[AISWorld] CFP Measuring E-government efficiency. The opinions of Public Administrators and other Stakeholders

[Chris Reddick]

CALL FOR CHAPTER PROPOSALS
Proposal Submission: 1st December 2012 
Full Chapter Submission: 1st April 2013
Title of the Book: Measuring E-government efficiency. The opinions of Public Administrators and other Stakeholders
A Book Edited by Dr. Manuel Pedro Rodríguez Bolívar, 
University of Granada, Spain
To be published by Springer Science and Business Media

1. Introduction
      Increasingly connected citizens and stakeholders are demanding that governments be more transparent and deliver services more rapidly and efficiently. Ready access to information of public value, increased transparency in government operations and a greater willingness to listen to citizens and secure their involvement: these are pivotal requirements for efficient, open and responsive government.
      In recent decades, governments around the world have been faced with rapidly growing challenges on how to make public service and administration transparent, effective and efficient. The implementation of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) has helped meet, enabling greater accessibility to public information and services, together with greater interaction and individual participation in public management and greater information transparency. 
      In this context, the question of e-Government has become one of the most important issues on political agendas today, and is a concept which seems to be constantly developing. This tendency is understood to be one of the forms of expression of the information society, in addition to being a central part of the process of the modernization of public administration, allowing a strategic and intensive use of ICT, both in the internal relations of public administrations, and in terms of the relationship with citizens and with companies in the private sector.
      This recent interest in e-Government has been reflected in the large amount of research studies and projects reported in diverse academic disciplines and journals, including articles highlighting the usefulness of e-Government as a method to reduce corruption in government through a greater transparency in information and public functions, as a means of improving current public services, and as an instrument to enhance performance regarding the accurate, efficient provision of services. In sum, these studies have sought to highlight the possibilities of e-government implementations and to show different experiences about e-government projects. Nonetheless, these e-government implementations are usually not justified from an efficient analysis point of view by both Governments and researchers, and it is difficult to know if these implementations are meeting stakeholders' demands regarding information transparency, rendering of online public services or citizens' participation in public sector management.

2. Objectives
      This book will be a convenient source of information on important developments regarding e-government around the world and its effects on the meeting of stakeholders' needs and on the work of public managers/politicians. Its focus will be split between perceptions about efficiency of e-government technologies by public sector officials and politicians and perceptions about efficiency of e-government technologies by stakeholders. 
      Therefore, the proposal of the book would explore if e-government applications are introduced as a fad or they are introduced according to real demands from the citizenry. In this regard, this book would analyze if public managers and policy-makers think that e-government policies have improved their management and decision-making process through the engagement of the citizenry or else they are only a procedural improvement through the introduction of new ways of delivering public services or disclosing public sector information.
      Therefore, this book seeks to contribute to the literature by filling the existing void and expanding knowledge in the field of the accomplishment of expectations about E-government applications for both public administrations and stakeholders, making it of interest to both academics and policy-makers.
      In brief, the aim of this book is to make a critical view of e-government developments from the perception point of view of stakeholders about e-government projects and their effects. Based on opinion surveys driven to different stakeholder groups as well as public managers and politicians, this book seeks know the achievement of expectations created by public managers, policy-makers and stakeholders in the implementation of E-government policies and applications. 
3. Intended Audience and Potential Uses
* Politicians and public sector officials (public managers and civil servants) who need a convenient source of information on the efficiency of e-government initiatives and on the stakeholders' perception on those initiatives.
* Private company executives, leaders and consultants who frequently liaise with government agencies to carry out e-government projects.
* Practitioners desirous of implementing new technologies efficiently for their Government clients.
* Citizenry and public, on the whole, in order to know the efficiency of e-government projects to meet stakeholders' needs and to evaluate the efforts and investments of governments into e-government projects.
* Academicians, researches and students interested in the e-government field.
* E-Government professionals involved with technology procurement, management of technology projects, consulting and advising on technology issues and management.

4. Recommended Topics and Themes
The book seeks to answer some research questions such as:
a) How do stakeholders perceive the developments made in E-government projects?.
b) Do stakeholders think that e-government projects change the way in which public managers and politicians face their relationship with them? Or do stakeholders think that e-government is only the application of New Technologies to the traditional relationship with them?.
c) Do public managers think that e-government is positive for their work? Do they think that, under the e-government framework, they keep the power in the relationship with their stakeholders? Can they manage the relationship with stakeholders with tools like Web 2.0 applications?.
d) Do politicians think that they keep the ability of driving e-government policies in the areas they are interested? Or do they think that they are forced to introduce some e-government policies or applications due to the citizenry pressures and they aren't able to drive the development of e-government implementation to the appropriated direction?
e) In this regard, should the development of e-government be in a similar way in different contexts, countries, etc..? or should there be different models of e-government, all of them valid, for different contexts?

      Therefore, the proposed book intends to include, but is not limited to, chapters in the following broad topics and themes:
1. Theories and applications on measuring e-government efficiency. It focuses on understanding how e-government efficiency could be measured.
2. Studies on perception of politicians on e-government developments regarding the improvement of government efficiency and the interaction with stakeholders.
3. Studies on perception of public managers regarding the efficiency in the rendering of public services or in the information transparency.
4. Studies on perception of politicians and public managers regarding the legitimacy of the actions taken by public administrations.
5. Studies on perception of stakeholders like citizenry, financial institutions, trade unions, etc. in e-government developments regarding the improvement of public sector services, participation or information transparency.
6. Analysis about the reasons why public managers and politicians are undertaking e-government projects, as well as why stakeholders could be forcing public administrations in order to undertake e-government projects.
7. Comparative studies on e-government efficiency and the possible reasons for differences. It seeks to know why similar e-government initiatives could obtain different outcomes under different contexts.
8. Analysis about the power in the relationship between government and their stakeholders under the implementation of new technologies such as web 2.0 applications.
9. Measurement of the improvement of government interoperability, government e-service innovation and management.
10. Regulations and public policies frameworks used for driving efficient e-government projects.

Submission Procedure
      Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit on or before December, 1st, 2012, a 2-3 page chapter proposal clearly explaining the mission and concerns of his or her proposed chapter. Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by January 15th, 2013 about the status of their proposals and sent chapter guidelines. Full chapters are expected to be submitted by April 1st, 2013. All submitted chapters will be reviewed on a double-blind review basis.
Publisher
     
   This book is scheduled to be published by Springer Science and Business Media, publisher of the Public Administration and Information Technology (http://www.springer.com/series/10796) book series. This publication is anticipated to be released in 2014.

Important Dates and Deadlines
December 1, 2012: Proposal Submission Deadline
January 15, 2013: Notification of Proposal Acceptance
April 1, 2013: Full Chapter Submission
June 1, 2013: Notification of Chapter Acceptance along with Reviewer Comments
July 15, 2013: Final Chapter Submission along with signed Copyright Agreement
July 31, 2013: Final Deadline

Inquiries and submissions can be forwarded electronically (Word document) or by mail to:
Prof. Manuel Pedro Rodríguez Bolívar
Department of Accounting and Finance,
University of Granada, Spain
e-mail: manuelp at ugr.es