Implementing e-government:
managerial and organisational
challenges
Professor Ian McLoughlin
Childrens
Services
NERSC: Smart
Cards
Electronic
Social
Care
Records
Newcastle CC:
Information
Services
AMASE
(Advanced Multi-Agency Service Environment)
Engineering and Physical Sciences
Research Council
European Commission
AESOP
(web portals for Euro
Chambers of Commerce)
ODPM
-Implementing local e-government
-FAME
“Implementing e-government
is about managing change”
(E-Champion, Metropolitan
Borough)
The six phases of change…..
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ENTHUSIASM
DISILLUSIONMENT
PANIC
SEARCH FOR THE GUILTY
PUNISHMENT OF THE INNOCENT
PRAISE AND REWARDS FOR THE NONPARTICIPANTS
The complexity of change
• Change is not a ‘one off event’ with clear
objectives, timescales and identifiable outcomes
• Change is a process where objectives are
frequently unclear, timescales are uncertain,
outcomes are difficult to predict
• ‘Change’ is normally changes and takes place in
a context which itself is increasingly uncertain
and subject to…change
• Change involves organisations and those who
manage it to risk and vulnerabilities…things can
and do ‘go wrong’
Modernisation and e-government in
UK local government authorities
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Political driver: modernisation of public
service delivery to improve efficiency,
cost effectiveness, quality, access and
role in economic regeneration.
Rapid change target: ‘100%’ services
‘on-line’ by 2005 (accelerated from
2008). Set by P.M. in 2000.
Potentially ‘disruptive technology’ for
local government (e.g. creation of ‘ecitizen’ rethinking of role of local
government organisation as a broker
of branded information services)
UK has strong national strategy but
very varied contexts of adoption (rural,
county, urban authorities)
Inter-organisational and professional
challenges of information sharing,
joining up services and links to private
sector (e.g. e-procurement).
Most local authorities little experience
of managing major transformational
change
Standard change as ‘event’ model
Vision
Plan
Monitor
Implement
Change outcome
Change as a process
Learning
Vision
Strategizing
Plan
Monitor
Evaluating
Implement
Resource
Mobilization
Objective IT
Organisational
Forms
Institutional
Arrangements
Jane Fountain Building the Virtual
State 2001
Enacted
Technology
• perception
• design
• implementation
• use
Outcomes
• indeterminate
• Multiple
•Unanticipated
•Influenced by rational,
social and
political logics
E-Government as sociotechnical change
Technology
Business
Processes
Working
Practices
Participation
Local E-government:
process evaluation
• Study conducted in 2002/2003
• Focus on implementation of e-government in English
local authorities
• Postal survey of representative sample of 267 local
authorities
• 180 case study interviews with officers, members and
partners in 10 local authorities
• http://www.local.odpm.gov.uk/research/egovrprt.pdf
Research Objectives
• Explore the extent of variation in practice
of local authorities in achieving egovernment to find out what works and in
what context
• Understand which processes lead to what
outcomes and impacts
• Develop outcome and impact indicators
Process of socio-technical change
in implementing e-government
Participation
Working
Practices
Business
Process
Technology
Strategizing
Resourcing
Evaluating
Learning
Key Issues in implementing egovernment
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Principal skill gaps
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Change management skills
Project management skills
Factors linked to effective implementation
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Strategizing (formalisation of strategy)
Resourcing (‘e-champions’)
Evaluating (corporate organised project level evaluation)
Learning (drawing on outside expertise and training)
8 reasons why transformational
change fails
• Not enough urgency
• failure to build leadership
coalition
• unclear vision
• poor communication of vision
• failure to remove obstacles
• no planning for short term wins
• premature declaration of
victory
• not anchoring change in
culture
Source: John Kotter; Harvard Business Review , 1997
The need for ‘powerassisted steering’
“Leading
change in
is about managing
politics and culture
effectively…fail to
do this and change
will fail too.”
Source: Buchanan and Badham, Organisational
Change, Power and Politics 1999)