Editorial

Citation

Irani, Z. and Kamal, M. (2016), "Editorial", Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, Vol. 10 No. 3, pp. 354-358. https://doi.org/10.1108/TG-06-2016-0038

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the third issue of the tenth volume of Transforming Government: People, Process, and Policy (TGPPP). Over the years, the constant update of the journal’s scope to advocate theoretical as well as empirical research has led to an increase in the quality of submissions and citations. The papers in this issue of TGPPP provide a rich contextual background in the area of Food Security as a Government imperative, transformation of service delivery in a developing country, adopting welfare e-Payment system, understanding e-Government through information technology (IT) assets, IT infrastructure performance and IT infrastructure capability, m-Governance, e-Democracy and cross-border e-Prescription and patient summary services.

This issue commences with a viewpoint by Amir Sharif and Zahir Irani, entitled “People, Process and Policy Perspectives on Food Security: An Exploration using Systems Archetypes”. In this viewpoint, Sharif and Irani argue that the ever-increasing population across the world is adding substantial pressures on natural and man-made resources that are in turn creating competition for basic human needs, such as land, water and energy. In addition to the challenges of growing and shifting populations, the latter changes to lifestyle and consumption in general is having an increasing impact upon health and well-being through changes to dietary intake as well as materials required to produce and deliver food. Thus, this viewpoint identifies a wider holistic view of the inter-relationships relating to food security from a people, process and policy perspective. Decision and policy-makers can thus identify relevant alignments between disparate and (at times) conflicting priority elements in the field. Noting the complexity of inter-related challenges posed by food security, food supply chains and associated and growing concerns over food waste are pressing issues identified in this viewpoint that seeks to identify cross-cutting themes relative to shared energy and water security objectives. The authors develop and adapt to an existing food security framework to encapsulate the above, culminating in a systems archetype that defines the intimate feed-forward and feed-back that impact people, process and policy dimensions of the food security and the food, energy and water nexus. This viewpoint contributes to the body of knowledge by raising awareness and highlighting the inherent inter-relationships within the food debate for the benefit of decision and policy makers who are at the organisational level, specifically around people, process and policy.

Following the above viewpoint, we have a research paper by Noore Siddiquee, entitled “E-Government and Transformation of Service Delivery in Developing Countries: The Bangladesh Experience & Lessons”. In this paper, Noore reports that in Bangladesh, e-Government has been high on the government’s agenda for improving governance and service delivery. However, he further argues that the goals of e-Government remain broad and ambitious. The launch of Digital Bangladeshⁱⁱ in 2009 e-Government has acquired added significance, as it is increasingly viewed as a tool for fighting poverty and achieving the millennium development goals (MDGs). Moreover, it is seen as a strategy that would facilitate the nation’s transition to a middle-income country by 2021. While e-Government goals are both ambitious and challenging, questions abound, such as:

Q1.

Can a resource poor country like Bangladesh translate her e-Government vision into reality?

Q2.

What is the current state of e-Government development and to what extent has it helped modify the traditional systems and processes?

Q3.

Has it made any difference in governance and service delivery?

Q4.

How promising is the e-Government outlook for the future?

This paper addresses some of these questions to assess its impact on public services in Bangladesh. Overall, the lessons learnt from the Bangladesh experience have much relevance to other developing countries with similar socio-economic circumstances. Noore asserts that the policy makers and practitioners are expected to benefit from the insights of the paper.

We then have Anna Che Azmi, Yen Dee Ang and Siti Talib presenting their research, entitled “Trust and Justice in the Adoption of a Welfare E-payment System”. In this paper, the authors argue that one specific problematic area in e-Government is the low level of participation of poor citizens in e-Government services, such as the electronic social welfare programmes, compared to the wider adoption of other systems. For instance, research conducted by Csáki et al., (2013) found that the trend in welfare payment systems is to move away from traditional, paper-based payment methods toward electronic payments. These research studies demonstrate that the recipients of governmental aid experience problems in receiving such payments. In this paper, the authors examine the interaction between citizens’ perception of justice and their trust in the government agency that provides e-services, in particular, those e-services with users who are particularly sensitive toward their interaction and exchanges with the government. In doing so, the e-Government welfare payment system in Malaysia, e-BR1M is selected as the subject of examination in this study. Analysis of 102 surveys completed by users of e-BR1M was conducted. Partial least squares regression, a form of structural equation modelling was used for the data analysis. The authors contribute by providing an understanding of the factors that build trust in a government e-system, particularly for those users, such as poor citizens, who are sensitive toward government interaction.

Then we have Deepak Dahiya and Saji Mathew presenting their case study-based research, entitled “IT Assets, IT Infrastructure Performance and IT Capability: A Framework for E-Government”. In this research, Deepak and Saji argue that although prior research has extensively addressed the impact of IT infrastructure capability on firm performance, studies addressing how these factors interact together and impact outcomes of e-Government services has received much less attention in the literature. Against a backdrop of the increasing adoption of technology by governments, this study seeks to bridge the above gaps by developing a framework to study the effect of IT performance and IT capability on e-Government performance. This research builds on the existing literature on IT assets, IT infrastructure performance and IT infrastructure capability and applies it to the domain of e-Government. From the industry perspective, this research would help in providing a methodology to identify the right set of IT infrastructure elements fitting an e-Government strategy. The proposed conceptual framework was validated through a case-study-based method. The data were collected following the interview method used for deductive theory building. This study resulted in three sets of propositions:

1. One that anticipates a positive influence of IT infrastructure investments on IT performance in the presence of appropriate service delivery models like SOA and cloud; Second that proposes a positive relationship between IT infrastructure performance and IT capability; and

2. Third that proposes a positive relationship between IT capability and e-Government performance.

Following the above research paper, we have a paper by Gunjan Tomer, Gaurav Chauhan and Prabin Panigrahi, entitled “Feasibility of m-Governance in Agriculture: Insights from a Multimodal Study in Rural India”. In this paper, the authors explore the importance of mobile technology to enable diffusion of agriculture-related knowledge among farmers in India. The purpose is to evaluate the current socio-economic factors and challenges (e.g. lack of infrastructure, low productivity per hectare, limited knowledge and poverty among farmers) that impact the feasibility of m-governance project. Different behavioural aspects of farmers, specifically their information-seeking behaviour to understand their communication ecosystem are also investigated. The research design is based on a multi-method approach (e.g. personal interviews and experimental observation, including archival data about existing policies) to ensure data validation and improve robustness of findings. The findings demonstrate the pattern of mobile usage among the farmers which could lead to interesting implications for the design and implementation of future m-governance projects. Considering the need and significance of agriculture-based reforms in rural India, this paper offers guidance in devising an efficient communication medium among farmers and government. The authors infer from their field observations that the communication platform is vital for successfully reaching farmers for their overall welfare. The present work is based on findings which are drawn from the ground reality which helps in explicating inferences which are useful for implementation purpose.

Then, we have another study by Aderonke Oni, Charles Ayo, Samuel Oni and Victor Mbarika, entitled “Strategic Framework for E-Democracy Development and Sustainability”. This paper develops a strategic framework for e-Democracy implementation and sustainability. In doing so, a systematic qualitative analysis of e-Democracy/e-Government frameworks, models and strategies existing in literature using the Grounded Theory Method (GTM) (Strauss and Corbin, 1998) was conducted. The investigation focused on the e-Democracy strategies and practices of countries among the top 20 performers in e-Participation implementation as rated in the UN E-Government Survey (2010, 2012, and 2014) to draw lessons for developing a credible framework for interactive and strategic e-Democracy implementation. The proposed strategic framework was validated using Delphi technique (with experts in the domain identified to evaluate the framework), and findings reveal that the strategic frameworks have the plausibility to serve as springboard for implementing e-Democracy in the nations of the world. The strategic framework has the potential to serve as a spring board for e-democracy implementation. It extracts existing strategies and best practices that can be adopted to add value to e-Democracy implementation. The authors assert that, that by using the strategic framework, developing nations can take advantage of their present level of technological development to give voice to the voiceless and improve their democratic system.

Finally, we have a paper by Dimitrios Katehakis, George Pangalos and Andriana Prentza, entitled “Research Note: A European eHealth Space for Moving Cross-border e-Prescription and Patient Summary Services Forward”. This paper presents a framework for moving cross-border e-Prescription and Patient Summary services (eP/PS) forward, considering the needs and requirements of the European eHealth space for cross-border eP/PS services, the limitations of the developed solutions as well as outcomes available from other domains. According to Tinholt et al. (2013), the use of eP/PS services has been recognised as an important strategic policy to improve healthcare across Europe so as to support access to safe and high-quality, cross-border healthcare and promote cooperation on healthcare between member states. The authors argue that although several public e-Services are available at the national level, this is not always the case across borders. To help their development, a number of large scale pilot (LSP) projects have been developed and run under the Information and Communication Technologies Policy Support Programme (ICT-PSP) of the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP) (CIP, 2016) of the European Commission (ICT-PSP, 2016) in five main areas: electronic identity management (e-ID), e-Procurement, e-Business, e-Health and e-Justice, to engage public authorities, service providers and research centres across the EU.

We hope you will find this issue interesting and thought provoking and hope to receive your valuable contributions for the forthcoming issue.