Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Towards e‐government: a survey of problems in organisational processes

Towards e‐government: a survey of problems in organisational processes Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to look at process initiatives in the Swedish social insurance administration, focusing on the problems of crossing functional boundaries, co‐ordinating processes over inter‐organisational boundaries and the issue of whether to aim for radical or incremental change. Design/methodology/approach – The survey involved data collection including a study of internal documents and 16 individual personal interviews. Findings – The organisation experiences collaboration problems when cross‐functional work and processes collide with the traditional and hierarchical command and control structures. These are not easily dismantled, meaning intensive work to change the culture and break functional mind‐sets. Furthermore the administration struggles with and can benefit from co‐ordination of processes over the inter‐organisational boundaries. Changes in the customer front‐line affect the rest of the organisation and its processes. The study has shown that both functional units and support processes deep inside the organisation, like the systems development process, are affected, and that deficiencies in the underlying structure and organisation are revealed. The process efforts so far are scattered, but it may be more important for organisations to deploy process change, as a continuous strategic initiative, rather than embarking on huge radical redesign programmes. Originality/value – Little information regarding processes and the public sector exists, and problems likely to be encountered by other public organisations are pointed out. The survey also puts light on support processes – not only business processes – required for e‐government. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Business Process Management Journal Emerald Publishing

Towards e‐government: a survey of problems in organisational processes

Download PDF
13 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/emerald-publishing/towards-e-government-a-survey-of-problems-in-organisational-processes-Ysu8zu4lj7

References (25)

Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
Copyright © 2006 Emerald Group Publishing Limited. All rights reserved.
ISSN
1463-7154
DOI
10.1108/14637150610657503
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to look at process initiatives in the Swedish social insurance administration, focusing on the problems of crossing functional boundaries, co‐ordinating processes over inter‐organisational boundaries and the issue of whether to aim for radical or incremental change. Design/methodology/approach – The survey involved data collection including a study of internal documents and 16 individual personal interviews. Findings – The organisation experiences collaboration problems when cross‐functional work and processes collide with the traditional and hierarchical command and control structures. These are not easily dismantled, meaning intensive work to change the culture and break functional mind‐sets. Furthermore the administration struggles with and can benefit from co‐ordination of processes over the inter‐organisational boundaries. Changes in the customer front‐line affect the rest of the organisation and its processes. The study has shown that both functional units and support processes deep inside the organisation, like the systems development process, are affected, and that deficiencies in the underlying structure and organisation are revealed. The process efforts so far are scattered, but it may be more important for organisations to deploy process change, as a continuous strategic initiative, rather than embarking on huge radical redesign programmes. Originality/value – Little information regarding processes and the public sector exists, and problems likely to be encountered by other public organisations are pointed out. The survey also puts light on support processes – not only business processes – required for e‐government.

Journal

Business Process Management Journal – Emerald Publishing

Published: Mar 1, 2006

Keywords: Organizational processes; Insurance companies; Social benefits; Electronic commerce; Sweden

There are no references for this article.