Assessing the impacts of ICT-enabled services in the public sector: a participatory evaluation process to overcome the eGovernment paradox

This paper builds on an extensive review of literature and practice analysing the barriers hindering the adoptions of eGovernment services (Savoldelli, Codagnone and Misuraca, 2012), and on the measurement and evaluation of ICT impact in general and of selected public eServices, including eGovernment (Misuraca, Codagnone and Rossel, 2012). From these analyses it emerges that one of the critical factors for implementing successful eGovernment services seems to be the presence of a transparent and trustworthy policy-making process. Moreover, the lack of a structured evaluation methodology to assess the impact of eGovernment services hampers the possibility of designing and implementing valid measurement models, highlighting the need to test concepts and hypotheses underlying them at a more granular and micro level. In order to overcome such limitations, this paper provides first a comparison between selected eGovernment evaluation methodologies, and discusses their limitations with regard to the capability to capture and assess the impacts of ICT-enabled services with specific regard to the relationships with the policy-making process. Building on the findings from this comparison, the paper proposes a comprehensive methodological approach, the eGEP-2.0 model, to assess the impacts of ICT-enabled services in the public sector, describing how an eGovernment evaluation framework should be organized, which should be its key components and which could be the political, managerial and organizational implications for the policy-making process. Finally, in order to validate the findings of the analysis and the proposed methodological framework, the paper discusses the results of the application of such framework to the ex ante evaluation process of the eGovernment Information and Telecommunication Programme of the Regione Emilia-Romagna in Italy, for the period 2011-2013, where more than 30 eGovernment services have been assessed and are being implemented following the proposed evaluation methodology. The paper concludes with some indications on how to further apply and develop the proposed framework and methodology.

SAVOLDELLI Alberto;  CODAGNONE Cristiano;  MISURACA Gianluca; 

2013-11-07

University of Urbino

JRC85434