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Public Ends by Digital Means: some thoughts on e-government and the creation of public value
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Osorio, Carlos Araque |
| Copyright Year | 2002 |
| Abstract | This paper is about the importance of understanding and managing context in digital government. It presents a working definition for electronic government –public ends by digital means– that focuses the analysis in terms of the purpose of e-government projects, and their possibilities for creating public value. In the context of the five questions for the workshop, this paper highlights different subjects worth of consideration for better understanding and managing the evolution of digital government. “Public Ends by Digital Means”: a working definition for electronic government Should a public agency get involved in e-government projects? Why? What is electronic government? These questions seem to have no place in a world where every public project attached to an “e” appears to be not only modern, but also necessary. Since the beginning of the information revolution, more companies and public agencies have adopted “e-business” strategies in order to take advantage of the new opportunities brought by the new information and communication technologies (ICTs), as response to tendencies in the respective industries or markets and, every so often, as result of some decision maker’s wishful thinking. The success of e-business projects, however, relies on numerous factors not necessarily related with the superiority of an original idea, business model or technological solution, but with the different managerial, cultural, organizational, and institutional issues and realities of networked environments. The importance of these subjects, which have been perceived in the business sector after the death of the “dotcom” bubble during the mid-2000, have passed almost unnoticeable for the public sector, where the need for being digital had overshadow the real possibilities for creating public valuei. A possible reason for this may be found in a failure to define electronic government in a way that somehow considers the creation of public value as the major goal to achieve, instead of getting digital. As stated by Fountain (2001), there is a new type of system dynamic among technology, organization and institution. The endogenous nature of this dynamic, the fact that ICT are general purpose technologies (GPT), and differences between public and private organizations in Fountain’s Virtual State open the door to question their scope of action, and the way in which they can work. Thus, it is not enough to analyze the organizational and institutional context of an e-government project, but also the way in which it is oriented to reach a public end (Whether it needs to be related or not to its mandate, or mission, may be arguably). Furthermore, the analysis goes deeper in questioning the continuing role for a public agency when the public end it is achieved by digital means, changing the incentives structure to an extent to which it can be provided by a private organization. |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://www.umass.edu/digitalcenter/events/2002Workshop/Papers/osorio_white.pdf |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://www.catedras.fsoc.uba.ar/rusailh/Unidad%207/Osorio,%20C%202002%20Public%20Ends%20by%20Digital%20Means,%20some%20thoughts%20on%20egovernment%20and%20the%20creation%20of%20public%20value,%20NSF%20Digital%20Govt%20Workshop.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
