TECHNOLOGY IN POLICY

An Explorative Case Study of Information Systems in Merging Authorities

Elin Wihlborg, Ulf Melin and Linus Johansson Krafve

Department of Management and Engineering, Linkoping University, SE-581 83 Linkoping, Sweden

Keywords: Public authorities, e-Government, Integration, Translation.

Abstract: This paper shows how e-government can, or might even have to, be considered as a public policy

transformation. In the process of merging authorities into new organisations public policies on e-

government appeared as a key activity. The case study presented in the paper is the formation of the new

Swedish Transport Agency formed out of several formerly independent authorities. The Swedish case study

is a mature public administration and basic democratic core values. The main contribution from the case

study is to point out the importance of translation of policies into organizational practices.

1 INTRODUCTION

Public administration is as such an information

system. Policymakers and public administration are

developing and using information technological

systems. One of the main reasons for developing

databases and early IT was the need of efficient

national registration and administration of great data

generating capacities. In Sweden this took place

already in the 1960’s (Johansson, 1997). However,

the use of IT within public administration has

recently been taking to new levels by more

integrative systems, within and between agencies

(e.g. case management and case handling support

systems) and openness towards citizens and the

surrounding society (e.g. public e-services).

During the last decade e-government has become

an apparent strategy in reforming government

agencies and public authorities (Heeks, 1999; Pardo

& Tayi, 2007; Tranvik et al., 2008). Many scholars

seem to agree that some of the most promising

benefits from the use of IT in government rely upon

the integration of activates and information across

organizational boundaries (Daves & Pardo, 2002;

Pardo & Tayi, 2007). Ultimately, government

agencies through the use of IT, seek to centralize

and make a cohesive and seamless set of

government services available to users. Integration

of governmental organisations, through the use if IT

(e.g. information systems [IS] such as enterprise

systems, described below), are therefore seen as a

critical success factor to attaining a mature level of

e-government (Lam, 2005). However, this kind of

change usually requires rather radical technical and

organisational process and behaviour changes for

both the individuals and the organizations involved

(Pardo, Gil-Garcia & Burke, 2006). We can also

identify the stream of information sharing and intra-

and inter-organizational information integration in

the private sector using enterprise information

systems (enterprise systems or ERP-systems) with

similar arguments and benefits (Sammon & Adam,

2005) as in the public sector. The typical features of

an enterprise system include a central database

providing data exchange, an organisation-wide

scope and a high degree of integration (Kremers &

van Dissel, 2000; Newell et al., 2003).

Democratic public administration relies on other

core values than market oriented business

organisations and even civil society organisations.

The typical features of liberal democratic public

administration as democratic open and accessible

provide a contextual setting for e-government, with

options for improved democracy, openness;

participation and accessibility (Bock Segard, 2009).

In recent years a massive trend of transformation

from government towards governance has opened

for integrative e-governance in pluricentric

interviewing administration linking together public,

semi-public and private institutions (Sörensen,

2007). These contextual and societal changes

influence the internal design and usage of IS.

As a consequence of the increasing use of IT in

the public sector national policies on e-government

353

Wihlborg E., Melin U. and Johansson Krafve L.

TECHNOLOGY IN POLICY - An Explorative Case Study of Information Systems in Merging Authorities.

DOI: 10.5220/0002811503530360

In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technology (WEBIST 2010), page

ISBN: 978-989-674-025-2

have developed and become more specified recently.

There has been no central clear policy for the

implementation of e-government in the Swedish

public authorities, instead each authority had their

practice sometimes expressed in policies. First in

2008 the Swedish government launched a

comprehensive and comprehensive policy for e-

government (Finansdepartementet (Fi2008/491)

Nationell handlingsplan för den svenska

eFörvaltningen) – a policy critically examined by

e.g. Melin (2009).

In spite of the lack of policies the public

authorities had for a long been working with e-

government and different solutions of IT in their

activities, bur rather in a decentralized and locally

adapted manner. That also applies to the activities

and responsibilities now belonging to The Swedish

Transport Agency (STA) – the case focused in the

present paper. STA was established in January 2009.

It is a result of merging five earlier separated

authorities in the policy area of transportation. The

core activities of the new authority are

regularization, supervision and authorization within

the four modes of transportation aviation, railway,

road and shipping. STA merges responsibilities from

five different former public agencies in Sweden.

1.1 Aim of the Paper

The aim of this paper is to analyse the translation of

policy making into IS design in the process of

merging public authorities into a common

organisation. The analysis relies on a case study of

the Swedish Transport Agency (STA) and is

explorative and opens for an integrative approach

towards public policy making and e-government.

In the analysis we de-construct the case using

two research approaches:

 Technology in policy: how are the information

systems constructed and given meaning in the

policy processes forming the new authority?

 Technology in politics: how are the information

systems implemented are negotiated through

politics?

The separation of policy and politics indicates that

policy concerns the content and politics highlights

the negotiations and decisions on the policy

(Sörensen, 2007).

In the next section we introduce our theoretical

perspective on the case study and discuss some

methodological considerations. The third part

addresses the research questions. Finally, we draw

some conclusions and point at som implecations

for the policymaking regarding e-government.

2 METHODOLOGICAL AND

THEORETICAL

CONSIDERATIONS

This qualitative case study was conducted in the

newly established public authority The STA in the

spring and summer of 2009. The design of the study

was formed in discussions with the authority and we

got good access to informants, documents and

informal working papers.

STA is a regulative authority with basic legal

applications. STA has, in comparison with other

authorities, an open perspective and relates to

private and market actors for the basic functions of a

society (eg. traffic in general). It is also de-

centralised authority with several different regional

and specialized offices. Our approach towards the

case has been two-folded. Firstly, we approached the

case from above and from a distance through the text

analysis of the policy documents. Our mapping of

the policy context was a discursive analysis of e-

government in national policy documents,

investigations, documentations of guiding principles

and action programmes has been conducted. A

summary of the analyzed documents is found in the

list of references. Secondly, we approached the

process from “inside” and below, by following the

actors promoting the processes of change and

common implementation of the IS. The data

collection is based on interviews with central

positioned authority’s personnel at STA and some

on-site observations at STA headquarters. In

addition European, national and organisational

documents regarding transport policies in general

and the formation of STA in specific have been

analysed. The purpose of this combination of

methods was, to investigate the strivings of the

authority to reach the government’s ambition when

it comes to e-government, as expressed in the

national policy action plan. At the same time we had

an ambition to explore the agency’s efforts of

achieving a sense and spirit of community and joint

action in its organization. An unexpected but central

and repeatedly experienced difficulty was the lack of

documents registered in the public diary records of

the new authority. A common answer to the claims

for access to official and public records was that

there simply was none – at least none (written form).

The three information systems that were selected

for this study exemplifies systems employed in the

everyday work at the agency. The information

systems are: Agresso (a software package of

modules for HR and financial management); W3D3

WEBIST 2010 - 6th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies

354

(a system for diary-keeping) and “Transporten” (the

agency intranet). They were chosen as they represent

somewhat different forms of human-system-

interaction, at the same time as they are used

differently from a top-down/bottom-up-perspective.

This study is a single case study with in-depth

studies of a one agency, but the systems are three so

we used the openings for internal-case comparison

to gain a deeper and richer understanding of the role

of information systems in organizational changes.

In this study, the focus is not so much on the

technology itself, but on the organizational setting

for usage of the system, and the organizational

assumptions and implications of overall system

design. That means to focus on the cultural and

social embeddedness of the system, such as attitudes

towards the system, the meaning of the interface,

and proficiency of self-services (e-services).

2.1 e-Government as a Socio-technical

System

Our ontological grounding is on the constructing of

meanings and usage of information technology in

the interplay between actors and structures. Public

authorities are (or at least builds on the intention to

be) democratic designed and managed organisations.

E-government is given meanings both in a

political process of forming policies and in the daily

practices of conducting the objectives of the

authority. This case study was conducted in a re-

organised new authority and thereby even some

formerly implicit meanings became visible.

Thus the local actors within the organisation

are constrained by the democratic imperative and in

this case also the technological one. The aim of a

public organisation is not profit maximizing, but still

to reach efficient resource management. There are

also demands to meet the general public and run all

activities according to the legislation. Thus public IS

has to address other aims than information systems

(e.g. enterprise systems) in private firms. A problem

is that the supplier of information systems normally

has the private firm as a norm – this also goes for the

information integration, within and crossing

organizational boundaries, that usually is a result

from use of modern IT (cf. Daves & Pardo, 2002;

Pardo & Tayi, 2007) and a part of an e-government

agenda (ibid.).

2.2 Roles of Information Systems

Askenäs (2004) and Askenäs and Westelius (2000)

propose that the use of an enterprise system, as an

example of an IS, affects the structuration of an

organization. This follows the line of thinking

introduced above regarding e-government as a

socio-technical system. This does not means that an

enterprise system acts on its own. It is individuals

(e.g. users) who use it and who may give it a role as

an actor. An enterprise system is, thus, not an

independent, invariant, externally designed actor. It

receives its character in interaction with the structure

of the organization (cf. Giddens, 1984), other

information systems within an organization or

integrated with them forming an infrastructure with

them (cf. Hanseth and Braa 1998). Individuals also

perceive and understand information systems as

such and its purpose, differently (Askenäs and

Westelius, 2000; Orlikowski and Gash, 1994).

Figure 1: IS Roles (based on: Askenäs and Westelius,

2000).

Bases on these points of departure Askenäs (2004)

and Askenäs and Westelius (2000) proposes several

IS roles, which they label; (1) manipulator, (2)

bureaucrat, (3) assistant, (4) consultant, and (5)

dismissed (Figure 1).

To enable an enterprise system to play (1) the

role of a manipulator, the “individuals have to obey

and follow the instructions in the system” (Askenäs

and Westelius, 2000, p. 432). This act may be done

consciously, reluctantly or unknowingly. The role of

an enterprise system as a (2) bureaucrat needs the

individuals (e.g. users) to follow its instructions and

agree with them. The power and sanctions from the

system, or individuals forcing others to use the

system is not as strong as in the former role. In the

(3) assistant role the system does not have exclusive

power over the individuals. Individuals use the

enterprise system more as they like. The system is

“only” used to supply data etc. and not an active part

in the individual’s actions. The (4) consultant role

TECHNOLOGY IN POLICY - An Explorative Case Study of Information Systems in Merging Authorities

355

can be placed in between the (2) bureaucrat role and

the (3) assistant role regarding the influence on the

actions. The user lets (or makes) the enterprise

system suggests alternative possibilities, but chooses

between the alternatives offered. An enterprise

system playing the (5) dismissed role has been

actively rejected by an individual (ibid.).

We regard the roles as ideal types that can serve

as a point of departure helping us to understand the

phenomena studied in this paper. We use the

interactive dimensions and the reciprocal relations

between structure, technology and individuals as a

point of departure in this paper and add more

institutional density.

2.3 Authorities as Democratic Public

Administration

The traditional government approach highlights the

formal steering chain of public organizations and

decision making by political actors. ‘Government’

implies that governing takes place within

governments and their formal institutions and the

state’s monopoly on the use of legitimate coercion is

in focus (Boyer, 1990; Stoker, 1998). The

government approach has long been the norm, and it

has determined the structure for policymaking.

On the other hand, the governance approach has

been developed to explain the more open and

network-oriented decision-making processes

including an intricate interplay among public,

private and non-profit organizations. This approach

has been explanatory and, at the same time,

inspirational to policy makers aiming to achieve

‘good governance’. According to Peters and Pierre

(2004, p. 78), the common denominator in

definitions of governance is that it “…refers to the

process through which public and private actions

and resources are coordinated and given a common

direction and meaning”. Governance is about co-

ordination, but focuses on how and why actors

continue to participate and develop interactions in

networks. Thus we prefer to talk about e-governance

rather than e-government. However, according to all

problems related to drawing lines around

governance structure we keep the established

concepts e-government for governance in public

authorities that is the case here.

Networks are considered as non-hierarchies with

mutually dependent actors among whom power

relations are clearly uneven. There are usually open

exits from networks. Actors participating in

networks have to exchange resources and negotiate

shared purposes. Cooperation and coordination are

seen as the best ways to address common interests

(Börzel, 1998). It has been argued that governance

has developed as a response to increased

globalization, deregulation and ideological

liberalization, among other trends. Networks are

self-organizing and not fully accountable to the state

in the governance approach (Rhodes, 1997:53).

However, all networks act in a context of public

institutions, and thus states interrelate and participate

in networks. Governance enforces cooperation and

open networks, and therefore no decision made

within any given organization or institution will

necessarily be legitimate beyond the initial context.

Legitimacy arises through the interplay between

legal interpretations, common understanding and

trust within the network.

2.4 Policymaking and Democratic

Public e-Government

To conclude, information technological systems are

socially constructed and given meanings in its

contexts. The context for e-government is formed in

the interplay of policy making and usage of IT in

public administrations.

Here we consider the interplay of policy

making and usage as an act of translation.

Translation takes place in the interplay of translator

(actor), something that is translated (object) and

mediated in which the translation is inscribed

(Callon 1991, p. 143). We here divide into policies

regarding e-government as the content.

3 TECHNOLOGY IN

POLITICS - POLITICAL

DESIGN OF E-GOVERNMENT

This section presents the case. Firstly, we give a

story of the construction of e-government in politics

(3.1) and the policies that came out on national level

(3.2). Secondly, we show how these policies are

constructed into STA through a political process

(3.3) and than how local policies were developed as

practices at the emerging authority of STA (3.4).

3.1 Technology in Politics – Public

Policy Documents

The Swedish Government has for some time not had

a united policy for usage of IT-solutions in the

public administration (Riksrevisionen 2004:19). In

the beginning of the 21th century this began to

WEBIST 2010 - 6th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies

356

change, mostly due to the establishment of the

notion of the 24/7 Agency, under the responsibility

of the 24/7 Delegation. However, further action had

to be made to accomplish the goal of a unified

management of e-government. Therefore, in 2007 a

group of State Secretaries was formed with the

mission to investigate how the management of the

Swedish e-government could be improved. One of

the results from the workings of this group was the

National Plan of Action for the E-government from

2008. This was the first time all the e-government

policies was presented in i single, unified document.

The main objective of the action plan is to make it

”as simple as possible for as many as possible”.

Some of the other explicit objectives of the action

plan is to improve the quality of exercise of public

authority, and to ”slim” the administration in order

to economize the limited resources. The aim of the

plan itself is to coordinate the management of e-

government across organizational borders of

ministries and authorities.

An investigation of merging the authorities in

the area of transportation was presented before the

Government. Soon thereafter, on September 25

2008, the government bill for the establishment of

The Swedish Transport Agency was presented. On

January 1st 2009 the new authority was to start its

activities. In the final government bill the argument

for establishing the new authority is mainly to

improve and make more effective the supervision,

but also to harmonize the development of the

different modes of transportation.

There were also explicit ambitions to

harmonize the IT-systems used both within the

former authorities and towards customers/citizens

(Governmental bill: Prop 2008/09:31).

3.2 The Action Plan – Technology in

Policy

In the national budget for 2007 the Swedish

Government called attention to the need for uniform

usage of file formats and joint methods for a safe

handling of electronic data in the governmental

body. The Governments ambition in this matter also

showed very clear in the report on IT-

standardization. In another government bill from

2008, the ambition of intensified and facilitated

interchange of information between different

authorities further shed light on the safety aspects of

such an ambition. This matter has clearly been

important for the government in recent times.

In 2009 an Action plan for e-government was

formulated (analyzed e.g. by Melin, 2009). The aim

of the action plan is to make public contacts with the

authorities easier, by using IT in a strategic way but

also by organising activities within the public

administration differently. The reason given is that

the commitment to developing e-government is a

way to try to live up to public expectations, and that

public administration has a special responsibility to

support and/or lead progress in the IT area. The

intended performances of the action plan are divided

into four focus areas. They are presented as separate,

but they are all equally important for achieving the

objectives of the plan. These areas are: (1) To set up

regulations for cooperation and handling of

information between and across different public

authorities, (2) Technological solutions and

standardization of IT, (3) Shared support for in-

service training and joint follow-ups and (4) The

authorities public relations through e-services.

The argumentation is centred around the concept

of streamlining, and one used formulation is: ”The

internal need for streamlining should be made at

least as important as the public value when it comes

to the continued development.” (Verva 2004:30). All

in all, the national government has in recent times

shown a great interest in handling of cases

electronically, as a means to save resources and

streamlining the business of different authorities.

3.3 STA as Technology in Politics

In this study, the focus is on the merge of different

agencies into one public agency; STA. The creation

of the STA is an example of trying to “harmonize

organisational cultures” of it’s different lines of

business, and achieve a capacity to act jointly as a

single authority. Another important, and interwoven

aspect, of the merge of the operations are the use and

overall design of different information systems

employed by the STA; both as levering and

hindering changes, regarding e.g. information

sharing and intra- and inter-organizational

information integration. The role of the information

systems in the merging of authorities into a single

public authority is therefore also focused. Three

information systems are analysed: Agresso, W3D3

and the agency intranet.

In the governmental bill establishing The

Swedish Transport Agency (Prop 2008/09:31), the

discussion of IT-usage has an unobtrusive role. The

main argument is that modern technology probably

will facilitate the citizen contact with the authority.

In The Government Approval Document for 2009

The Swedish Transport Agency (STA) has been

given the assignment to, at the latest October 31

TECHNOLOGY IN POLICY - An Explorative Case Study of Information Systems in Merging Authorities

357

2009, present an action plan of how the authority

intend to realize the ambitions of the National

Action Plan for E-government, thus this were not

included in our analysis.

The formation and planning of STA has been

discussed since 2004, aiming to reach an overall

view on policy-making, supervision and

authorization within the transportation sector. In

2007, an official report stated that the supervising

capacity of the different modes of transportation

should be established within a new authority.

However, at the time it was acknowledged that this

could not be done without further investigation.

Hence, in 2007 another investigating committee was

launched – this time with the explicit aim of

establishing a new authority. The responsibilities of

the new authority should be regularization,

authorization, supervision and policy-making in the

different modes of transportation, and to represent

the Swedish Government in international

developmental policy-processes within the

transportation sector.

To conclude the basic impression of the case

study is that the efficiency aim is superior in the

process of merging authorities. The politics of

technology here is efficiency rather than democracy,

openness and other buzz-words for e-government.

3.4 Policies on IT Activities at STA

When the final report came that suggested the

establishment of The STA as a new public authority

(SOU 2008:44), the ambition of availability 24/7

through e-services was a part of the plan. The

emphasis was that the information retrieval (IR) for

citizens and private enterprises was to be simple,

effective, and interactive. Moreover, the calling

upon citizens providing information for the authority

should be solved interactively between the different

authorities, so the information would only have to be

provided once. It should not be the responsibility of

the individual to navigate, this should be the

responsibility of the governmental bodies to solve

jointly among themselves. This is especially

important for The STA, since it’s activity involves a

lot of public interaction through different forms of

service and authorization. The official report

presents a strong belief in streamlining the resources

of the authority through the implementation of e-

government.

That IT usage and e-government is not widely

discussed in the preparatory work of The STA is

perhaps not very surprising. Nevertheless, in much

other policy-making e-government has come to play

an increasingly important role. This sort of

discussions on IT might not be very common in the

context of authorities and organisation, but they

exist.

3.5 Merging Authorities, Merging

People, Merging Technology and …

Even though the ambition of creating one authority

with an overall responsibility for the different modes

of transportation had been around for some time,

things were rushed when time came to implement

the plans in reality. The personnel interviewed in

this case study all witness that the demands were

overwhelming in comparison to the circumstances at

hand and the resources available for the

organizational change. As one of the interviewees

put it: ”It’s been forgotten that it costs a lot of

money to save a lot of money”. The scarce time and

resources available for the change also became

visible through the financial result of the first six

months of the agency. The director-general of the

agency, Staffan Widlert, explained on June 26 2009

that this had caused severe financial problems for

the agency, intensified by the financial crisis at the

end of 2008 of the economy at large.

4 ANANLYSIS OF THE POLICY

MAKING OF INFORMATION

TECHNOLOGY IN STA

There are two main reasons here for taking the

interest in the policymaking and usage of

information systems in STA. The first reason is the

unique character of the e-government as a policy

domain makes it very valuable to study. One

challenge in a context of policy analysis is trying to

investigate under what conditions a successful

implementation of the Swedish governments

ambitions may occur. That means to analyze both

central policy documents as well as acquainting to

the local practices in the different contexts of the

authorities. Generally, to fully grasp and understand

the conditions for implementation of a policy, one

has to understand that ”nothing happens by itself”

and that a an implementation process has to be

carried through by local actors (Hill & Hupe, 2009;

Stewart, 1996 and Lipsky, 1980). In the context of

public authorities, some authors speak of these local

implementers as social entrepreneurs. The

enthusiasm of these entrepreneurs is sometimes a

WEBIST 2010 - 6th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies

358

necessary condition for the successful

implementations of innovations in the public sector.

The second reason is that when a new authority

is established, there is a unique opportunity to

change and develop the administrative and

managerial characteristics of the governmental body.

Or so the theory goes. In fact STA is a complex mix

of different authorities, with the different

organizational and information technological (socio-

technical) bodies already having distinct ideas about

how to run things. The challenge for the new

authority is thus to overcome the old routines, and

establish a joint comprehension of goals, routines,

and identity. A challenge which often proves to be

easier said than done. The Swedish government’s

intentions of establishing an all-embracing

transportation agency was to collect, clear and

render the supervision assignments of the different

modes of transportation more efficiently. A

condition for achieving this is that the new authority

has the capacity to act jointly. The different IT

solutions employed in the agency have an effect on

this capacity. However, as has long been stated

within the studies of IT and organizational change,

there is no simple causal effect between

implementation of technology and organizational

and behavioural outcome. Hypothetically, the IS

could bring the former authorities together, or some

of its parts. But IS could also divide since the

professionals in different authorities have different

cultural experiences of IS, the meaning of IS and

how to use it. The role of the IS in merging

authorities is therefore crucial (Askenäs and

Westelius, 2000) as well as general IT as a part of

policies and ongoing policy making. Different roles

for IS affects the prerequisites for and results of

merging organizations. New and common IS can

e.g. be used and interpreted as a manipulator, an

assistant or a bureaucrat (e.g. standardizing

processes within the STA) or even be dismissed,

actively rejected by an individual (ibid.) or a group

of individuals (in this case a merged sub unit

rejected W3D3).

Figure 2 illustrates our primarily conclusions of

the case study inspired by Askenäs and Westelius

(2000) model illustrated in Figure 1 and the process

of translation (Callon 1991). It was obvious that

policy making regarding information technological

systems both took place in the representative

democratic system and in the organisational setting.

There is a translation of policy making that appears

in the interpretation and use of IT. The democratic

decisions are translated through the use of the

technology and thereby influencing both the

structure of the organisation and the activities of the

individual.

Figure 2: Translation of policy through the IS design.

Hereby, we conclude by pointing at the interplay of

usage and politics in the making of e-government.

This conclusion is grounded in an indeed

interdisciplinary approach. Through this model we

will point at the implications of translation and its

implications for developing new policies as well

approaches for IT use in public organisations. The

general policymaking process beyond the

organisation has to be translated into the

organisation as well as the IT system.

The main contribution from the case study is

to point out the importance of translation of policies

into organizational practices of information

technology merging authorities. The national Action

plan for e-government made an implicit but at the

end oblivious change of use e-government.

It is also worth noticing that the common

information systems played important roles in the

merging of the new authority. The creation of a

common organisational setting got a face and a

structure through the common information systems.

Traditional models of implementation of policy

more or less take a “jump” into daily use of the

systems, excluding the translation process. Thus

translation processes has to be included in policy

analysis, at least when focusing on development and

implementation of IT in public organisations.

REFERENCES

Askenäs, L and& A Westelius (2000) “Five roles of an

information system: a social constructionist approach

to analyzing the use of ERP systems”. International

Conference on Information Systems archive.

Proceedings of the twenty first international

conference on Information systems table of contents.

Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 426 – 434.

TECHNOLOGY IN POLICY - An Explorative Case Study of Information Systems in Merging Authorities

359

Bock Segaard, S. (2009) Veje til lokalt e-demokrati –

organisering, mål, virkmidler og resurser. Oslo

university Press.

Boyer, W. W. (1990), Political Science and the 21st

Century: From Government to Governance. PS:

Political Science and Politics, 23/1

Börzel, T.A. (1998), Organizing Babylon – on the

different conceptions of policy network. Public

Administration, 76 (2).

Callon, M. (1991). "Techno-economic networks and

irreversibility" In John Law (ed.), A Sociology of

Monsters. Essays on Power, Technology and

Domination. London: Routledge.

Dawes, S. S., & Pardo, T. (2002). Building collaborative

digital government systems: Systemic constraints and

effective practices. In W. Mc Iver & A. K.

Elmagarmid (Eds.), Advances in digital government

technology, human factors, and policy, Norwell, MA:

Kluwer, pp. 259−273.

Finansdepartementet (Fi2008/491) Nationell

handlingsplan för den svenska eFörvaltningen

Governmental bill: Prop 2008/09:31 Transportstyrelsen

och dess verksamhet.

Heeks, R. (1999). Reinventing government in the

information age: International practice in IT-enabled

public sector reform. Routledge, New York.

Hill, M. and Hupe, P. (2009). Implementing Public Policy.

Sage, London.

IOS Press, 2006 Amsterdam Paper presented at the

eChallenges Conference, Barcelona, Spain.

Johansson, M (1997) Smart, fast and beautiful: on rhetoric

of technology and computing discourse in Sweden

1955-1995. Diss. Linköping university. Also:

http://liu.diva-

portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2:20702.

Kremers, M and van Dissel, H. (2000) Enterprise

Resource Planning: ERP System Migrations,

Communications of the ACM, 43(4), 53-56.

Lam, W. (2005). Barriers to E-Government Integration,

Journal of Enterprise Information Management, 18(5),

511-530.

Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social. Oxford

University Press, Oxford.

Lipsky, M. (1980). Street-Level Bureacracy. Russell Sage

Foundation, New York.

Markus, M.L. and Robey, D. (1988). Information

technology and organizational change: Causal

structure in theory and research. Management Science,

34 (5), 583-598.

Melin, U. (2009). The Emperor’s New Clothes? –

Analyzing the Swedish Action Plan for e-government,

International Journal of Public Information Systems,

Special Issue on E-Government in Sweden: New

Directions, Vol. 2009:2, 97-122.

Newell, S., Huang, J.C., Galliers, R.D. and Pan, S.L.

(2003) Implementing Enterprise Resource Planning

and Knowledge Management Systems in Tandem:

Fostering Efficiency and Innovation Complementarity,

Information and Organisation, 13, 25-52.

Orlikowski, W. and Robey, D. (1991): Information

Technology and the Structuring of Organisations.

Informations Systems Research, 2(2), 143-169.

Pardo, T. A., Gil-Garcia, J. R., & Burke, G. B. (2006).

Building response capacity through cross-boundary

information sharing: The critical role of trust. In:

Exploiting the Knowledge Economy: Issues,

Applications, Case Studies, Cunningham, P. and

Cunningham., M. (Eds)

Pardo, T.A. and Tayi, G.K. (2007). Interorganizational

Information Integration: A Key Enabler for Digital

Government (Editorial), Government Information

Quarterly, (24), pp. 691-715.

Peters, G. & Pierre, J., 2004, ‘Multi-level Governance and

Democracy: A Faustian Bargain?’ In: Bache, I. &

Flinders, M. (ed.), Multi-level Governance (New

York: Oxford University Press).

Premfors, R. et al (2003): Demokrati och byråkrati.

Studentlitteratur, Lund. [In Swedish]

Rhodes, R.A.W. (1997) Understanding Governance.

Policy Networks, Governance, Reflexivity and

Accountability. Buckingham: Open University Press.

Sammon, D. and Adam, F. (2005). Towards a model of

organisational prerequisites for enterprise-wide

systems integration: Examining ERP and data

warehousing, Journal of Enterprise Information

Management, 18(4), 458-470.

SOU 2007:4 Trafikinspektionen – en myndighet för

säkerhet och skydd inom transportområdet

Stewart, J. (1996): ”A Dogma of our Time – The

Separation of Policy-making and Implementation” i

Public Money & Management, 1996 (33-40).

Stoker, G., (1998) Governance as Theory: Five Proposi-

tions, International Social Science Journal, 155/1.

Sörensen, E. (2007) “Public Administration as

Metagovernance” In: Gjekstrup, G. & Sörensen, E.

Public Administration in Transition. Copenhagen:

DJØF Publishing.

Tranvik, T. et al (2008) Digital teknik og organisasjons-

endring. [Digital technology and organisational chang,

in Norweigan]. Oslo: Fagbokforlaget.

WEBIST 2010 - 6th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies

360