Public e-services for agency efficiency and citizen benefit - Findings from a stakeholder centered analysis

Abstract

The main goals of e-government are to increase agency efficiency and offer benefits to citizens. These goals have often been addressed as two interplaying outcomes of public e-service development, which are possible to achieve in parallel. This article shows that the two frequently applied stakeholders of e-government (agencies and citizens) are much too extensive and heterogeneous in order to be meaningfully addressed in public e-service conceptualization and development. We conduct a stakeholder centered analysis of a public e-service development and implementation process in order to identify stakeholder groups and discuss how they differ in their perceptions and, consequently, also in their feelings of relevance and need related to the e-service. By adopting a multi-faceted perspective on stakeholders, public e-service development can be analyzed and understood in a way that takes several stakeholder groups into account. Our study contributes with deeper insights about a situation where stakeholder salience changes over time, while some stakeholder groups have low salience during the entire process. The result of conducting a stakeholder centered analysis is that we, by visualizing the stakeholder groups' differences, are better prepared to meet and combine different needs related to a planned e-service. Thus, we argue that a stakeholder centered analysis of expectations and opinions concerning the e-service help to develop e-services possible to succeed in offering both external service and internal efficiency. © 2012 Elsevier Inc.