional
factors. In social-technical
analysis it
would be simplistic to state
that e-government causes reform or
reshapes
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administration, we would then
fail to acknowledge the complexity
of
organizational, political and
social factors that shape the
adoption, design
and use of any IT project.
2.2.6. Will e-government and
information systems keep their
promise?
E-government and information systems
promise solutions to public
organization
without changing business processes
and rules. We cannot have radical
change
or reform within an organization
without affecting its business
processes. The
spur-of-the-moment of the
techno-futurism movement displays
narrow approach
that hides the complex social and
political environment of an
e-government
implementation. We know that action
in organization is achieved around
rules,
which will create a system in which
the organization will grow and
evolve
(Vanberg, 1994). Researchers
establish two rule system
mechanisms, problem
solution guiding and
behavior-control (Gil-Garcia and
Martinez-Moyano, 2005).
Problem solution guiding is the
scenario for public managers to
establish rules
and procedures in order to ensure
the well being of the ongoing
process. This
mechanism compels the public
managers to focus on how the
initiative is
undertaken with regard of the
established rules and the results
expected. If this
system claims performance at the end
of the tunnel, the needs of the
public could
not be better understood without
their participation (citizen,
business and NOGs,
etc), since the problems identified
by e-government are not only
technical, but
also mainly social and political. As
a consequence the public should be
necessarily involved in the process
that is behavior-control mechanism.
Initially
designed by public managers,
e-government initiatives in time
will be subjected
to citizen (and public in general)
control and they will indicate the
designer what
they expect from the e-government
system designed, what services they
want
and what level of technological
sophistication they can tolerate (La
Porte et al.
2001; Ho, 2002; Gil-Garcia, 2005).
Consequently the public will
redesign the
rules designed originally by the
e-government managers, thus we
conclude that
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the social and political environment
has a continuous influence on the
system
design and vice versa.
Social
Admini
strative
Rules
P
olitical
Figure 2.4 How rules are
established in e-government regime
The figure above demonstrates that
e-government initiatives are
establishing
rules under influence of political
and social environment though the
political realm
delegated the administrative
process. However many failures in
implementation
of e-government system reveal
weakness or an absence of political
will. And as
described below, the participation
of the public in the process will
systematically
reshape the rules primarily
designed.
2.3. Conclusion
E-government as an information
system is considered as a solution
to reach
openness, participation,
accountability, effectiveness and
coherence. The
technology itself without any
business process transformation will
be just a
digitalization of the former
organization. Deception again will
fall upon the
proponents of e-government. This
transformation will not be achieved
because of
the complex environment of the
evolution of e-government by
virtualization. The
destiny of any information system is
not really at the hand of the
technology. The
political vision of the government
(political), the empowerment of the
citizen and
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business (social), the business
process reform (administrative) are
crucial factors
that determine the success of an
e-government implementation.
At this stage of our research we
must consider three things that
impede the
causation of information system
relating to results of a decision
making as effect:
First, the absence of ontological
trait of information which is
the output of an
information system that makes it
difficult to link a set of exact
information to a
decision. Second, the limited
rationality of human being
inclines him to select
information not regarding the
organization rules but to his
inclination. And third
the complex environment of a virtual
organization (with an information
system)
requires a decision maker to go
beyond the information generated by
his system.
The global approach evaluation, the
more open approach and less
restrictive and
limited, is the rational one that
can lead to certain results. But
before we address
information system issues regarding
performance and productivity, let us
see
now the complex environment created
by the virtualization of an
organization.
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Chapter 3: The virtual
Organization
3.1 Virtual organisation
concept
The literature of management is
bundled of new forms of organization
theories.
Queerly these new forms stem from
business practices, which are dated
since
the beginning of humanity. Recently
the intensive use of information
technologies
(IT) brings too many challenges and
changes within/through organizations
that
scholars write a great deal of
papers on new forms of organization
generated by
IT. Nowadays the real debate
relating to new forms of business is
summed up to
virtual organization. What is
virtual organization? Is virtual
organization a new
organization form or a new
organizational process? What is the
driven force of
the virtual organization?
Considering the management
literature of the last
decade, what have been changed in
the virtual organization concept?
Often virtual organization is used
to describe new organizational
business forms
that emerge with the application of
information and communication
infrastructures such as information
system. According to Fisher (1998) &
Hoefling
(2001) virtual organization stands
for a task, project or permanent
organization
which is decentralized and
independent of any spatial
connection. Considering
the different relevant definition of
the VO in management literature, the
effort to
better understand the subject and
changes brought through the last
years will
pay off. Our analysis below is not
taking into account all definitions
coined by
authors regarding virtual
organization since 1990, but the
chosen definitions can
actually help grasp the
characteristics of VO as a result
figuring out what implies
a virtual organization.
"The enterprises involved keep
their legal and economic
independence.
Lawyers have very different
opinions of the body corporate of
virtual
organizations. But it is a common
rule that virtual organizations are
no joint
ventures. They are may be called
corporations of civil society"
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(Gesellschaft Bugerlichen Rechts,
§§ 705).
"The purpose of virtual
organization is the optimal use of
opportunities
which derive from the market
and/or from resources". (Weber &
Walsh
1994)
"The Virtual organization is a
cooperation of enterprises. Members
of
Virtual Organization can be great
trusts as well as small one-person
firms.
It is imaginable that a
self-employed consultant becomes a
member of
virtual organization and of a
multinational corporation at the
same time.
This means that virtual
organization will be decomposed when
the object
is accomplished. In most cases
virtual organization will only exist
for a
short time. If there are no other
advantageous organizational
alternatives
to produce a special out-put,
virtual organization are also
imaginable for a
long-term period". (Arnold &
Hartling 1995).
"The use of information and
communication technologies is a
constitutional feature of virtual
organizations (Mertens 1994).
Sometimes
IT is called an "enabler" of
virtual organizations".
(Suomi/Luukinen & Al
1996)
"(...) Groups of agile
manufacturing enterprises." S. L.
Goldman & R. N
Nagel (1993)
« Par l'utilisation intégrée
d'ordinateurs et de technologies de
communications, les entreprises
seront de moins en moins définies
par
des murs concrets ou par un
espace physique, mais par des
réseaux de
collaboration reliant des
centaines, des milliers et mêmes des
dizaines de
milliers de personnes ensemble. »
S. Bleeker (1994)
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"Virtual Organization refers to a
temporary or permanent collection of
geographically dispersed
individuals, groups, organizational
units which
do or belong to the same
organization or entire
organizations that
depend electronic linking in
order to complete the production
process." B.
Travica (1997)
"We define the virtual
organization as a temporary,
flexible arrangement of
dispersed components, contributed
my multiple organizations and linked
together with information
technologies." D. Robey & al.,(1998,
p. 277)
"A Virtual Organization is
primarily characterized as being a
network of
independent geographically
dispersed organization with a
partial mission
overlap. (...) Further, a Virtual
Organization is secondarily
characterized
by a single identity with loyalty
being shared among the partners and
the
co-operation based on trust and
information technology." R. Bultje &
J.
Van Vijk (1998, p. 16)
"(...) I define a Virtual
Organization as any
institutionalized form of the
ability to provide its products
and services more time and location
independent than its
competitors." P. Sieber (1998, p.
258)
"Virtual organizations are
electronically networked
organizations that
transcend conventional
organizational boundaries, with
linkages witch
may exist both within and between
organizations." J. Burn (1998, p. 3)
3.2. Characteristics of
virtual Organization
What do we learn from those
descriptions? We note that distance
work via
information technologies is the
ontological trait of the virtual
organization in order
to coordinate economic activities.
The organizational process is not
restrained by
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space and time. Members of the
virtual team or virtual organization
may never
meet face to face or do not have to
(Drexler & Sibbet, 1988; Hofstede et
al., 1997;
Favier & Coat, 1997; Knoll &
Jarvenpaa, 1995; Jones & Bowie,
1998). The virtual
organization has an appearance of
classical organization but it
certainly is not.
Besides the fact that geographic
space of work is no more, brick and
mortar are
not either principal characteristics
of the organization. Thus we can
define Virtual
Organization as:
A network of people or
organizations, which are
independent.
Those people and organizations are
realizing a common project or
common economic activity.
The communication and information
processes are hold through
information technologies.
The organization does not depend on
time and space to be made up.
The figure below points out the
principal characteristics of the
virtual organization
concept.
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Figure 3.0 Characteristics of
Virtual organization
Therefore what can motivate a group
of people and organization to create
a
virtual organization? One of the
theoretical approaches to explain
the formation
of organization is transaction cost
approach (Williamson 1985; Schmidt,
R. H
1992). A cooperation which aims to
produce a certain output (like goods
and
services) has to choose a specific
form of coordination from a
continuum of
various coordination possibilities
(Arbeitpapiere, 1996). The right
choice should
be based on the efficient type of
coordination for each type of
production process.
For this reason minimizing the
transaction-cost are the main
criteria for choosing
between the different coordination
forms (Arbeitpapiere, 1996). The use
of
information technologies not only
transforms the organizational
process, but due
to the absence of geographic
barriers and time, it becomes
largely feasible to
minimize the transaction cost of
enterprises cooperation as of the
possibility of
unlimited communication.
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3.3. Typology of virtual
Organization
According to Mowshowith (1994) the
virtualization may be taken at
different
levels. Venkatraman (1995) and
Saaksjarvi suggest several stratums
in the
process:
Individual level or
sub-intraorganizational is
regarding local tasks
involving a group of people in a
distinct organization via distance
communication process.
Organizational level when
information technologies are used to
coordinate the activities of the
organization as integration.
And interoganizational level
is the last layer where numerous
organizations utilize the
information technologies to
coordinate an
economic activity (see the picture
below).
Figure 3.1 Typology of virtual
organization
The virtualization process of an
organization may result a:
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Virtual team, which is the
simplest form of a VO, is a local
team using
information technologies to
coordinate their connectivity and
share their
knowledge at lower cost.
Virtual project can involve
several people or organizations in
the
realization of certain task, which
are a beginning and designated end.
Temporarily virtual organization
is likening a virtual project
involving
several organizations in a
designated period of time.
Permanent virtual organization
is created when there is no
designated
period in their cooperation.
The table below depicts the typology
of virtual organization (Palmer, J &
Speoer,
C:, 1997, 2001)
Temporaux
Permanent
Virtual Teams
Virtual Projects Virtual
Virtual
Organisations
Organisations
Internal to an
Range of
organizational
Across functions
Across
Across
Involvement
function or
and organizations organizations
organizations
departmental unit
Membership
Small, local
Indeterminate
Typical y larger
Typical y smaller,
but scaleable
Multiple
All functions and
Teams on
organizational
Multiple functions full
functionality as
Mission
specific, ongoing representatives
responding to a
a working
tasks
working on
market opportunity organization
specific projects
Membership
Length of project varies, but form
is Temporary
Temporary
Permanent
permanent
Connectivity,
Repository of
Shared
Channel for
sharing embedded shared data
infrastructure
marketing and
Uses of IT
knowledge (e-
(databases,
(groupware,
distribution,
mail, groupware) groupware)
WANs, remote
replacing physical
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computing)
infrastructure
(Web, Intranet)
Table 3.0 Palmer, J & Speoer, C:,
(1997, 2001)
3.4. Revisiting the concept
Far from the idea to consider the
virtual organization as new form of
organization
inferred by the intense use of
information technology, we should
see virtual
organization as an explicit or
implicit transformation business
process.
Technology (an information system)
which is the core of Virtual
Organization
must be viewed as intermediary
platform and not as the virtual
organization itself
(March & Simon 1979; Le Moigne 1984;
Avenier 1999; Vidal 2000).
Henceforth it
would be simplistic to regard
Virtual Organization as a network of
actors
intermediated by a communication
technology platform in the
perspective to
decrease transaction cost in the
coordination of an economic
activity. The
flexibility of the Virtual
Organization provides (no time and
space constraint,
independence of actors) an
exploration role in order to
understand its
environment and adapt itself
regarding changes. Though the
rational goal of the
Virtual Organization is to exploit
(exploitation) opportunities to
deliver an output,
exploration is an ontological factor
associated to its flexibility
character (March,
1991).
When created a Virtual Organization
must pursue two strategic goals:
Exploitation: Utilization of
ICT to coordinate economic
activities between
organizations in order to reduce
cost and increase productivity and
profit.
A univocal view may result that
organizations see only their
management
routine without being able to
comprehend changes in their
environment
and find their way to adaptation.
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Exploration: the members of
the network must be ready to modify
their
perception regarding the evolution
of their economic activities. As a
result
new knowledge will come up, and the
VO will preserve its flexibility,
which
is very crucial to survive in a
turmoil environment.
It would be a snare as well to
consider univocally the technology
without seeing
the human factor aspects. Should
this organization create a whole
virtual
relationship between partners? As
the technological platform is an
intermediary,
how information should be
interpreted?
The polysemiotic trait of
information may result discordance
in a virtual network
(Le Moigne, 1990). The definition of
a sign or information is depending
on the
environment, the context and the
actors. Thus information can suggest
a variety
of perceptions and interpretations
what remove any ontological
character to
information. Consequently a virtual
environment is very complex to deal
with
when bearing in mind the cognitive
factor of human behavior.
3.5. The risks of virtual
organization
Beyond a formal contract that
inoculates trust in a relationship
in regard of a
Virtual Organization. The absence of
physical space (face to face
meeting)
requires informal factors to
perpetuate the relationship. Besides
professional
norms and quality standard
procedures, informal factors like
reputation (Callon &
Licoppe, 2000) and recommendation
are a must to ensure trust. Lorenz
(1999)
advocates that implicit engagement
is more crucial than writing
contract for
virtual organization. He named
implicit engagement as moral
contract.
As we can see trust is the most
important success factor in the case
of virtual
organization since physical contacts
and other traditional ways to build
trust is
somehow avoided. Accordingly, Handy
(1995) recommends physical contact
to
build and maintain trust for the
reason that coordination of virtual
organization will
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be a failure if the
unpersonalization process is not
taken into account (Meissonier,
2000).
Control is another key issue of
Virtual Organization when we
consider the limited
physical contact and the
independence of actors suggest by
virtual organization
theory. In a virtual environment,
traditional ways to identify
individuals and their
locations are inefficient. If
technology taxonomically engenders
this challenge,
technological applications offer new
possibilities to control the
organizations.
Trust must be associated with
control to lower risk in such
environment.
3.6. Conclusion
The virtual organization was being
viewed in the technology lens that
had
shadowed the complexity of the
subject. We have seen in this
section that
information technology, including
information and e-government system
is an
intermediate platform between the
actors of the network, and this
intermediary
must be completed with other
traditional Medias in order to
establish trust and
control in virtual environment. The
scholar and journalists always focus
on virtual
forms like portal and e-government
models. The productivity and
transaction cost
was stressed as the main goal of
virtual organization. Actually
virtual organization
mainly is an organization process
where economic exploitation is
entwined with
an exploration perspective in order
to remain flexible due to changes in
market
environment.
At this stage of our research, we
must consider three things that
impede the
causation of information system
relating to results of a decision
making as effect:
First, the absence of ontological
trait of information which is
the output of an
information system that makes it
difficult to link a set of exact
information to a
decision. Second, the limited
rationality of humans inclines
him to select
information not regarding the
organization`s rules but to his own
inclination. And
third the complex environment of a
virtual organization (with an
information
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system) requires a decision maker to
go beyond the information
generated by his
system. The global approach
evaluation, the more open approach
and less
restrictive and limited, is the
rational one that can lead to
certain results. How do
we consider the virtualization of an
organization by implementing an
information
system regarding the performance and
productivity? If the link between
the IS
and performance is established
relating the profitability there
would be several
intangible elements which cannot be
evaluated and this fact could make
the
results hypothetic. In this context
how do we view performance and
productivity
of an information system? How should
we see the evaluation of the non-
evaluable elements in a virtual
environment?
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Performance
Chapter 4: Study of Performance
and impacts of information systems
4.1 Performance concepts
Performance is another concept that
has not an explicit definition. But
in
management it refers to realization
of goals, to evaluation of
objectives, to
evaluation of outputs obtained, to
relation between objectives, means
and results
or inputs and outputs (Bouquin,
1991; Bartoli, 1997). Also
performance may be
studied regarding a person or a
group executing a task, an
organization or group
of organizations and a project.
However performance is often
described as a
correlation between efficacy and
efficiency.
The efficacy can be
defined as the link between the
objectives set and the
results reached by the organization
when limited to the strategic goals
as the
referential for the actors of the
organization (Zardet, 1986). The
efficacy is thus
measured by correlating the outputs
to the objectives set in the
organization. In
information systems, it is a
question of measuring in which point
the system
reaches the defined objectives. The
efficiency is usually often refers
to quality
concept.
The efficiency is
measured by correlating the outputs
to the means used to
produce them. It is the measure more
objective and easier to obtain that
the
efficacy. The efficiency is usually
associated to the productivity, or
the profitability
and profit (Bartoli, 1997).
A diagram here
The design of a performance measure
depends on several factors: the
purpose
of the measure, the entity or
organization whose quality is being
measured, the
dimension of quality being measured,
and the nature of measure used for
the
assessment, and who will use the
measure. Nonetheless the measure
used, the
purpose of the measure and the
entity that is setting the measure
indicators are
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very influential when it comes to
translate the reports on performance
assessment; then it is vital to
identify the purpose of a measure
(Ogden & Davis
1999), the measure itself and the
entity which will be measured in
order to find
the adequacy of efficacy and
efficiency of an organization (Fig.
# PMP).
Purpose: Performance
measurement has four main purposes.
- The easiest purpose is to describe
what a program is accomplishing and
whether results are being achieved
regarding some goals and objectives
- The next one, which is more
difficult, is to measure an
improvement in
outcomes caused by some modification
of ___ actions or applications in
process--as in a quality improvement
program.
- The third purpose is to compare
the quality of service being
delivered by
different entities such as different
organizations in comparison, while
taking into account the goals of
each group and the populations they
serve
which will affect the outcomes.
- A fourth purpose that needs to be
considered is that civil society may
want
to promote a measure simply to
stimulate better service and
accountability
from public sector.
Entity being measured. : The
design of a measure also can be
affected by the
entity being measured. A measure
that is proven for one entity may
not work for
another.
Dimension of quality: A third
important factor is the dimension of
quality that is
being assessed. The main dimensions
are coverage, access, choice of
provider,
service, etc. Each of these requires
different methods.
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Type of measure: Most of the
measures used to compare the quality
of service
delivered by various strategies or
plans are based on populations.
Population-
based measures begin with a group of
people who are candidates for some
intervention and calculate the
proportion who have a particular
outcome. In this
context, the outcome could be the
performance of the intervention. The
first
case is called a process measure,
because it measures some aspect of
the
process of care that was performed.
Intended audience: This
factor affects the appropriate level
of detail and the
clinical sophistication required to
understand what a change or
difference in a
measure means.
Now we can define the performance
measure as a generic term
encompassing
the quantitative basis by which
objectives are established and
performance are
assessed and gauged. Performance
measures include performance
objectives
and criteria, performance
indicators, and any other means that
evaluate the
success in achieving a specified
goal. As an important element of
Total Quality
Management concept, performance
measure helps to understand, manage,
and
improve what our organization does
and how well it is doing. However
the
purpose of the process will
influence any single factor in the
process, the
responsible parties, the data chosen
and therefore the outcomes report
and the
corrective actions to improve
performance. The diagram below shows
the
performance measurement process in
an organization.
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Figure 4.0
4.2. The performance paradox
The New Public Management reforms
undertaken in most western and some
developing states imparts a steering
role to government while contracting
the
operation and administration to
public agencies and third party 29.
This trend gave
room to a strong assessment wave as
governments wish the administration
contracted operates efficiently;
thus the increased interest to
performance
measurement (PM) in the public
sector coincides with the rise of
new public
management reform in the last two
decades. Consequently, Fountain
(2001)
argues that a strong belief rather
simplistic in the measurability of
performance
arose in the public sector. Since
the performance indicators and other
29 Osborne and Gaebler see the
government as a steering function
than rowing (see Steering than
rowing
chapter in their book (1992)
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management evaluation techniques
were adopted from private sector,
the
special characteristics of the
public sector should result some
unintended
consequences (Leeuw, 2000; OECD,
1996)
In this context, Schawrz wrote (in
presse): There is a desire to
supply managers,
policymakers, legislators and the
general public with evaluative
information that
is perceived to be reliable,
valid and credible, Evaluative
information that lacks
these characteristics stands
little chance of enhancing
transparency,
accountability and democratic
governance. Yet, mechanisms for
assessing the
"quality" of evaluative
information conjure up perverse
images of what has been
termed and audit society
characterized by increasing layers
of inspection, audit,
evaluation and assessment. The
audit society expends a huge amount
of
resources in assurance activities
whose most immediate consequences is
to
increase bureaucratization".
The public sector performance
measurement contains different
examples of
unintended consequences. Bouckaert
and Balk (1991) mentioned a dozen
diseases of public productivity
measurement resulted from wrong
assumptions
underlying measurement, measurement
errors, and problems concerning the
content, position and amount of
measures. Smith (1995) warned that
performance indicators could inhibit
innovation and lead to ossification,
which will
become a major obstacle to the
public organization. The principal
side effects
pointed by Smith is the tunnel
vision effect, he defines it as an
emphasis on
phenomena that are quantified in the
performance measurements scheme at
the
expense of unquantified aspects of
performance. The measure fixation or
the
sub optimization result is another
harmful effect when narrow local
managers`
objectives are emphasized at the
expense of the objectives of the
organization
as a whole which lead to the tunnel
vision effect. Schmidtlein (1999)
pointed
out the lack of theoretical support
when noticing that very few studies
have been
carried out on the effectiveness of
performance budgeting although most
states
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authorities are using it. It`s worth
noting that these side effects are
in
contradiction with the philosophical
thought of the new public sector
reform idea,
which promotes entrepreneurial
public agent and autonomy in public
administration.
Finally, Meyer & Gupta (1994)
identified the performance
paradox, which refers
to a fragile relationship between
performance indicators and
performance itself. It
imports to note that this paradox is
relating to the reports on
performance, what
should make us especially
precautious regarding the data
selected for the
reports and the one who set the
performance indicators reported. As
a result the
performance could be overrepresented
or underrepresented; the conclusion
is
that indicators do provide
inaccurate report on performance.
The authors
aforementioned revealed four
processes resulting to deteriorating
performance
indicators.
1. The positive learning, when
performance improvement is reached,
indicators lose their sensitivity in
detecting bad performance.
2. The perverse learning, when
organizations and individuals have
learned
which aspects of performance are
measured in order to use that
information to manipulate their
assessment results.
3. Selection, when replacing poor
performers with better performers
consequently reducing differences in
performance.
4. Suppression, when differences in
performance are ignored.
Several causes of the paradox may be
found:
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- A lack of performance indicators
makes it difficult to obtain
accurate
report on performance (Meyer &
Gupta, 1994),
- The elusiveness of policy
objectives (Wilson, 1989) which
produces
conflict between managers and
politicians in regards of goals and
objectives (McGuire, 2001),
- The nonquantifiable of policy
goals which makes it difficult to
measure performance, and
- An extensive use of performance
indicators often drives to the
perverse learning effects.
What do we learn from the
performance paradox? The
performance concept is
so controversial that it will
never bring a satisfying answer to
the matter of
impacts measurement whether it
is technology or another factor.
But as we
do not have another concept to even
ersatz the performance measurement,
the
dilemma is that we are compelled to
use it. However it is important to
trace the
side effects and take them into
account in order to deliver more or
less an
accurate report on performance of an
organization. Given that our study
is about
information technology impacts on
performance, it is essential to give
our
attention to the performance of the
technology itself.
4.3. Performance and
information systems (IS)
Now the most critical questions
pertaining to our research are
these: can
technology really improve
organization performance? What sort
of impacts of
technology may we identify in public
management? Many empirical studies
on
economy-wide and aggregated industry
level [(Jonscher (1983), Baily &
Gordon
(1988), Roach (1989b), Siegel &
Griliches(1992), Oliner & Sichel
(1994),
Jorgenseon & Stiroh (1995)] from
80`s to mid 90`s found little
evidence that ICT
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significantly increased productivity
in national economy. Robert Solow
(1987)
expressed in an unequivocal phrase
the disappointment in ICT recorded
in many
articles in this period: you can see
computer age everywhere but in the
productivity statistics. This
statement is proved by the
observation of Roach
(1987) that shows the amount of
computing power in the service
industry was
growing dramatically over 1970`s and
1980`s while the US economy in the
same
period has substantially slowed
down. Then many articles put on
spotlight the
non-significant impact of ICT on
productivity. Paradoxically it was
impossible to
prove the opposite. This is what
information systems literature
called the
productivity paradox; nevertheless
other researchers like Floyd and
Woodrige
(1990) claimed a triangular link
between strategy, the ICT and the
performance
of an organization.
4.4. Is there productivity
paradox or lack of scientific
methodology?
The works of Brynjolfsson (1994,
1995, 1996, & 1998) mainly on firm
level have
significantly contributed to shed
light on the so-called productivity
paradox. He
examined four approaches that
explain the paradox:
1. The mismeasurement, when outputs
and inputs of information-using
industries are not properly measured
by conventional approaches. The
same factor that generates the
performance paradox30.
2. Lags, when time lags in the
pay-offs of information technology
make
analysis of current costs versus
current benefits misleading.
According to
a survey of Nolan & Norton (1998),
it takes five years for ICT
investments
to pay-off, thus the benefits
reported must be distributed through
the years
of use, learning and adaptation (see
table of organizational performance
over time).
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3. Redistribution, when information
technology is especially likely to
be used
in redistributive activities among
firms, making it privately
beneficial
without adding to total output.
4. Mismanagement, when the lack of
explicit measures of the value of
information makes it particularly
vulnerable to misapplication and
over
consumption by managers.
Figure 4.1
Brynjolfsson & Yang (1996) argue
that improving the data and
measurement
techniques, taking into account the
potential lags in the impact of IT
and making
adjustments and finding better
theoretical models to address the
mismanagement issues will
subsequently fade away the
productivity paradox.
However finding proper
measurement techniques or
methodologies is not
unproblematic when considering
the intangible characteristic of
inputs and
outputs involved in IT
productivity effects which very
often cause IT
impacts ambivalent and
conjectural. It is worth
noting that the virtual
environment created by the use of
technology in the modern economy is
favorable to intangibles such as
variety, timeliness, quality, better
responsiveness to customers and
better coordination with suppliers.
The
performance evaluation does not
always report these hidden cost
(Savall, 1974)
30 See performance paradox section
page 68
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or inferred cost (Greeman, 1999)
like IT training and systems
maintenance,
which represent half of total ICT
expenditures and consequently ignore
the
aforementioned intangibles. The
productivity of ICT remains
controversial until
new scientific methodological
approaches implying the four factors
mentioned
above by Brynjolfsson could be found
in late 1990`s. In this context,
Quinio (1997)
concluded: the productivity paradox
is a simple criteria research
methodology
paradox for complex effects
evaluation.
Dedrick, Gurbaxani & Kraemer (2003),
in a conclusive review of over 50
scholarly studies published between
1987 and 2002 on information
technology
and productivity, stated that
productivity paradox as first
formulated has been
effectively refuted. At both the
firm and country level, greater
investment in IT is
associated with greater productivity
growth. There were two more reasons
explaining the failure of the early
studies regardless of IT and
performance.
1. First as we have seen above, the
studies were flawed in both
methodologies and data sets
employed.
2. Second, the IT was too nascent to
have a measurable impact; as a
result
IT performance was quite limited
(Atkinson & McKay, 2007). To benefit
from a technology an organization
must fully utilize it and reorganize
her,
unless this technology is ready for
a complete use. This was not the
case
for IT in 1980`s to mid 1990`s when
we consider that the first Pentium
was
introduced in 1993 with average disk
drive storage of 2 gigabits and the
fist easy to use Microsoft`s Windows
version in 1995, virtually there
were
no PC connected to Internet. So we
conclude that IT was not ready to be
shown up in statistic as argued by
Solow.
From the after-the-dot-com-burst and
today several studies show
indubitably that
IT boost productivity in firm and
national level. A study by Varian,
Litan, Elder and
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Shutter (2002) showed that between
1998 and 2001 firms in the US saved
$155
billion, and by 2010 are expected to
cumulatively save $ 528 billion.
Brynjolfsson
(2003) in a study of over 1,167
large US firms found firms with the
highest levels
of IT investment per worker had the
highest levels of productivity.
Daveri (2003)
found that 78 percent of the
increase in productivity in US was
due to IT. Caselli
and Patterno (2004) found IT
investment in manufacturing had a
higher impact
on productivity growth in the second
half of the 1990`s than in the
period 1973-
1995. The OECD31 (2004) found that
IT was responsible 109 percent of
the
growth in labor productivity from
1996 to 2002. Attrostic and Nguyen
(2005)
found that productivity is raised by
roughly 7.5 percent by the use of
computer
networks in manufacturing plants.
The first annual i2010 Report on the
European
Information Society (2007) found
that in the period 200-2004 ICT
accounted for
productivity gains of 0.5 percentage
points per year in the EU. The same
report
shows that 45% of the 1.1% annual
aggregate productivity in Europe was
due to
ICT between 2000-2004. Significant
impacts of IT on productivity of
firms have
been found in many other nations
including Australia (Simon and
Wardrop 2002),
Canada (Baldwin, Sabourin and Smith
2004), France (Greenan, Mairess and
Topiol-Bensaid 2001), Finland
(Maliranta and Rouvinen (2003),
Germany
(Hempell), Korea (Seo and Lee 2006),
Japan (Motohashi 2003), Netherland
(Van
Leeuwen and Van der Wiel (2004), and
Switzerland (Simon and Wardrop
2002).
Cross-national studies prove that
nations whose invest more in ICT
have
recorded more productivity (Schreyer
1999, Gust and Markez 2002, Daveri
2003,
van Ark, Inklaar and McGuckin 2003,
CSLS 2005, and OECD 2005).
4.5. Why developing nations
have less impact
While ICT investment is fastest rate
of growth in developing countries32
(Qiang
and Pitt, 2004), several studies
have found that the impacts from the
use of ICT
31 OECD
32 IT expenditures rose twice as
fast in developing countries from
1993 to 2001 compared to OECD
average.
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to be less than in developed nations
(Atkinson & McKay, 2007). Is
productivity
paradox back in ICT performance
study in developing nations? The key
reason is
that their officials have perceived
ICT sector as a source of tax
revenue and did
little to promote ICT adoption, as a
result they imposed high tariffs on
imported
ICT products and people found less
incentive to use them (give the ict
user # in
Africa, in LA and in south Asia).
Kaushik and Singh (2004) state
relating to ICT
adoption in India: High tariffs did
not create a competitive domestic
industry, and
they limited adoption by keeping
prices high. Heshmati and Yang
(2006) give
another reason when arguing that the
lack of high quality data on ICT use
in
those countries 33 . Also many
developing countries have no
proficient ICT
observatory to track information on
the ICT use and their contribution
on the
national economy; consequently many
reports stemming from international
organizations are often based on
false data34. A further reason is
that citizen
workers of developing nations have
not been trained to use ICT in order
to have
better jobs and higher wages, which
could be, resulted in better quality
of life and
in turn influence the national
economy (Atkinson & McKay, 2007).
4.6. Evaluation concept
Giving that the key problem
engendering doubts and pessimism on
ICT
productivity in earlier studies is
the evaluation method, it is vital
to understand the
evaluation concept. The word
evaluation finds etymology from the
French word
Évaluer which means determine the
value of, worth of an object. This
term was
used in US from 1960 to measure the
level of realization of goals and to
compare
different scenarios (Krief, 1999).
For Stufflebeam (1980) evaluation is
the
process to demarcate, obtain and
provide useful information in order
to make a
decision. Balantzian (1995) defines
evaluation as The allocation of a
value
33 For example software usage is
much higher than sales which is a
result of software piracy.
34 Third World Economics reported
that the World Bank's global poverty
statistics, based on income and
purchasing power parity, are
produced using wrong methodologies
and are unreliable for estimating
levels,
distribution and trends of global
poverty, according to two academics
of Columbia University in New York.
(No. 287, 16-31 August 2002)
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according to a set of preferences
repository conscript. The search for
a pure
objective evaluation is unrealistic
because every individual gives a
sense to the
evaluation via an interpretation.
Quinio (1997) himself describes
evaluation as
The stake in balance of the
investment to be made and expected
profits. From
those various definitions we note
that evaluation is aimed to
interpret
phenomena by collecting,
treating and analyzing information
in order to
support judgment on a decision
and its consequences. But
the result of an
evaluation may be quantitative,
qualitative or financial. However
Adroino (1993)
warned that Evaluation although
embraces the control notion but
overtakes this
concept.
4.6.1. How to evaluate
information system?
According to Quinio (1997) there are
numerous evaluation methods and
there is
no theoretical consensus on which
method is best or not. Then it is
imperative to
consider the method regarding to the
object to evaluate, the
chronological
position of the evaluation and the
method to collect data plus the type
of data
collected.
4.6.2. What to evaluate?
The aim of our research is to
evaluate the information systems or
information technologies of 30
public agencies and ministries
(see empirical
analysis section). We will
target not only one technology but
also the ICT
infrastructure and all
technology available in each public
institution
targeted.
4.6.3. When and why evaluate?
Scholars establish two different
chronological evaluations:
1. Evaluation ex-ante, which
anticipates the result when being
done before
the decision has been made so it can
be justified.
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2. Evaluation ex-post takes
place after the decision-making.
Our research is
evaluation control ex-post based
in order to verify how performance
objectives of IT investments are
being reached.
We measure the performance of an
information system by evaluating its
efficacy
and its efficiency, but other
scholars add other relevant elements
which are
important like: Esthetic & Ethic,
user`s satisfaction, transaction
cost, quality,
utilisability & utility and its
utilization level.
The Quinio (1997) works propose
three approaches in performance
evaluation
as set in the table below. The first
is information value approach,
which
considers the quality of the
information, but the subjective
character of this
method makes it too restrictive. The
second approach is concerning
project
evaluation which is
too limited to the objectives set by
the project. The third is
global performance approach,
which studies the link between ICT
and different
views on social, economic, systemic,
software and the control panel. This
last
approach is aimed to address the
scientific methodological approach
missing in
ICT performance evaluation. Our
research is global method based;
accordingly, we do not target one
technology but the ICT
infrastructure and
all technology available in each
public institution targeted.
Approaches
Concept
Authors
Limitation
1.
Evaluating the
Lesca et Lesca,
Evaluation too subjective;
Information
information quality
1995
Difficult to apply;
value
(quality/quantity...),
Daft et Lengel
restrictive methodology
approach
(1986) / 34.
Courbon (1993) /
34.
Evaluation of the
Zardet (1986)
Difficult to apply
output of the system
regarding the Information
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regarding decision and
technology context and
action as results.
the difficulty to extricate
decisions stemmed from
those tools.
2. Evaluation Evaluate the
Peaucelle (1996) Restrictive
methodology
project
profitability of the
Parker et Benson
concerning the project,
approach
project (Upstream);
(1988) / 34
the financial data used and
evaluate the effective Rowe (1994
a.) /
the vision adopted on
profitability
34
performance
(downstream)
3. Global
Study the link
Reix (1977)
performance between ICT and
Galbrecht (1979) /
approach
different views on
45
social, economic,
Peters et al. (1983
systemic, software
Kaplan et Norton
and the control panel. (1992)
Table of Benjamin Demissy, 2002.
Etude des impacts des NTIC sur les
performances, Lyon II University
If doubt, perplexity and pessimism
had affected the study of ICT
impacts on
performance in early 1990`s, none
can prove that ICT have no effects
on
productivity. Nevertheless new
research such as works of Quinio and
Brynjolfsson established convincing
proofs of significant impact of ICT
on
organization productivity.
Nevertheless it is important to note
that these impacts
whether direct or indirect are
scattered and are contingent to
organizational and
strategic management. Brynjolfsson
(1998) concluded that the question
now is
not whether technologies contribute
to productivity but how to make more
computerization effective.
4.7. Impacts of ICT on public
management
4.7.1 ICT impacts require
organizational changes
Before we study the ICT impacts on
public management, it is important
to note
that any organization which aims to
have ICT impacts must do more than
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investing in ICT, it requires
fundamental reengineer processes.
Bresnahan,
Brynjolsson and Hitt (2000) note:
Firms do not simply plug in
computers or
telecommunications equipment and
achieve service quality or
efficiency gains.
Instead they go through a process of
organizational redesign and make
substantial changes to their service
or output mix. The OECD (2000) found
that
IT seems to offer the greater
benefit when ICT investment is
combined with
other organizational assets. Bartel,
Ichniowski and Shaw (2005) add, Once
a
business invests in new IT based
production machinery and installs
the
equipment on the factory floor, it
will be changing the fundamental
nature of what
it does and how it does it.
Though we are convinced that
technologies have strong impact on
productivity and performance,
we will not forget that those
impacts are not
automatic but are associated with
organizational changes.
Experiences have
demonstrated that to ascertain
actual impacts of performance by
exposing an
organization to ICT, it is
inevitably necessary to manage to
make evolved the
behavior of the actors using the
technology. In fact, during
implementation
process, the actors of organization
usually consider ICT as a myth. With
the
availability of the ICT
infrastructures and tools answering
their need, their
curiosity will be sharpened to
discover more and if the technology
remains during
the period of time needed
organizational behavior changes will
be visible,
consequently there will be a social
appropriation which will result in
real
(performance) impacts while
necessary actions should be
undertook to provoke
organizational changes.
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Figure 4.2
Jane A. Fountain (2001) in her book
Building the virtual state
proposes an
analytical framework named
enacting technology which can
help us understand
better the process of ICT impacts on
public institutions and why
productivity and
performance impacts are not
automatics. She posits that
capability and potential
of an information system are enacted
by the users of the system she goes
on to
say that individuals and
organizations enact information
technology by their
interpretation, design,
implementation, and use of it in
their organization and
networks. This interpretation
implies cognition, culture, social
networks, formal
rules regimes that will shape the
behavior of individuals and
organization as a
result the outcomes should be
indeterminate, unanticipated and
multiple. Civil
servants perceive ICT as source of
insecurity and distrust, because of
fear to
lose power or unfamiliarity with
technology. The perception of a lack
of positive
impacts of ICT tools and this
uncertainty causes by the use of ICT
in public
organisation will constitute a
serious pretext for a strong
resilience to change
(Garson, 2005); the organizational
changes thus are not only
indeterminate and
unanticipated but also conjectural.
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Technology Enactment of Fountain
Figure 4.3 Technology Enactment:
An analytical Framework (Fountain,
2002: 91)
It is indisputable that ICT have
serious impacts on public
management, for
example the use of network systems
to interconnect organizations
results in
possibility of lowering cost, using
fewer resources and physical outputs
which
gives rise to efficiency gains
(Mechling, 2002). However those
impacts are
registered in organizational level,
instead of institutional level, as
ICT affects
actually the key characteristics of
the Weberian bureaucracy (see table
#) like
production, coordination, control,
and direction processes (Fountain,
2002). But
the organizational changes will not
automatically turn into
institutional changes,
Gasco (2003) makes it plain when
stating that institutional change
occurs
whenever and alteration of relative
prices is perceived by one of the
parties
taking part from a transaction as
win-win situation for that party of
for all the
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Performance
participants involved. Therefore,
institutional change depends on the
actors`
perceptions with respect to the
gains to be obtained. Because of
human
cognition, the cultural and
sociostructural, the legal and
formal structure changing
organizational at institutional
level is a gigantesque task that
requires
considerable political negotiation
and deep cultural change (Fountain,
2002).
Table 4.0 Organizational changes
in Weberian bureaucracy
Elements of weberian bureaucracy
Organizational changes
Functional differentiation,
Information
structured
using
information
Precise division of labor,
technology rather than people;
organizational
Clear jurisdictional boundaries
structure based on information
systems rather
than people
Hierarchy of offices and individuals
Electronic and informal
communication; teams
carry out the work and make
decisions
Files, written documents, staff to
maintain and Digitized files in
flexible form, maintained and
transmit files
transmitted electronically using
sensors, bar
codes, transponders, handheld
computers;
chips record, store, analyze, and
transmit data;
systems staff maintain hardware,
software, and
telecommunication
Employees are natural, impersonal,
attached to Employees are
cross-functional, empowered;
a particulate office
jobs limited not only by expertise
but also by
the extend and sophistication of
computer
mediation
Office system of general rules,
standard Rules
embedded
in
applications
and
operating procedures, performance
programs
information systems; an invisible,
virtual
structure
Slow processing time due to batch
processing, Rapid or real-time
processing
delays, lags, multiple handoffs
Long cycles of feedback and
adjustment
Constant monitoring and updating of
feedback;
more rapid or real-time adjustment
possible.
Source: Comparison of Weberian and
virtual bureaucracies in Building
the Virtual State by Jane A.
Fountain,
2002: 61.
4.8. Conclusion
Undeniably technologies have strong
impact on productivity and
performance;
nevertheless the projected positive
impact is not automatic and
therefore is
associated with organizational
changes. The organizational
changes expected
depend on the interpretation of the
civil servants who are using the ICT;
this fact
makes the impacts not only
indeterminate and unanticipated but
also conjectural.
However the organizational changes
should not expected to turn
automatically
into institutional changes. In this
present research we have the
opportunity to
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The Impacts of Information
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Performance
investigate some organizational
changes the use of ICT and networks
communication in public
administration is occasioned and how
strong it is the
resilience to change in Haitian
public organizations.
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