Problems in public e-service development

Sammanfattning: This thesis focuses on the general problem of integration and co-operation between business and IT organisations, and on the specific problem of co-ordinating the development process across stovepiped departments that do not collaborate cross-functionally. The purpose is to increase knowledge and understanding about public organisations’ difficulties in meeting their customers’ and the organisation’s needs for electronic services. The thesis also presents a model showing the relationships between factors of importance for understanding public organisations’ difficulties in implementing cross-functional or inter-departmental electronic services. The research is based on case studies of public and private organisations, and results show that public organisations attempting e-government will face large problems if they are unable to solve their internal stovepipe problems. On the other hand, they cannot expect the stovepipe problems to be solved without increasing customer orientation. Many private organisations have increased their speed in e-services, customer orientation and organisational changes, and have faced economic pressure early, while the public organisations are impeded by the role of law, complex goal structures, lack of collaboration and culture. But at the same time the public organisations are following a similar path to that of the private, and areas have been found where there are little differences (e.g. development processes and purchaser-contractor relationships). Furthermore, the thesis has identified a large potential in the use of enterprise architecture for improving co-operation between business and IT organisations and in the purchaser-contractor relations. An architecture is an important prerequisite for dealing with the growing complexity in describing an enterprise and its business, information, applications and technology.