**4. Inter-organizational challenges**

Usually development involves cooperation of several people. Especially in development of electronic services like one-stop government services there is a need to combine resources and expertise from different sources. This means that people from various functions, units and locations are brought together, and also outside expertise is needed. Hence, development can be seen as a partnership.

The definition of partnership ranges from working relationships to active transactions and collaboration between organizations. Here the term partnership arrangements include different types of joint ventures, subcontracting, alliances and acquisitions. In this paper the

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**Lack of organizational cooperation** 

**Missing legal regulations** 

**Technological incompatibilies** 

**Staff resources and skills inadequate** 

Organizational cooperation is one factor that needs to be addressed in development of electronic services (Kubicek & Hagen, 2000). In public sector initiatives where services cross departmental boundaries this is a challenge. In most projects there are often external organizations, IT expertise and special skills that are needed. Cooperation of several partners, units and stakeholders can become a barrier for projects that involve several organizations. Development is often faced with the fact that stakeholders act too independently, because

The lack of alignment between organizational goals is put forward as a major factor in the set of organizational and managerial challenges. Furthermore, the size of project and the diversity of users and different organizations involved make the development work more demanding. Dawes and Pardo (2002) also address the existence of multiple and partially conflicting goals in public sector projects involving several stakeholders. In interorganizational projects there is a built-in delay that is result of inadequate organizational cooperation (Kubicek & Hagen, 2000). They (ibid.) identify six areas which cause failures and delays in development of electronic services. The first key area is lack of organizational cooperation. The second key area is missing legal regulations and the third is that necessary pre-conditions in regard to technology are not met. The fourth key area is human factors, skills and resources. The last barriers are result of inadequate funding and political support. Gil-García and Pardo (2005) found that challenges to various e-government initiatives are cross disciplinary and may be grouped into five categories: (1) information and data, (2) IT, (3) organizational and managerial, (4) legal and regulatory, and (5) institutional and environmental. Information and data (first category) covers the capturing, management, use, dissemination, and sharing of information. In this category the developers also need to address data quality and data accuracy as well as dynamic, changing information needs. Information technology (second category) refers to issues like technological incompatibility and complexity, security, usability, technical skills and experience, and technological newness which all present challenges for development and use of services. Organizational

Fig. 3. Barriers in development of electronic services

projects tend to be poorly coordinated (Irani, Love & Montazemi, 2007).

**Funding inadequate** 

**No political support** 

term partnerships refers to inter-organizational cooperation. In a partnership actors learn to know each other in the long run. Often relationships are relatively intensive and even personal. In business relationships competence and goodwill are needed for trust to develop (Blomqvist, 2002). The important issue here is that partnerships are based on commitment to cooperation between different actors.

Fig. 2. Actors in public information systems (Sundgren, 2005)

Service providers can be organizations which are "actual" service providers, or they can be outside companies which develop, run or maintain the service in cooperation with the actual service provider. For example, the programming of the application could be done by a specialized software company while the actual service provider concentrates on what is the content of the service. Even though there would be several parties involved in developing and providing the service one should be the service provider who is responsible for the service. This service provider may set rules like minimum requirements or standards.

In development of e-services there are differences among organizations in terms of technical skills, organizational structure and in the attitude towards innovations. This means that not all organizations are ready for changes, and the pace of development differs among organizations (Ancarani, 2005). Thorough planning is therefore needed in development of more sophisticated e-service solutions; this is the case especially in public sector organizations.

term partnerships refers to inter-organizational cooperation. In a partnership actors learn to know each other in the long run. Often relationships are relatively intensive and even personal. In business relationships competence and goodwill are needed for trust to develop (Blomqvist, 2002). The important issue here is that partnerships are based on commitment to

cooperation between different actors.

Fig. 2. Actors in public information systems (Sundgren, 2005)

organizations.

This service provider may set rules like minimum requirements or standards.

Service providers can be organizations which are "actual" service providers, or they can be outside companies which develop, run or maintain the service in cooperation with the actual service provider. For example, the programming of the application could be done by a specialized software company while the actual service provider concentrates on what is the content of the service. Even though there would be several parties involved in developing and providing the service one should be the service provider who is responsible for the service.

In development of e-services there are differences among organizations in terms of technical skills, organizational structure and in the attitude towards innovations. This means that not all organizations are ready for changes, and the pace of development differs among organizations (Ancarani, 2005). Thorough planning is therefore needed in development of more sophisticated e-service solutions; this is the case especially in public sector

Fig. 3. Barriers in development of electronic services

Organizational cooperation is one factor that needs to be addressed in development of electronic services (Kubicek & Hagen, 2000). In public sector initiatives where services cross departmental boundaries this is a challenge. In most projects there are often external organizations, IT expertise and special skills that are needed. Cooperation of several partners, units and stakeholders can become a barrier for projects that involve several organizations. Development is often faced with the fact that stakeholders act too independently, because projects tend to be poorly coordinated (Irani, Love & Montazemi, 2007).

The lack of alignment between organizational goals is put forward as a major factor in the set of organizational and managerial challenges. Furthermore, the size of project and the diversity of users and different organizations involved make the development work more demanding. Dawes and Pardo (2002) also address the existence of multiple and partially conflicting goals in public sector projects involving several stakeholders. In interorganizational projects there is a built-in delay that is result of inadequate organizational cooperation (Kubicek & Hagen, 2000). They (ibid.) identify six areas which cause failures and delays in development of electronic services. The first key area is lack of organizational cooperation. The second key area is missing legal regulations and the third is that necessary pre-conditions in regard to technology are not met. The fourth key area is human factors, skills and resources. The last barriers are result of inadequate funding and political support.

Gil-García and Pardo (2005) found that challenges to various e-government initiatives are cross disciplinary and may be grouped into five categories: (1) information and data, (2) IT, (3) organizational and managerial, (4) legal and regulatory, and (5) institutional and environmental. Information and data (first category) covers the capturing, management, use, dissemination, and sharing of information. In this category the developers also need to address data quality and data accuracy as well as dynamic, changing information needs. Information technology (second category) refers to issues like technological incompatibility and complexity, security, usability, technical skills and experience, and technological newness which all present challenges for development and use of services. Organizational

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One suggested method for increasing the amount of self-service over the internet is giving rebates for those using e-services. In e-business it is common that customers who make the reservations over the internet, for example, receive a rebate or discount coupons that they can use when shopping again in the future. The goal is to develop lock-in, and push the customers to using services that are available on the internet. The customers can do eshopping whenever it best suites them, they don't need to wait on phone, for example. At the same time self-service frees staff from answering customer calls to more productive work. The question here is that why could not public sector organizations use similar

True e-services need to be developed around user needs. Transferring existing papers, files and information from different agencies into web, and placing some hyperlinks between them is not enough. The services should be integrated, enhance self-service and trust so that users see the added value of electronic services. Technologically, users should be able to complete most of their transactions online. Here easy-to-use, robust and trustworthy

The successfulness of any service depends on whether users start using it or not. This is widely referred to as adoption. Previous research has found several factors that affect the formulation of attitudes and behavior to innovations and leads to their adoption (Rogers, 2003). Relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, triability, communicability and perceived risk are attributes that are important here, they outperform even other types of adoption predictors like situational variables and user characteristics. Rogers (2003) argues that innovation attributes have explained 49 to 87 per cent of the variance in the rate of adoption of various innovations. In predicting adoption the focus has been in adoption of products the factors may be applied to adoption of services which are delivered electronically (de Ruyter et al. 2001). From the array of attributes are perceived risk and

The perceived risk is particularly applicable and important to services as the perceived risk tends to be considerably higher than in case of products. In internet the risk is high because the customers do not know whether the service providing e-business is "big or small, new or established, legitimate or illegitimate" (Hagel & Singer, 1999). It is still noteworthy that organizational reputation has a strong influence on trust, attitude and behavior (de Ruyter et al. 2001). In internet trust plays a critical role because - depending on the service - users have to release personal or financial data to the e-service provider. This takes in an environment where the user may have very little information on the service, the e-service

While using internet for users will look for innovations that provide an advantage over current services and products. It becomes operationalized in functionalities and properties as "time-saving", "range of options" and "ease of use" (de Ruyter et al., 2001). Also convenience is an important issue. For example, there is no need to go to a certain office at a given time, when there is an e-service for doing the task it can be accomplished whenever and wherever using a computer that can connect to the service through the internet. When the innovation provides relative advantage to the user it is seen as a trigger to use of the

techniques in order to promote e-services and "locking" citizens.

**6. Adoption of e-services** 

provider and their trustworthiness.

services are needed so that more users start using e-services in public sector.

relative advantage most relevant in explaining adoption of e-services.

and managerial issues (third category) are the main challenges to information systems development (Gil-García & Pardo, 2005). It is clear that laws and regulations must be taken into account when developing electronic services (fourth category). The institutional and environmental challenges (last category) are result of the institutional framework in which public organizations. The framework also includes the existing policy environment.
