Publications

The Macao SAR Government (MSARG) is presently implementing two major programs towards the modernization and transformation of its public administration (PA) system. The first program is a five-year program launched in 2005 to develop Electronic Government in Macao, while the second is a three-year program initiated in 2007 to implement public administration reform initiatives across the whole of government. The e-Government Development (EGOV) Program defines six policy areas for action, while the Public Administration Reform (PAR) Program specifies seven high-level goals for the reform agenda.

This report documents the details of the analysis and results of the strategic alignment between the e-Government Development and the Public Administration Reform Programs. It also contains the recommendations for strengthening the alignment between both domains (EGOV and PAR). 

The notion of Electronic Governance as an ICT-enabled transformational paradigm for modern public administration and good governance is well established and accepted by governments - irrespective of development status and region. Presently, there are a number of international benchmark reports on the global e-governance landscape. Understandably, these reports seldom provided detailed picture or analysis on any specific country and regions to enable concrete actions for policy and decision makers. This paper attempts to provide deeper insight into the e-government landscape in Asian region. First, the paper highlights the state of e-governance in Asia – regional competiveness and intra-regional performance. Second, it determines the structure of the existing e-governance divide in the region from two different perspectives, at sub-regional and country levels. Third, the paper investigates the possible impact of e-governance on the quality of governance in terms of: (i) voice and accountability and (ii) government effectiveness in the region. Our results show significant divide between sub-regions, particularly in the area of e-participation. In addition, results also reveal strong positive correlation between e-readiness indices and government effectiveness indicators of countries in the region. However, no relationship could be established between the e-participation indices and the voice and accountability indicators for countries in the region. To address the divide issue and the overall regional capacity in e-governance, we propose concrete strategies partly based on patterns of strategies of leading countries in the region. Finally, to increase intra-regional knowledge sharing and collective actions by Asian countries in e-governance, we suggest the cultivation of Communities of Interests made up of countries of similar development status, challenges and priorities to complement the usual top-down regional and sub-regional actions.

The impact of mobile technology on governance and development has attracted significant interest in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for Development and Electronic Governance communities. There is growing consensus that governance mechanisms must complement access to technology to achieve greater impact on development. However, few or no rigorous research exists to show how such mechanisms can support the delivery of mobile services to vulnerable groups. This study fill this important gap by first providing a conceptual framework, based on the Choice Framework and the Structuration Theory, to elaborate on the relationship between ICT, governance and citizen capabilities. Second, the framework is applied to analyze livelihood needs of 45 women head porters interviewed in Accra. Third, as all women under study have access to mobile phones, we determine which governance mechanisms are needed to support the delivery of mobile services to them. Results show that three governance mechanisms enable the contribution of mobile technology to meeting the livelihood needs of this group: 1) updating financial and telecommunication regulations to enable the provision of mobile-based services e.g. mobile microfinance, to vulnerable groups; 2) mobilizing local communities in the production of local contents; and 3) engaging non-governmental organizations in building capacity of government agencies in mobile service delivery and in training vulnerable communities in effective use of mobile technology to access information and services critical to their needs. We conclude by discussing the use of the Structuration Theory along with the Choice Framework to shape development processes based on citizen needs and by discussing the applicability of our framework to similar vulnerable groups.

Recognized as a critical factor for the whole-of-government capability, many governments have initiated Enterprise Architectures (EA) programs. However, while there is no shortage of EA frameworks, the understanding of what makes EA practice effective in a government enterprise is limited. This paper presents the results of empirical research aimed at determining the key factors for raising the maturity of the Government Enterprise Architecture (GEA) practice, part of an effort to guide policy-makers of a particular government on how to develop GEA capabilities in its agencies. By analyzing the data from a survey involving 33 agencies, the relative importance of the factors like top management commitment, participation of business units and effectiveness of project governance structures on the maturity of the GEA practice was determined. The results confirm that management commitment and participation of business units are critical factors, which in turn are influenced by the perceived usefulness of the GEA efforts.

Many public services require face-to-face interactions with government officials and their designated representatives. In order to improve the delivery and accessibility of such services, to standardize government processes and to avoid the duplication of efforts by government offices, on-line appointment scheduling (e-appointment) can be employed. The paper presents a complete solution for a one-stop e-appointment service, built upon software infrastructure for e-government. Offered through a one-stop government portal and relying on appointment-related information maintained by individual agencies, the service enables applicants to seamlessly arrange appointments for visiting government offices responsible for the delivery of various public services. The paper proceeds by: (1) identifying the challenges for delivering appointment services on-line, (2) describing existing solutions; (3) proposing a new solution for a one-stop e-appointment service including technical (software) and organizational (business process) aspects; and (4) validating this solution against the challenges and existing solutions. In particular, the paper describes step-by-step implementation of the business process and the development of software, from requirement and modeling, to design, implementation and deployment.

The increasing use of social media by governments for improving citizen access to information, participation of stakeholders in policy processes and delivery of customer-focused services are among the defining features of the so-called "Governance 2.0" phenomenon. Another feature is the interaction between existing government networks and social networks of citizens and policy actors in order to disseminate government information and seek contributions from citizens and other actors to policies, decisions and services. This article examines the semantic issues associated with the emerging Governance 2.0 networks. It evolves an architectural framework to guide governments and their agencies in developing semantic interoperability capabilities. We approach the problem by first developing a conceptual model for analyzing semantic interoperability requirements in general. Next, we provide a case study to generate interesting scenarios and identify concrete semantic interoperability issues arising from the interactions between citizens, businesses and government through traditional and electronic channels and different forms of social media. Subsequently, we present a Semantic Interoperability Architecture Framework to address these issues based on existing government semantic interoperability frameworks and semantic standards for Web 2.0. After validating the prescribed framework, we discuss how it could be used in practice by governments.

A major issue in organizations including public organizations is how to ensure that investments in Information Technology (IT) optimally deliver the expected value for stakeholders. Since most organizational transformation agenda in the government are articulated and implemented under the Public Administration Reform programs, and IT projects in government are increasingly associated with e-governance initiatives, the need to align reform and e-government programs arises. This paper shows how the Strategic Alignment Model (SAM) may be adapted for aligning public administration reform and e-government strategies. It shows how to partition strategies into domains equivalent to the four classical SAM domains and presents: (i) metrics for evaluating current level of alignment between the reform and e-government program, (ii) a process or sequence of steps to achieve desired alignments between the four domains, (iii) our experience in the application of the process in project involving the alignment of the e-government program and the reform roadmap of a city state in South-East Asia, and (iv) some features of the tool that has been developed to support the alignment process. Finally, the paper highlights our ongoing work in this area.

The availability of domain frameworks to enable rapid development of Electronic Public Services (EPS) is essential to meet the increasing demand for mature EPS by various government stakeholders. This paper presents a composite domain framework comprising frameworks to build the Front-Office and Back-Office parts of an EPS. The framework supports a set of domain requirements obtained through a detailed analysis of over 30 concrete public services. After presenting these requirements, the framework is described in four stages - architecture, design, implementation and instantiation - all using UML to capture the artifacts built during development. We also illustrate the application of the framework through a case study in developing an Electronic Licensing Service by means of framework instantiation. We conclude with some comments on the complexity, flexibility and performance of the framework. This work was carried out as part of the e-Macao Project to build a foundation for e-Government in Macao, funded by the Government of Macao SAR.

Responding to the issues of complexity, relevance, cost and risk of Electronic Governance (EGOV), we witness a specialization of the roles responsible for EGOV development and operation, professionalization of the personnel playing such roles, and utilization of the EGOV services and information to fulfill citizen needs. In order to build competencies required by such (managerial, professional, technician and user) roles, education becomes a key success factor, and a growing variety of EGOV learning opportunities emerges. However, lacking conceptual underpinnings for EGOV education, the discovery, analysis and integration of such opportunities is difficult. To address this need, the paper develops a theoretical construct for EGOV education; applies six measures to this construct: who - learners, why - roles, what - competencies, how - programs, where - schools, and when - prerequisites; and validates it through a landscaping exercise focusing on EGOV university programs. 

There are several well-established surveys on e-government. These surveys employ different assessment models for e-readiness, digital divide and other relevant factors, leading to varying conclusions on the global state of e-government. This paper presents a comparative study of 11 international surveys on egovernment between 2001 and 2004. It identifies a common set of ‘core indicators’ for assessing e-readiness and suggests ways to determine the weights for them. The paper also introduces the concept of a ‘target eready state’ and examines how it may provide a scale for determining the progress of individual countries.

Software Technology is increasingly gaining prominence in national Information Technology (IT) development strategies due to its huge potential for socio-economic development, particularly through income generation from digital services and products, support for the delivery of public services and engagement of citizens. In recent years we have seen developing countries like India, Chile, Philippines, Brazil, China and Indonesia as increasingly important global players in the offshore software services industry, with India and China clearly leading in this industry. There has also been a surge in South-South Cooperation in Software Technology (SSC-ST) in general since 2003, with significant increase in bilateral, regional and contributions of UN organizations (e.g. UNCTAD, UNDP and UNU-IIST) as well as donor OECD countries (particularly Japan, South Korea and a few EU countries) to both the development of software technology capacities and their applications in the areas like agriculture, e-governance, transportation and the information society in general.

This paper presents generic domain models to underpin the development of Electronic Public Services (EPS) – from conceptual models, through requirements and architecture, to implementation models. The conceptual model follows the analysis of 25 concrete business licensing and 6 social welfare services delivered by governments to businesses and citizens respectively. Based on this model, we characterize generic business licensing and social welfare services and, following the Governance Enterprise Architecture, synthesize a generic process for delivering Authorization and Certification classes of public services. From the generic process, requirements are obtained and the architecture is defined to support these requirements. The architecture comprises three categories of components – Front-Office, Mid-Office and Back-Office. We present the static and behavioral view of this architecture and show how it supports the variability in the development of concrete e-Licensing or e-Welfare EPS through: concrete process specification at the Mid-Office, binding of specialized tasks to automation support at the Back-Office, and general use of configuration files. Finally, we discuss an Enterprise Application Framework as a particular implementation of the architecture based on open standards, and describe the use of the framework for rapid development of EPS based on concrete project experience. This work was carried out in the context of the e-Macao Project, a two year project funded by the Government of Macao SAR to build a foundation for Electronic Government in Macao.

Effective Information Technology (IT) leadership is critical for achieving a good alignment between business needs and IT means of an organization. In the public sector, IT leadership is increasingly realized through the Government Chief Information Officer (GCIO) function, typically established by governments based on local circumstances and emerging needs. This makes peer-learning about the working of such systems and their transfer between different government contexts challenging. To address this concern, the authors introduced earlier a GCIO System - a set of inter-related activities to guide governments in gradually establishing, operating and sustaining the GCIO function. Based on a common conceptual model of the GCIO function, this paper defines a methodology for conducting the readiness assessment part of the GCIO System. The methodology comprises a set of assessment areas and a step-wise process to conduct assessment in these areas. The paper also shares the experience in applying this methodology in practice, and proposes how the assessment could inform the execution of other activities of the GCIO System.

 The ability of governments to develop and effectively manage knowledge assets is now considered a critical capability for electronic governance. Good Knowledge Management (KM) practices in government are usually driven by clear vision and objectives which are part of KM strategies. Developing such government-wide KM vision and objectives requires inputs from individual government agencies and other stakeholders on their needs and priorities (so-called demand-side). However, while there is significant literature on models and tools for measuring KM capabilities (so-called supply-side) and impact of KM practices, very few scholarly work is available on assessment of specific KM needs of individual agencies or other stakeholders. This paper presents an Integrated KM Assessment Model which measures both the demand and supply sides of KM in government. The model was used for assessing the KM needs and capabilities of government agencies in Macao SAR as part of a study for determining the readiness of government as a whole for KM. Results from our study show that innovation in government operations is considered by agencies to be the most KM demanded area, while KM capability for task-specific activities was found to be the weakest KM capability area. In addition, document-intensive and high-volume transaction agencies, such as educational, financial, electronic data interchange agencies have relatively higher KM awareness and capability.

The central role of ICT in development has kept the longstanding discussion on digital divide active in the international development and research community with new perspectives into how to measure and interpret this inequality. In this paper we examine the nature of the digital divide in Maldives. We investigate the digital divide across the nation, between the nation's capital and the rest of the country, the evolution of these divides with time. Finally, we attempt to identify clusters within the country that share similar digital divide concerns to inform more effective policy interventions and the basis for cultivating community of interests for Atolls. Results show significant disparity in penetrations of digital technologies; narrowing of the digital divide with time, but with significant divides remaining between the capital and the rest of the nation. Cluster analysis of Atoll ICT profiles revealed six clusters with membership independent of geographical location. The implications of these results on the ICT development policy of Maldives are finally discussed.

A distributed business process organizes activities by several enterprises to fulfill a given business goal. The purpose of this paper is to formalise what it means for such a process to be feasible (possible to carry out given the resources delegated for its execution) and for a feasible process to be correct (satisfying a given business goal), using customer-driven manufacturing as a particular, although broadly defined business area. Possible applications are: formal analysis of business processes, providing formal semantics to process modelling languages, and specification and rigorous development of business-support software.

Recognized as a critical factor for the whole-of-government capability, many governments have initiated Enterprise Architectures (EA) programs. However, while there is no shortage of EA frameworks, the understanding of what makes EA practice effective in a government enterprise is limited. This paper presents the results of empirical research aimed at determining the key factors for raising the maturity of the Government Enterprise Architecture (GEA) practice, part of an effort to guide policy-makers of a particular government on how to develop GEA capabilities in its agencies. By analyzing data from a survey involving 33 agencies, the relative importance of factors like top management commitment, participation of business units and effectiveness of project governance structures on the maturity of the GEA practice was determined. The results confirm that management commitment and participation of business units are critical factors, which in turn are influenced by the perceived usefulness of the GEA efforts.

Citizens increasingly demand high-quality public services, available from a one-stop government portal, and delivered through a choice of electronic and traditional channels. In order to fulfill this demand, the implementation involves collaboration between agencies at different levels of government, driven by complex administrative and business processes. In addition, the delivery of public services increasingly involves private sector organizations serving as intermediaries or suppliers, able to flexibly join or leave dynamic service networks. Such networks have to be managed to address the expected stability of the services delivered through them.

e-Government Readiness Assessment is a vital step in developing effective e-Government strategies which provides important knowledge for policy- and decision-makers. Particularly for developing countries, it is imperative to analyse the conditions, opportunities and challenges of an existing environment to ensure that the resulting e-Government strategy is realistic and workable, whilst enabling public administration reform in support of a sustainable development agenda. While there are different approaches to e-Government Readiness Assessment, the review of existing literature reveals a general lack of focus on methodology and survey design for e-Government Readiness Assessment applicable to developing countries. In this paper, we present the key elements of a holistic e-Government Readiness Assessment methodology, considering national- and agency-level survey model and instrument design. In addition, we discuss implementation issues and present recommendations for future research including the validation of the proposed methodology.