E-förvaltning, dvs. offentliga e-tjänster, e-administration och e-demokrati, har kommit att bli ett vanligt inslag i kommuners, landstings, myndigheters och medborgares vardag. Trots att det i dag finns stor erfarenhet av och praktisk kompetens inom e-förvaltning, erbjuds emellertid inte så ofta möjlighet till reflektion och erfarenhetsutbyte eller till att utveckla en teoretisk referensram kring den pågående förändringsprocessen. Förvaltning och medborgarskap i förändring bidrar till att upprätta en dialog mellan pågående forskning och etablerad praxis inom området e-förvaltning. Boken ger en översikt av aktuell forskning såväl som praktiska erfarenheter från en mängd sammanhang med exempel från kommuner, landsting och myndigheter. Utifrån olika infallsvinklar och med skilda metodologiska angreppssätt analyseras utrymmet för design och styrning samt medborgarnas handlingsutrymme. Bland annat diskuteras medborgarnas möjligheter att påverka det pågående förändringsarbetet och hur e-tjänster kan designas för att möta olika medborgarperspektiv. Författarna väcker också frågan om vilka konsekvenser den pågående omvandlingen av offentlig förvaltning kan komma att få. Varje kapitel avslutas med ytterligare frågor för diskussion och reflektion.Boken vänder sig till studenter inom ämnen som informatik, offentlig administration och företagsekonomi samt till yrkesverksamma med intresse för verksamhetsutveckling och IT-frågor i offentlig förvaltning.
To contribute to digitalization and accountability research, this study adopted a pattern arising from failure due to weak accountability that was initially identified in Great Britain. This was done to investigate if the pattern reappeared in digitalization initiatives at the Swedish municipal level. Attempting to answer this, the present study structured a survey sent to every municipality in Sweden, resulting in a response rate of 40.4%. It was not possible to statistically claim that the pattern repeated itself in the chosen context, making this study’s main contribution to stress that there might be a pattern as an effect due to weak accountability, without any knowledge of how this pattern presents itself.
The idea that public e-services are better off being designed with the potential users' needs in focus is today an almost unquestioned truth (user centered design maybe being the most frequent methodological toolbox). The idea that they are even better off being designed with the potential users is an almost equally established understanding (where participatory design could be claimed to be the most prominent methodology). However, in this paper the overall claim is that by a combination of updated design thinking, and development and participatory studies from outside the digital design discipline, a deepened and more nuanced understanding of participatory practices is presented. This is shown by an exploratory study on the design process of a public e-service to make the city accessible for its citizens and visiting tourists.
The notion of citizen driven development of public e-services has been vivid for a number of years in eGovernment research, practice and policies. A variety of expectations are coupled with the idea of citizens participating in the development process; ranging from, roughly outlined, more efficient services (economic gain and customer satisfaction) and enhanced democracy (deliberation and empowerment). There are less conceptual analyses resting on a critical stance analysing how this notion is translated in practical settings, leaving a gap in between for practitioners to solve. This paper presents explorative work made in a Swedish authority, setting out to understand their structure, and the available methods used, in relation to the concept. The results show that besides difficulties in creating systematic work processes, what surfaces is the complex task of estimation. © 2011 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.
Abstract – Information and communication technology (ICT), or in the case of eGovernment –e, is often in an unproblematized way closely associated with modernity. As such it holds a dominant position as facilitator of the extension of human needs (for example enhanced quality of life through better service etc.). In this paper the question of modernisation is taken into consideration in terms of the role of –e in eGovernment through the concepts of first and second modernity. By a basic content and argumentation analysis of the European eGovernment Action Plan 2011-2015 the view on –e in general and especially its links to different views on modernisation is examined. The result shows that –e in eGovernment is definitely closely linked to modernity but not in an unproblematic order. There are both manifestations of standardization and empowerment and such a combination of linear institutional order and boundary transcendence is challenging.
A lot of research into different aspects of modern society, and our ability to participate in its becoming, is today carrying the prefix of “e”, for example eSociety and eParticipation. “e” is though often treated as a fixed category rarely problemized. In this paper we want to highlight some of the implications of such a treatment of “e” and suggest a different analytical approach in order to analyse how “e” are intertwined with other social, cultural and economic structures. We propose a study that goes beyond the arranged, the established, the expected, and the wanted. To analyse eParticipation from the viewpoint of everyday life in combination with a power analysis of the discourse surrounding it offers both theoretical and methodological innovation in understanding a today widespread idea and could as such contribute to widening the dimensions acknowledged in relation to the concept.
This chapter critically explores and analyses the framing of digitalization in current cultural public policy in Sweden to reach a deeper understanding of how the idea of digitalization is narrated and what kind of desired outcomes surface in these narratives. It is based on a thematic analysis of eight policy documents departing from Andrew Feenberg’s two-fold understanding of technology, as both essence and construct, in order to disclose the dominant and formative narratives of digitalization. As such, the chapter contributes to digital cultural policy research with a national-specific analysis of policy narratives on expectations and goals coupled with digital transformation.
This paper concerns the construction of the individuals to whom public e-services are aimed, and who are expected to participate in demands driven development of public sector. The argument is that these individuals are differently positioned in relation to and have different prerequisites to participate in demands driven development processes, and that this has to be taken into account by practitioners who are working demands driven development of public sector. The aim of the paper is thus to address the need to acknowledge differences in individual users' possibilities to participate in the development of public sector through opening up and critically analyze categories indicating participants - e.g. 'users', 'citizens' or 'practitioners'. This is done through a discourse theoretical analysis of a text; the Swedish Guidelines for Demands Driven Development. The analysis of the text shows that the dominant category signifying a participatory subject is 'target group(s)', which is articulated according to four different themes. However, none of these themes articulates an unpacking of the category 'target group(s)', and the term is instead used to signify everyone as if these were alike and had the same prerequisites and possibilities to participate in demands driven development processes - in discourse theoretical terms 'target group(s) works as an empty signifier. In this way differences between the individuals who are included in the category are hidden, and practitioners are left with no guidelines for how to deal with these.
The aim of this paper is to study over- and under representational practices in governmental expert advisory groups on digitalization to open up a dialogue on translations of digitalization. By uncovering how meanings converge and interpretations associated with technology are stabilized or maybe even closed, this research is positioned within a critical research tradition. The chosen analytical framework stretches from technological culture (i.e., how and where the myths and symbolic narratives are constructed), and a focus on the process of interpretation (i.e., the flexibility in how digitalization could be translated and attached to different political goals and values) to a dimension of firstness (addressing education, professional experiences and geographical position to explore dominance and power aspects). The results reveal a homogeneity that is potentially problematic and raises questions about the frames for interpreting what digitalization could and should be and do. We argue that the strong placement of digitalization in the knowledge base disclosed in this study hinders digitalization from being more knowledgeably translated.
The aim of this paper is to study governmental expert advisory groups on digitalization in order to see if there are some common characteristics inside the group and some relevant characteristics left out that would significantly influence the shared understandings’ and translations of digitalization. The underpinnings are that it is important to study digital representational practices at all levels and that this level often escapes scrutiny. Furthermore, we need to stay close to material performances in order to open up a discussion whether, as a consequence, some translations might come to dominate others, if meanings converge and the technological frame is stabilized, or maybe even closed. The chosen analytical framework stretches from a link in between historical contextuality and technological culture (as in how and where myths and symbolic narratives are constructed), the focus on the process of interpretation (as in the flexibility in how digitalization could be translated and attached to different political goals and values) and a dimension of professional identities and communities of practice when addressing historical contextuality (as in using education and professional experiences and position to explore dominance and power aspects). The results show a homogeneity that is problematic and raises questions of the frames for interpreting what digitalization could and should be and do. We argue that the strong placing of digitalization in the knowledge base disclosed in this study hinders digitalization to be more knowledgeably translated.
Digitalization is frequently mentioned in government policies and academic discourse where it is often being associated with expectations of societal rebirth and large-scale changes. However, little attention has been given to evolutionary aspects of the phenomenon of digitalization. Thus, in this paper, we aim to contribute by focusing on the concept of digitalization in a structured manner and answering the following question: How has the concept of digitalization travelled throughout academic discourse? To focus on digitalization as a scholarly object, we utilized bibliometric analyses of research articles ranging across 10 decades. We produced bibliographic maps of keywords and co-citation networks of sources and performed visual cluster analysis of these maps using techniques from VOSviewer and ScientoPy bibliometric software. This operation was conducted to facilitate discussion on the evolution of digitalization from a semi-genealogical perspective and to open up a discussion on continuity, density, convergence, and digitalization as a signifier. By combining bibliometric data with genealogical analysis, we identified how digitalization has traveled from specific contexts (medical use and information conversion) to a more general use after the turn of the millennium. Moreover, a pattern of convergence during the last decade surfaced, where digitalization has become associated with ideas of a digitally transformed society. Through these findings, this paper contributes to current literature on digitalization with a novel analysis of the term’s evolution.
As earlier research has shown, the ways that local leaders and managers translate the overarching idea of eGovernment cause significant consequences for the overall implementation process. In our own research it has become obvious that inside both the translation and the enactment process are invaluable clues for the eGovernment management embedded. Our findings indicate that it is important to consider managers as local mediators of mega trends and that it is necessary to create knowledge about the diverse translation processes and, by doing so, emphasize enactment rather than vision. In this article we suggest that a method called A diagnostic framework for eGovernment management could be a useful method for researchers as well as eGovernment managers to increase the understanding of the enactment process.
The idea of eGovernment is moving rapidly within supra-national and national and local institutions. At every level leaders are interpreting the idea, attempting to grasp either the next step or indeed the very essence of the idea itself. This article outlines a diagnostic framework, resting on three different dimensions; translation, interpretative frames and sensemaking, to create knowledge about the translation processes and by doing so, emphasize enactment rather than vision. The diagnostic framework is then empirically examined to explore its possible contribution to the understanding of the complexity of leader’s translating and mediating the idea of eGovernment in their local context. In conclusion it is noted that the diagnostic framework reveals logic of appropriateness between local mediators, eGovernment, different areas of interest and appropriate organizational practices.
The idea of eGovernment is moving rapidly within supra-national and national and local institutions. At every level leaders are interpreting the idea, attempting to grasp either the next step or indeed the very essence of the idea itself. This chapter outlines a diagnostic framework, resting on three different dimensions; translation, interpretative frames and sensemaking, to create knowledge about the translation processes and by doing so, emphasize enactment rather than vision. The diagnostic framework is then empirically examined to explore its possible contribution to the understanding of the complexity of leader’s translating and mediating the idea of eGovernment in their local context. In conclusion it is noted that the diagnostic framework reveals a logic of appropriateness between local mediators, eGovernment, different areas of interest and appropriate organisational practices.
The purpose of this paper is to rethink alienation in digital culture in the light of Foucault’s "pastoral modalities of power". Pastoral power does not displace other conceptions of power, but provides another level of analysis when considering the forging of reasonable, responsible subjects willing and able to sustain alternative conceptions of power. We will draw particularly on the early writings of Marx and the recent poststructuralist developments concerning hegemony and superstructure in relation to technology. Technology as such is analysed in terms of the repercussions of the "design of the machine" in industrial technological contexts and the "design of digital culture" in digital technological contexts. Pastoral power not only directs our attention to the making of technologies, but also to the making of individuals capable of taking on responsibility for those technologies. This means that it is necessary to acknowledge the fact of the effective power of ideologies and their material realities.
Public-sector digitalization has gained traction over the years, and with it has come a flood of official documents (policies and grey literature) highlighting what the (digital) future is supposed to look like and proposing a range of digital solutions to inspire action. Such policies and strategic documents propose what will be important in future societies. In this paper, we employ the policy-analysis framework, ‘what’s the problem represented to be’ (WPR), first developed by Bacchi. We conducted a workshop with a Swedish municipality, inviting key actors to work with the idea of digitalization to re-read their digitalization policy in light of the WPR framework. The purpose of this paper is to investigate what surfaced when the policymakers and public servants used WPR to dissect their own digitalization policy. The results show that the key actors’ reflections centred around the value of the policy itself, and the WPR framework seemed to enhance their ability to reflect upon the usability of the policy and the work needed to implement and evaluate it. Furthermore, they pinpointed that the digitalization policy appeared rather naïve in terms of contextual factors (lack of recontextualisation on the municipal level) and hindrances (lack of resources to tackle existing hindrances).
Though ‘digitalization’ has become a buzzword and policy objective in public-sector development, the struggle tograsp and define it as a modern phenomenon continues. Furthermore, research has long shown that it is difficult to extractthe value with which digitalization is associated. Against this backdrop, the aim of this paper is to uncover the enactment bya specific set of actors of digitalization as production and reproduction practices. We interviewed a group of governmentallysanctioned regional digitalization coordinators to identify how digitalization was translated and implemented by the appointedprofessionals. We applied Orlikowski and Gash’s three levels of technology (nature, strategy, and use) and combined thesewith Feenberg’s matrix of four views on technology to produce an analytical framework. Our findings show that the making ofdigitalization can be described like ‘nailing jelly to a wall’, owing to the lack description of its capabilities and functionalities,coupled with a raison d’etre that is highly elusive beyond ‘change’, in very general terms.
To what extent did the Covid-19 pandemic affect the tools, priorities and organisation of cultural policies? And did the pandemic enhance the digital aspect of these policies? This paper compares pandemic cultural policy measures in seven European countries to answer these questions. The countries all installed a plurality of mitigating measures, combining grants and subsidies, compensation of lost income, income support and financial flexibility, creating a tendency towards cultural policy turning into economic policy, fiscal policy, and labour market policy. Cultural policies have not been fundamentally challenged by the pandemic, in the sense that it has affected the essential political tools, divisions of labour, or core goals. The responses have confirmed an existing policy structure or enhanced existing developments. The importance of a state-centred or a federalist cultural policy system has not been challenged in a substantial way. Secondly there is little evidence to show a general acceleration of national digital cultural policies.
Culture and discourses affect our understanding of the archive in the digital environment: preconceptions, norms and practices developed in a paper-based administration color and limit perceptions of digital archives. It can be difficult to re-imagine the archive in the context of e-Government, and the networked environment, which increases the complexity of archival issues. This is a global problem, because digital records require other measures than paper records. This takes a foundational approach, focusing on openings and closures of concepts surrounding the idea of archives. Critical theory is used as a lens to study illustrations and descriptions of what an ‘e-archive’ is, and how it should be managed.
The analysis is made after three basic principles that the public administration should work towards: (i) a holistic concept of the archive, (ii) a proactive approach to records management, and (iii) striving to integrate the archiving process with the goals and opportunities of e-government.
The result indicates that the lack of ‘closings’: commonly understood principles and a shared definition of an e-archive, may restrict the understanding of archives in digital contexts and constrain the development of their full potential. At the same time, the lack of ‘openings’ toward new ways of thinking about and designing e-archives may narrow the scope of possibilities that the digital formats can offer. ‘Paper minds’ may presuppose a ‘stepwise progression’ of records from ‘active’ to ‘archival’ that is unnecessary in the digital context.
With recent rapid digital evolution and integration of technology into our lifeworld, the suitability of causal based methods to study IT-entangled everyday experiences is becoming dubious. As interpretive research methods emerge as viable alternatives, some has criticized its rigor based on its less critical stance and lack of tools to understand complex historical and environmental influences on individual experiences. Drawing upon phenomenology, we propose Interpretive Phenomenological Analyses (IPA) as potential interpretive method of inquiry to understand how and why we engage with information systems. IPA provides a tool to both critical explore and hermeneutically interpret phenomena of lifeworld experiences based on users’ interpretation of their own experiences. The approach also provides a means to mapping out participants’ object of concern and their experiential claims using hermeneutical and critical questioning, then coherently contextualize participants’ interpretation within their environmental and cultural settings. We illustrate the proposed method with empirical evidence of excerpt from a longitude study of IS usage research. Consideration is given to philosophical assumptions, different IPA approaches, and researchers’ fore-structure presumptions of their field of interest. The paper intends to contribute toward the discussion of interpretive research methods in the field of information systems.
The topic of Information System (IS) design has ben extensively covered in design science literature.After introducing two main ontological stance of IS design, holism and dualism, this paper develops fourIS design principles that bases a holistic orientation. We first presenthe two underlining IS design coresof dualistic ontology, externality and determinacy, and their influence in the proces of IS design. We thendiscus end-users' holistic IS practice based on Heideger's tol analysis framework. After presentingnew technology apropriation case study, we further discus holistic based IS design principles and theiraplication in diferent IS design activites. Based on the empirical evidence, the paper demonstrates theefect of ontological level stance on the operational level of IS design, the concept of breakdown and itscontribution to the improvement of worksystem. We conclude by highlighting the ned for further study ofholistic IS design principles and its implication for organization.
Purpose – The overall purpose of this paper is to contribute to the discussion of the IT-related public sector transformation by reintroducing the question of employees’ organisational power and position in technological and technocratic systems.
Design/methodology/approach – To examine how formal organisational positions, together with the way in which employees position themselves in relation to technology, affect how employees interpret their accessible action space (position and action strategy) a survey in a local municipality were conducted.
Findings – As indicated by our hypothesis, the empirical results verify that the techno-relational action space is two-dimensional, consisting of both a formal position (how the organisational members are positioned) and a certain amount of action space outside a formal position (i.e. how they are position themselves). Elaborating on these dimensions generates rewarding insights into a micro-change perspective where technology-related innovation processes are concerned.
Originality/value – The paper combines analysis of how the organisational members position themselves in relation to technology with how they are positioned organisationally in relation to technology and structures of power. Instead, we claim, that he techno-relational space is both a matter of how the organisational members position themselves in relation to technology and a matter of how they are positioned organisationally in relation to technology and structures of power.
Practical implications: Identifying and acknowledging employees perceived techno-relational action space is of great importance in understanding organisational members’ participation, cooperation and innovative capability in government transformation.
The authors of this chapter suggest that e-government is best understood as a mythologised megatrend. They argue that it has become a symbol for the modernised government of today. A symbol which, in some sense has to be demythologized in order to be realised. The authors suggest that by analysing general and specific interpretations, the myth can be partially unravelled, which is illustrated by a large scale study based on 2624 employees in public administration. The authors suggest a loose coupling between the general and the specific level.
The idea of eGovernment is often put forward as the main principal for public administrations to improve their government activities. One of the most emphasized arguments for eGovernment in the public discourse is the expectation of an increased interaction with and service toward citizens by enhanced e-services and the efforts in improving e-services in number and functionality undergo constant benchmarking tests. These benchmarking results are then often acting as incentives for further investments and action plans. , But we still lack sufficient analyses of actual usage, even though it is a quite natural next step in assessing success of what is supplied in other contexts. In this paper it is argued that Sweden is especially interesting given the high internet penetration, highly developed welfare system and the fact that Swedish authorities’ development of various e-services is rated quite high in these benchmarking efforts. The purpose of this paper is to address the question of how and when Swedish e-services are used by the public as an important issue for understanding the impact of eGovernment on the interactions between citizens and government. Our tentative empirical results indicate an interesting gap in use patterns in relation to supply (number and functionality) of e-services Further on use varies with age and level of education. In conclusion the fact that even though Sweden has so many of the necessary requirements, (iii) there is an incongruity between supply and use and (ii) the use is still very structurally divided calls for a discussion of useworthiness and raise questions of whether eGovernment challenge any structural mechanisms.
KAPITEL 1 Chaufför eller passagerare 33 Katarina Lindblad-Gidlund Inledning 33 Vad menas med användardriven och användarcentrerad utveckling 34 Teknikutveckling 35 Arbetsplatsdemokrati 35 Vem är chaufför och av vad 36 Är chauffören en kund 37 Service och/eller demokrati som medborgarna driver 39 Den förlorade chauffören och konsten att lyssna på passagerarna 42 Diskussionsfrågor 44 Referenser 45
The idea of participation and demand driven development is not unique for the applied area of development of public e-services, it has for long been an issue in development stands and has moved relatively unchecked from the margins to the mainstream of development since mid 1980s. The promise of empowerment and transformative development has though been severely questioned during the past decade in development research and practice in lack of sufficient evidence that the idea is living up to the expected standards. However, in eGovernment, demand driven development of public e-service is on the contrary growing. Expectations such as enhanced use, better services and more efficient resource utilization are expressed in different contexts. In this article the idea of demand driven development of public e-services is analyzed discursively in order to gain a deeper understanding of how the narrative is told, retold and challenged. The results show that from a design perspective it is rewarding to acknowledge both the dominant, hidden and contrasting stories in order to understand challenges in development work. © 2012 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.
The notion of citizen driven development of public e-services has been vivid for a number of years in eGovernment research, practice and policies. There are however, less conceptual analyses resting on a critical stance analyzing how this notion is translated in practical settings, leaving a gap in between for practitioners to solve. This paper presents explorative work made in a Swedish authority by using conceptual disentanglement (as in identifying extensions of the concept, noting regularities and reveal relevant features) as a methodology. The results show that besides difficulties in creating systematic work processes, what surfaces is the complex task of estimation. Estimating who should be participating (when designing for almost all citizens), how many citizens are needed as a base for a design decisions, who decides what should be an objective for a design initiation and on what grounds and legitimacy? The picture evolving is that of an overreliance and an uncritical acceptance of the notion of citizen driven development of public e-services on a policy level, that fails both the practitioners and the citizens; highlighting the need for critical analysis in order to deconstruct the taken for grantedness of the notion of user involvement and deal with the ignorance regarding the details and performance in this specific setting. © 2012 ACM.
eGovernment is often put forward as a transformation supporting empowerment and democracy, building on principles such as ‘citizen-driven’ and ‘citizen-centered’ development. In addition it is often symbolized by a technology-laden and romantic progressivism. In this article this picture is analyzed from the perspective of the ones supposed to put eGovernment into practice. A model to analyze our relation with technology laden governmental development is put forward. The results, resting on a large scale empirical study in a local municipality, show that a remarkably high number of civic servants (acting in their role as citizens) did not see any possibility to change the transformation if they thought it not to serve the citizens. Implying that there is still a long way to go to live up to such beautiful proclamations, and also highlights the question whether ‘citizen-driven eGovernment’ is an accurate framing?
Det ställs idag höga förväntningar på att effektivisering och ökad service inom offentlig förvaltning skall främja såväl tillväxt (bl.a. genom enklare processer) som demokrati (bl.a. genom ökad tillgänglighet). Men det finns också ett flertal problembilder identifierade kring en sådan utveckling såsom dubbelarbete, otydlig nytta, bristande samverkan och oklara förutsättningar. Vilket påverkar såväl ekonomi, arbetssituation för offentliganställda samt uteblivet mervärde för medborgare och företag. En sådan problembeskrivning går givetvis att analysera från ett flertal olika perspektiv men vi hävdar att öppen innovation, samverkan och social hållbarhet illustrerar och fokuserar viktiga processer och kombinationen av dessa tre även innehåller värdefulla bidrag för en ökad förståelse och möjlighet till konstruktivt handlande. Syftet med det presenterade projektet är att det skall leverera kunskap och metoder för hur e-förvaltning kan utvecklas med högre grad av social hållbarhet och inom en kontext av öppen innovation. Denna kunskap och dessa metoder utvecklas i samspel med en konkret e-tjänsteutveckling i kommuner och landsting i Jämtlands och Västernorrlands län. Det vi gör i detta projekt är att vi i) applicerar begreppet öppen innovation specifikt på e-förvaltningens utveckling, ii) relaterar det till ett dokumenterat behov av social hållbarhet i e-tjänsteutvecklingen, och iii) testar aspekter av denna inriktning i en konkret och praktisk utveckling av e-tjänster i berörda kommuner och landsting och iv) dokumenterar och analyserar erfarenheterna för att möjliggöra kunskapsspridning.
What is identified as a problematic area in this thesis is our different relations with information technology which creates inequalities between possibilities to enjoy the advantages, or suffer the disadvantages, of the information technological development. The first step in addressing this area is to start with our conceptions of technological development, voluntaristic or deterministic, and the first argument is that it is important to create an awareness of our relation with technology. This thesis presents a perspective (with the help of social constructionism) which holds a possible method to create better conditions for awareness and finally, another relation. The relationistic approach highlights what sometimes is labelled the therapeutic purpose of IS (i.e. to create a mutual understanding between different agents through negotiated arrangements) which prevents some agents to be treated as inanimate objects instead of fellow human beings. And techno therapy not only for the IS researchers but for the change agents at the political level and perhaps most importantly, for the users themselves so that they will be able to formulate, communicate and mediate their needs and wishes. The aim is to come up with tools and instruments for creating opportunities for as many as possible to in an enlightened and equal way make their own choices regarding information technology use.
An increasing diffusion of IT in almost all aspects of our daily lives in modern western societies raises questions about; how IT is done and what the effects are on social sustainability. In this paper, it is argued that we need to consider these issues during ‘the becoming’, instead of tackling them in retrospect and relate such a view closer to the work practices of IT designers in order to take sustainability aspects into genuine consideration. In addition, it is argued that the link in between is the elements of negotiation, that is, to acknowledge the process of defining the objectives for what is considered to be social sustainability and what is considered to be the desired result of technology development. A practical method of doing this and as such enhance IT design is put forward; reflexive design, where critical reflection and constructive action is framed as design principles.
The often considered most evasive part of the frequently used trinity of sustainability (economical, environmental and social), social sustainability, is also the one we tend to leave behind. It might be justified theoretically due to its complexity in order to operationalise and analyse it (which is put forward by Marshall & Toffel, 2005, among others), but is that reason enough and what are the dangers in doing so? In this article the opposite action strategy is chosen i.e. to actually focus on the concept of social sustainability by analysing the relation between social sustainability and development of technology. In doing so, a suggestion is put forward, that design theory could work as framework for further understanding, and that the notion of ‘reflexive design’ (proposed by among others Grin et al. 2004, resting on ‘reflexive modernisation’ by Beck, Giddens & Lash 1994 and ‘the reflective practitioner’ by Schön, 1983) could actually work as a design method to enhance social sustainable technology development. To be more precise, the suggestion here is that what is often forgotten in traditional design methods are (a) the position held by the designer her/himself before even meeting the stake-holders and the claim that technology designers almost act as neutral and (b) therefore could put the major responsibility on the purchaser.
There exists a vast amount of different texts (policy documents, guidelines, action plans etc.) with the aim of stipulating the road forward for digitalisation of public sector, and an often used rationale for digitalisation is that the use of digitalised services will stimulate efficiency, reduce costs and at the same time enhance service quality. This is also often coupled with the idea that guarantee of success can be found participatory practices. This paper aims to disclose some of the underpinnings to the above logic by a closer analysis of 'the who, the why and how' of involving participators in digitalization of public sector. This paper uses a combination of discourse analysis and a Bourdieuan inspired use of the concept of epistemic cultures as an analytical framework to disentangle the notion of a participatory eGovernment development. The empirical case is a text analysis of a national action plan for digitalisation and the results of the analysis unfold two interesting notions; 1) three conflicting notions of for whom, why and how this is done, and 2) the consequences of conflicting epistemic cultures for practitioners to solve in the everyday practice when customer-oriented market logics are naively linked with democratically oriented inclusive participatory decision processes; two not so easily combined ideologies. Copyright © 2015, IGI Global.
The aim of this article is to address the relation between a user-centred objective and social constructionism and the possibility to refine user-centred fundamentals by enhancing the awareness of the relation between humans and the constructed environment. Through social constructionism we could enter a bit deeper into questions like; (1) reality's subjective character especially concerning technology development, (2) the importance of a power analysis while creating technological artefacts, (3) the importance of analysing our own role in technology's construction and (3) we are made aware of the importance of how technology is communicated to others. The article is in a way an extension of an argument put forward by Jacob Nielsen about usability as empiricism and/or ideology.
This article takes its starting point in the following statement; hos ever brilliant solutions we create we will have to deal with consequences from processes that have taken place before the actual meeting with the specific information system. The RwT-model is an attempt to shed some light on when and how we become what in IS is referred to as a 'user' of an information system. It deals with socialisatoin, action strategies and positions towards technological artefacts and by doing so analyses the relation with technology to enhance understanding about the user.
Several researchers have pointed out that the field of eGovernment suffers from a too short-termed, project oriented, retrospective focus and a naïve technological optimism. Reflexive, critical analysis, cumulative research and altered use of theoretical frames are asked for to increase the practical value of eGovernment research. However, in front of fulfilling such expectations the reality is that we get the research we are asking for, and we are asking for the research we know exist, and in this logic lies a lot of communicative challenges (as well as funding mechanisms). This paper tries to address this relation and does so by putting forward an initiative to establish a national network of eGovernment researchers and practitioners (from private and public sector).
In January 2008, the Swedish Government launched a new eGovernment action plan which was formulated to serve as “a new basis for IT-based organisational development in public administration”. The main objective in the plan was formulated as “as simple as possible for as many as possible”. The definition of eGovernment used in the action plan is the one agreed upon by many other European countries: “eGovernment is organisational development in public administrations that takes advantage of information and communication technologies (ICT) combined with organisational changes and new skills”. Behind the suggested course of actions there is a rhetoric that Sweden was now entering a new path regarding eGovernment development. Taken together the declarations in the plan made it and the expressed expectations of profound changes in public administration an interesting target for critical review.Having identified the importance in critically discussing and analysing the action plan, the Swedish Researchers Network in eGovernment (www.egov.nu) arranged a network meeting at the national conference for public sector in Sweden June 2008. The theme for the meeting was “Reflections on the Swedish action plan for eGovernment”. Several researchers and practitioners shared and debated their reflections during this meeting. In order to continue this very interesting discussion after the conference, we then invited authors to submit an article on the same theme, i.e. analysing different aspects of the Swedish action plan for eGovernment. This call for papers was directed both to participants at the network meeting and others, who wanted to contribute to this on-going debate. The call was to encourage authors to communicate and share their insights and opinions regarding the action plan in order to provide knowledge to decision-makers and other practitioners.
Bourdieu-inspired journalism scholarship, and journalism studies at large, could benefit from an approach that can holistically explain how journalists make sense of technology-related change in the journalistic field. By merging key insights from field theory with philosophy of technology, and by analyzing 40 qualitative interviews with agents across a wide range of positions in the Swedish journalistic field, we uncover how journalists view technological change in relation to the field's autonomy, capitals and habitus. At the macro-level, the analysis shows how technology is constructed in the journalistic field at large, indicating a digital heteronomy. At the meso-level, findings indicate that positions become rearranged when new skills such as metrics and engagement management become collectively recognized as capital. Field-specific, journalistic, capital is supplemented with a virality capital. At the micro-level, we unravel an emerging journalistic habitus formed in relation to structural transformations in the field – the feel for engagement.
This position paper will present the aims and goals for the CITIZYS Research Group at Mid Sweden University. The research in the group is aimed to contribute to produce pro-ductive, democratic and sustainable information systems for the public sector, with a fo-cus on the citizens’ perspective. To prove our point, we will discuss these objectives through a practical example, the on-going ECHOES-project.