Title: An investigation of national policies on transformational government (t-Gov) in Europe

Authors: Konstantinos Parisopoulos; Efthimios Tambouris; Konstantinos Tarabanis

Addresses: University of Macedonia, Greece 156 Egnatia Str., 54006 Thessaloniki, Greece ' University of Macedonia, Greece 156 Egnatia Str., 54006 Thessaloniki, Greece ' University of Macedonia, Greece 156 Egnatia Str., 54006 Thessaloniki, Greece

Abstract: Electronic government (e-government) is high in the agenda of a large number of countries worldwide for more than a decade now. Recently, the concept of transformational government (t-Gov) was introduced to determine the stage of e-government evolution characterised by the radical restructuring of the public sector towards efficiency. The aim of this paper is to understand t-Gov and investigate the level of t-Gov sophistication in Europe by assessing the e-government policies of 18 European Union member states. We first review the relevant literature, to conclude t-Gov embraces nine defining elements namely user-centric services, joined-up government, one-stop government, multichannel service delivery, flexibility, efficiency, increased human skills, organisational change and change of attitude of public servants, and value innovation. We also review e-government assessment frameworks that could be used to evaluate t-Gov sophistication. We thereafter critically examine and compare the degree of t-Gov sophistication of 18 European Union member states. Here, the results suggest that most strategies partially only exploit the full potential of t-Gov. For example, all strategies address user-centric services and most address efficiency, breaking out of silos, and joined-up government. On the other hand, however, no policy addresses constant value creation and value innovation and only a few address flexibility and organisational change and change of attitude. Using a published e-government assessment framework we finally compare progress across Europe with regards to t-Gov.

Keywords: transformational government; t-Gov; national policies; public sector restructuring; public sector efficiency; value innovation; European Union; Europe; electronic government; e-government; user-centric services; joined-up government; one-stop government; multichannel service delivery; flexibility; human skills; organisational change; attitude changes; value innovation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJITM.2014.065628

International Journal of Information Technology and Management, 2014 Vol.13 No.4, pp.305 - 323

Published online: 12 Nov 2014 *

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