Location via proxy:   [ UP ]  
[Report a bug]   [Manage cookies]                
skip to main content
10.5555/1248460.1248481acmotherconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication Pagesdg-oConference Proceedingsconference-collections
Article

Mobile government fieldwork: a preliminary study of technological, organizational, and social challenges

Published: 20 May 2007 Publication History

Abstract

With its GoMobile project, the City of Seattle is pioneering the utilization of fully mobile wirelessly connected (FMWC) technology applications in fieldwork operations with the aim of significantly improving its operational effectiveness and efficiency as well as its quality of service. Our study analyzes and assesses the efficacy of this prototypical mobile Government project. Preliminary findings, based on the study of one division, show that beyond the expectable technology hurdles numerous unforeseen challenges in the organizational and social context emerge, which when taken together can present staunch and tall obstacles to arriving at the intended outcome. Our study uses a work-centered analytical framework for deriving and clarifying the strategic choices in such projects via a formative model. Our narrative model captures and surfaces the interaction and interdependence between major organizational variables and the work context. In this paper, we report on our early observations and high-level findings.

References

[1]
Anonymous. Digital Government Society Mission Statement, 2005.
[2]
Anonymous. Seattle Public Utilities, The City of Seattle, 2006.
[3]
Anttiroiko, A.-V. Towards Ubiquitous Government: The Case of Finland. e-Service Journal, 4 (1). 65--99.
[4]
Bleiler, R. GoMobile Seattle Public Utilities, Public Utilities, Seattle, (2003), 1--52.
[5]
Bleiler, R. SPU Technology Project Post-Implementation Review: Water Operations Mobile Computing, Seattle, 2003, 1--10.
[6]
Capra, L., Blair, G. S., Mascolo, C., Emmerich, W. and Grace, P. Exploiting Reflection in mobile computing middleware. ACM SIGMOBILE Mobile Computing and Communications Review, 6 (4). 34--44.
[7]
Champy, J. Reengineering management: the mandate for new leadership. HarperBusiness, New York, 1995.
[8]
Cichocki, A. Workflow and process automation: concepts and technology. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston, 1998.
[9]
Davenport, T. H. and Short, J. E. The new industrial reengineering: Information technology and business process redesign. Sloan Management Review, 31 (Summer). 11--27.
[10]
Davenport, T. H. and Stoddard, D. B. Reengineering: business change of mythic proportions? MIS Quarterly, 18 (2). 121--127.
[11]
DeSanctis, G. and Poole, M. S. Capturing the complexity in advanced technology use: Adaptive structuration theory. Organization Science, 5 (2). 121--147.
[12]
Fidel, R. The case study method: A case study. Library an Information Science Research, 6 (3). 273--288.
[13]
Fidel, R. and Pejtersen, A. M. From information behaviour research to the design of information systems: the Cognitive Work Analysis framework. Information Research, 10 (1). paper 210.
[14]
Fuglseth, A. M. and Gronhaug, K. IT-enabled redesign of complex and dynamic business processes: the case of bank credit evaluation. Omega, 25 (1). 93.
[15]
Giddens, A. The constitution of society: outline of the theory of structuration. University of California Press, Berkeley, 1984.
[16]
Gorlenko, L. and Merrick, R. No wires attached: Usability challenges in the connected mobile world. IBM Systems Journal, 42 (4), 639--651.
[17]
Grover, V., Teng, J., Segars, A. H. and Fiedler, K. The influence of information technology diffusion and business process change on perceived productivity: The IS executive's perspective. Information & Management, 34. 141--159.
[18]
Hammer, M. Beyond reengineering: how the process-centered organization is changing our work and our lives. HarperBusiness, New York, 1996.
[19]
Hammer, M. and Champy, J. Reengineering the corporation: a manifesto for business revolution. HarperBusiness, New York, NY, 1993.
[20]
Ho, A. T.-k. Reinventing local governments and the e-government initiative. Public Administration Review, 62 (4). 434--444.
[21]
Hofacker, I. and Vetschera, R. Algorithmical approaches to business process design. Computers & Operations Research, 28 (13). 1253.
[22]
Jarvenpaa, S. L. and Stoddard, D. B. Business process redesign: Radical and evolutionary change. Journal of Business Research, 41 (1). 15.
[23]
Kallio, J., Saarinen, T., Salo, S., Tinnila, M. and Vepsalainen, A. P. J. Drivers and tracers of business process changes. Journal of Strategic Information Systems, 8. 125--142.
[24]
Katz, D. and Kahn, R. L. The social psychology of organizations. Wiley, New York, 1978.
[25]
Kaylor, C., Deshazo, R. and Eck, D. V. Gauging e-government: A report on implementing services among American cities. Government Information Quarterly, 18 (4). 293--307.
[26]
Kaylor, C. H. The next wave of e-Government: The challenges of data architecture. Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 31 (2). 18--22.
[27]
Kumar, S. and Strehlow, R. Business process redesign as a tool for organizational development. Technovation, 24 (11). 853.
[28]
Kushchu, I. and Kushchu, H., From E-Government to M-Government: Facing the Inevitable. in Third European Conference on E-Government (ECEG), (Dublin, Ireland, 2003), Trinity College.
[29]
Mansar, S. L. and Reijers, H. A. Best practices in business process redesign: validation of a redesign framework. Computers in Industry, 56 (5). 457.
[30]
Newcombe, T. Mobile mapping Government Technology, Folsom, CA, 2002.
[31]
Newman, M. and Robey, D. A social process model of user-analyst relationships. MIS Quarterly, 16 (2). 249--266.
[32]
Orlikowski, W. J. The duality of technology: Rethinking the concept of technology in organizations. Organization Science, 3 (3). 398--427.
[33]
Orlikowski, W. J. and Robey, D. Information technology and the structuring of organizations. Information Systems Research, 2 (2). 143--169.
[34]
Pardo, T. A. and Scholl, H. J., Walking atop the cliffs: Avoiding failure and reducing risk in large-scale e-government projects. in 35th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS35), (Waikoloa, Big Island, HI, 2002).
[35]
Pardo, T. A., Scholl, H. J. J., Cook, M. E., Connelly, D. R. and Dawes, S. S. New York State Central Accounting System Stakeholder Needs Analysis. Center for Technology in Government, Albany, NY, 2000.
[36]
Rasmussen, J. Information processing and human-machine interaction: an approach to cognitive engineering. North-Holland, New York, 1986.
[37]
Reijers, H. A. and Liman Mansar, S. Best practices in business process redesign: an overview and qualitative evaluation of successful redesign heuristics. Omega, 33 (4). 283.
[38]
Rysavy, P. Wireless IP: A case study, PCS Dara, Hood River, OR, 1999, 15/175.
[39]
Scholl, H. J., The mobility paradigm in electronic government theory and practice: A strategic framework. in Euro Mobile Government (Euro mGov) Conference, (Brighton, UK, 2005), ICMG, 1--10.
[40]
Scholl, H. J., Organizational transformation through e-Government: Myth or Reality? in 4th International Conference EGOV05, (Copenhagen, Denmark, 2005), Springer-Verlag, 1--11.
[41]
Smart, P. K., Brookes, N. J., Lettice, F. E., Backhouse, C. J. and Burns, N. D. A boundary-based view of product development: A feasibility study. Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 216 (1). 1--12.
[42]
Stohr, E. A. and Zhao, J. L. Temporal Workflow Management in a Claim Handling System. Software Engineering Notes, 24 (2). 187--195.
[43]
Taylor, J. R. and Van Every, EJ. The emergent organization: communication as its site and surface. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, N.J., 2000.
[44]
Vicente, K. J. Cognitive work analysis: toward safe, productive, and healthy computer-based work. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, N.J., 1999.
[45]
Zhao, J. L., Kumar, A. and Stohr, E. A. Workflow-centric Communication Mechanisms for Organizational Knowledge Distribution. Journal of Management Information Systems, 17 (3). 45--72.

Cited By

View all
  • (2014)Mobile ICTs in Government Field OperationsInternational Journal of Electronic Government Research10.4018/ijegr.201404010510:2(60-81)Online publication date: 1-Apr-2014
  • (2014)Utilizing social media to improve local government responsivenessProceedings of the 15th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research10.1145/2612733.2612773(236-244)Online publication date: 18-Jun-2014
  • (2009)Mobile computing in the public sectorProceedings of the 10th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research: Social Networks: Making Connections between Citizens, Data and Government10.5555/1556176.1556260(361-363)Online publication date: 17-May-2009
  • Show More Cited By

Recommendations

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences
dg.o '07: Proceedings of the 8th annual international conference on Digital government research: bridging disciplines & domains
May 2007
349 pages
ISBN:1595935991

Sponsors

  • CIMIC
  • Center for Statistical Ecology and Environmental Statistics
  • CISCO
  • Center for Technology in Government

Publisher

Digital Government Society of North America

Publication History

Published: 20 May 2007

Check for updates

Author Tags

  1. business process analysis
  2. cognitive systems engineering
  3. cognitive work analysis
  4. digital government
  5. e-government
  6. fully mobile wirelessly connected (FMWC)
  7. information systems
  8. integration
  9. interfacing
  10. mobile government
  11. pervasive computing
  12. ubiquitous computing
  13. work content
  14. work context
  15. workflow

Qualifiers

  • Article

Conference

dg.o '07
Sponsor:
dg.o '07: Digital government research
May 20 - 23, 2007
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 150 of 271 submissions, 55%

Contributors

Other Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

  • Downloads (Last 12 months)1
  • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0
Reflects downloads up to 24 Dec 2024

Other Metrics

Citations

Cited By

View all
  • (2014)Mobile ICTs in Government Field OperationsInternational Journal of Electronic Government Research10.4018/ijegr.201404010510:2(60-81)Online publication date: 1-Apr-2014
  • (2014)Utilizing social media to improve local government responsivenessProceedings of the 15th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research10.1145/2612733.2612773(236-244)Online publication date: 18-Jun-2014
  • (2009)Mobile computing in the public sectorProceedings of the 10th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research: Social Networks: Making Connections between Citizens, Data and Government10.5555/1556176.1556260(361-363)Online publication date: 17-May-2009
  • (2008)Making mobility work in Child Protective ServicesProceedings of the 2008 international conference on Digital government research10.5555/1367832.1367886(325-333)Online publication date: 18-May-2008
  • (2007)E-government field force automationProceedings of the 6th international conference on Electronic Government10.5555/2392010.2392024(127-142)Online publication date: 3-Sep-2007
  • (2007)Choices and challenges in e-government field force automation projectsProceedings of the 1st international conference on Theory and practice of electronic governance10.1145/1328057.1328142(408-416)Online publication date: 10-Dec-2007

View Options

Login options

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

PDF

eReader

View online with eReader.

eReader

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

Share

Share

Share this Publication link

Share on social media