The Role of Business and Information Systems Engineering in E-Government

Abstract

“In memoriam Elena”. This was the headline of an article published in an important German weekly newspaper at the end of July this year. One can easily imagine this entitles the expected end of the governmental program for digital collection of employees’ data in Germany. This struggle to achieve an efficient governmental administration has now failed once and for all, which unfortunately is no global exception but represents numerous “well thought and badly realized” IT-projects of this kind within the public sector. But why are such mammoth projects initiated in the public sector and which role does IT play here? International debt crisis, financial crisis, or economic crisis, the demographic change, new technologies as well as increased safety demands are just some of the challenges the administrative organization of multiple countries need to take up. Additionally, the citizens’ level of expectation for higher performance and better service is increasing whereas – due to the pressure of rising costs – the governmental processes have to cope with the task of becoming more and more “efficient”. In this mesh of requirements, developments, and interest groups the idea of E-Government can be regarded as a practical attempt at a solution. The objective and vision behind IT-projects in E-Government contexts are clear and understandable: simplification and realization of information, communication, and transaction processes within and between governmental, local, and other official institutions as well as between these institutions and citizens and companies respectively by using digital information and communication technology. Here, IT can be seen as an enabler for a modern administration. Exemplarily, automation, streamlining, and harmonization of common governmental processes by means of building and developing shared service centers as well as the development and supply of portals can open potential for rationalization and finally ease the public budget. Although the underlying motivation is unambiguous and research as well as practice demonstrate lively interest in this objective – as many conferences (e.g., European Conference on E-Government, International Conference on E-Government) and journals (e.g., Electronic Journal of E-Government) in the context of E-Government indicate – realization is often a difficult, time-consuming, and scarcely accepted undertaking. What are the reasons that such projects in the administration – which is the sector with the highest IT-demand with expenditures of over $ 490 billion per anno worldwide (Gartner 2010) – do not receive public acceptance, although the objectives of cost reduction and more service for citizens are targeted? Why do E-Government efforts have to be postponed or even suspended in spite of immense investments? The answer to these questions requires a differentiated consideration. Exemplarily, a study conducted in 2010 shows (IDG NOA Sonderstudie 2010) that the public takes an extremely skeptical view on E-Government efforts. In particular, concerns about data protection and data security – especially the lacking transfer security and the conscientiousness when dealing with data – are described as critical aspects. First of all, the public is afraid to become “transparent citizens” and therefore takes a defensive position. Besides incidents in private enterprises – the hacker attack on the “playstation”network of Sony in spring 2011 caused an economic damage estimated at more than $ 170 million – of course other incidents within the governmental administration result in stirring up more (partly justified) misgivings. For example, in Estonia a “denial of service” attack in 2007 briefly paralyzed a majority of the IT-infrastructure of banks, authorities, the police, and the government, which naturally reduced the public trust in E-Government endeavors. Apart from such external attacks, also already failed projects or projects with a catastrophic cost-benefit-ratio increase the public concerns. Unfortunately, the above mentioned example Elena is no exception.