Public value theory suggests that citizens value the services they authorize, the creation of which they participate in, and the outcomes associated with them. This study aims to understand how governments prioritize e-government initiatives in order to maximize public value.
Background
Only through proper prioritization of e-government initiatives will governments be able to maximize the limited resources at their disposal. This work also seeks to contribute to the body of work around the role of citizens in the formation and development of ICT projects as identified by Olphert & Damodaran (2007).
ZimConnect – A Totally Connected Government
Problem Statement
Ochara (2010) suggests that poor conceptualization leads to project failure, while emphasizing grassroots participation as key to the sustainability of e-government initiatives. Similar programs have been launched in the SADC region with countries such as Zambia (Bwalya, 2009), Botswana, South Africa, Seychelles (Bwalya &.
Objectives of the Study
Without a full understanding of the process governments go through to decide which projects to undertake and when, the problem of failed implementations will likely continue to plague e-government programs. Only when this process is understood, documented and optimized can governments reach a stage where projects are optimally prioritized.
Justification of the study
Research Methodology
While certain general ideas or expectations can be used to guide the case, no hypothesis is formulated (Mouton, 2001). Case studies can be used to tell interesting stories that others can relate to while exploring or testing theories within the messy realities of real life.
Limitations and Bias
The quality of a case study is determined by the plausibility of the story being told, as opposed to measures of validity and reliability as in the case of positivist studies (Myers, 2009). Case studies can be lengthy because the researcher allocates time for interviews, conducts the actual interviews, and interprets the results.
Structure of the dissertation
A further limitation of the study was therefore that it only examined the views of the civil servants and not the demand side of the relationship.
Summary
Introduction
E-Government and its role in public service delivery
2011) argue that t-government encompasses a wider organizational and socio-technical spectrum than e-government and its successful deployment requires changes in government structures, operations and culture. In the case of government-business (G2B) interactions, e-government platforms can facilitate collaboration between government and business as well as allow online transactions.
E-Government implementation in context
In terms of citizens, failure to design citizen-centric systems and failure to ensure privacy and security are also seen as challenges for e-government projects. The use of e-government as a cover for government employees to hide behind to avoid accountability is seen as a challenge, along with the failure to make service delivery rules clear to all.
E-Government in Zimbabwe
As a result of the adoption of this strategy, a series of consultative meetings were held that led to the adoption of a national e-government strategy (Government of Zimbabwe, 2011) from which the ZimConnect project was born. A number of people challenges such as availability of the right skills, availability of the right numbers as well as change management skills are also highlighted.
Theoretical Perspectives on e-government implementations
All the studies and documents cited point to some form of resource challenge. One of the early works that attempts to explore how citizens view government must be Smith &.
Public Value of E-Government
Three distinct but related processes support the creation of public value and form a framework called the strategic triangle (Benington & Moore, 2011). Alford & O‟Flynn (2009) describe public value as a normative theory and offer three possible applications of public value theory.
Co-creation and co-production
The authors advocate making the necessary knowledge and resources available to enable full participation of all citizens in co-production. The Open Government initiative is mentioned as an example of a co-production initiative in which participation and cooperation are central.
Prior work in Project Prioritisation
Monitoring is achieved through online testimonials that are curated and used by the public for their own use. The research by Rosacker & Olson (2008) points to a number of methods for selecting financial projects used in the public sector.
Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP)
Their study catalogs the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of the e-government initiative in Turkey and then uses AHP to prioritize the resulting strategies. Arguments against AHP have centered around a weakness in handling situations where two alternatives are closely matched (Triantaphyllou & Mann, 1995) and situations arising from the introduction of irrelevant alternatives (Forman & Gass, 2001), both of which have been known to lead to rank reversals in the early versions of the AHP model, which since the AHP model has persisted 91 .
Summary
While the mathematics of AHP is beyond the scope of this work, several tools are publicly available that facilitate the use of the AHP model as long as one understands the heritage of the problem at hand without having to understand the mathematical principles behind the tool. For the purpose of this study, K.D Goepels' AHP model version based on Microsoft Excel (available from http://bpmsg.com) will be used to create a prioritization model as described in the following chapter.
Introduction
Theoretical underpinning
In an environment where the public is distrustful of government, authorization is likely to be important. Similarly, consideration must be given to the method of creation and delivery of services that the public is likely to value most.
Prioritisation framework
A pairwise comparison of these using AHP will result in a weighted list of service creation criteria. The same project is related to service creation criterion 1, weight 7.4; which is part of the 5.2 weight of the service creation strategy, giving this project a service creation factor of 1.3.
Summary
When prioritizing projects, each individual project within a large number of projects is associated with authorization criteria, service creation criteria and the result it is most likely to affect or have an influence on. Finally, the project result is result 6, weight 4.3; which is part of the performance strategy weight 79.7, giving this project a performance factor of 1.0.
Introduction
Philosophical Paradigms
Terre Blance, Durrheim and Painter (1999) summarize positivism as having an ontology rooted in a stable and law-like reality, while the nature of the relationship to the researcher or its epistemology as being objective, with the observer separate. At the other end of the philosophical paradigm is the critical research paradigm, defined by Oates (2006) as being concerned with identifying power relations, conflicts and contradictions and empowering people to eliminate them as sources of alienation and dominance.
Why interpretive research
Postmodernists challenge the way research is conducted in the more dominant paradigms described above, seeking to break down disciplinary boundaries and give voice to those who do not subscribe to current beliefs (Mehra &. Kilduff, 1997). The rest of this paper discusses a number of possible theories, in the interpretive paradigm, which could provide a theoretical framework for such an investigation.
Research Design
Data Collection
Three of the interviewees were part of the ZimConnect project steering committee that oversaw the implementation of the project. Instead of an extensive document study, a targeted information search was conducted to supplement the interview results, which mainly provided background information on the project and the public value strategic triangle output work.
Relating the research instruments to the objectives
This step is referred to as the creation of the "Prioritization Model" in Figure 7 above after step 1. A focus group of thirteen public managers, consisting of some members of the steering committee, government project managers as well as the implementation company responsible for the ZimConnect implementation undertook the ranking exercise to create a prioritization model. The researcher used the interviews to understand how services are created and delivered, and focused on the role of the public in the co-creation of services.
Data Analysis
A second set of results is the "Prioritization Model" as described in the conceptual framework presented in the last chapter (see Figure 7 above). The input for this model came from the analysis of the interviews and document analysis. The final set of results is the list of prioritized projects based on the framework, which is then compared to the actual list of implemented projects selected without using this model.
Summary
The advantage of this is that it provides better insight into the specific areas on which it focuses. Key messages from each interview were extracted and entered into a topic matrix for recording with a column for each respondent. In addition to the key themes of authorisation, service creation and outcomes as prescribed by the public value strategic triangle, data were coded into additional themes relating to project drivers, challenges associated with each of the key themes and other insights related to project delivery.
Introduction
Analysis of Results / Findings
IR1 Public involvement is not considered a priority IR1 The government is not structured to listen to the voice of the public IR1. The Ministry of Finance (MoF) was responsible for obtaining funds for the implementation of the project.
Application of AHP in E-Government Project Prioritisation
The ranking showed that managers believe that projects that have been endorsed by national policy documents such as ZimAsset have the greatest value to the public. Services offered only by the public or only by the private sector were judged unlikely to provide public value.
Summary
Food security and nutrition was rated highly as an outcome and this combined with the fact that the outcomes were ranked high as the strategy bringing the most public value meant that projects with this outcome would be rated highly. Projects that had a low ranked result, such as public administration, governance and performance management, ended up being ranked low.
Introduction
This chapter begins with a narrative summary of the main findings of this study, as presented in the previous chapter. This chapter also discusses possible interpretations of the findings and links them to the literature.
Summary of Findings
Limitations of this study are presented along with implications of the study for theory, policy and practice. Managers considered the way projects were authorized to be of the least importance.
Interpretation of the Findings
The services connected with the writing and promulgation of laws were for the benefit of the public and not of individuals, and were likely to remain in the hands of the government. The one-time exercise of model production based on the circumstances of a particular government forces public managers to think about what matters to the public in terms of three public value strategies.
Conclusions
In addition to considering the relative level of public involvement in the three strategies of approval, creation and results; the model also takes into account the relative importance that the public is likely to attach to the three strategies themselves. Public managers see the role of government as providing services to the public.
Implication of the findings for theory, policy and practice
Limitations of the Study
The prioritization framework is a central part of this work, and during the mock prioritization conducted with managers, it became clear that there is rarely a one-to-one correlation between initiatives and results, which provides an opportunity to improve later versions of the tool. It is possible that public participation in projects may be different in non-ICT projects.
Personal Reflection and Evaluation
As one of the respondents pointed out, some of the concepts for which they try and seek public opinion are new to the public, making the consultation process more difficult.
Suggestions and recommendations for future research
ZIMBABWE NATIONAL INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY (ICT) POLICY FRAMEWORK, Harare: Office of the President and Cabinet. A study of the public value of e-government in Sri Lanka - dissertation, Melbourne: RMIT University.
