II
RAMON LLULL UNIVERSITY
ESCUELA SUPERIOR DE ADMINISTRACIÓN Y DIRECCIÓN DE EMPRESAS - ESADE
(MANAGEMENT AND BUSSINES DIRECTION SUPERIOR SCHOOL)
“The Information and Communication Technologies at the Public Administration- Citizen Relation”
Comparative Evaluation Between Colombia and a Second Latin American Country of the Electronic Tax Payment Service
Research Proposal to Obtain PhD in Management Sciences in ESADE- Spain
Director: Dr. Lluis Olivella
Co director: Dra. Mila Gascó
Advisor: Dr. Alfred Vernis
PhD Candidate: Ing Diego Cardona MBA
UNESCO Scholarship holder
Barcelona - March 2003
Index
Abstract III
1 Research Problem 1
1.1 Relevance 1
1.2 Problem Statement 3
1.3 Objective 3
1.4 Research Questions 3
1.4.1 How does the Citizen Perceives? 3
1.4.2 What does the Citizen Expects? 4
1.4.3 What Can Public Administration Do? 4
2 Theory Base 5
2.1 Knowledge Society 5
2.2 Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) 6
2.3 Public Administration and Policy Evaluation 7
2.4 Electronic Government 9
3 Research Methodology 9
4 Contribution to Knowledge 11
5 Limitations and Key Assumptions 12
6 Planning 12
References 13
Table Index
Table 1 Relations among analysis, evaluation and investigation 8
Table 2 Analysis VS Evaluation 8
Table 3 Methodologies Classification 10
Table 4 Activities List 13
Abstract
At the present time there is a massive implementation of e-administration initiatives on the part of the public administration to meet the requirements of joining the knowledge society and to avoid the negative digital divide implications.
In the implementation of this sort of initiatives, this research will be carried out on the highly important issue of the public administration to citizen relation (G2C), on the basis of regarding the citizen as an applicant of services and information rather than a participant, voter nor subject of state.
The objective of this research is to give answer, through the comparative evaluation between Colombia and a second Latin American country of the electronic tax payment service, to the questions:
· How does the Citizen perceive the present electronic administration initiatives?
· What does the Citizen expect from the present electronic administration initiatives?
· What can the Public Administration do to implement electronic administration initiatives?
II
1 Research Problem
1.1 Relevance
The relevance of the proposed research can be assessed from several perspectives; in a first instance, the ICT[1] is a fundamental element at the incorporation process of communities in the digital society and, therefore, the public administration is responsible for generating policies that support this incorporation.
This responsibility is described by institutions like the World Bank, when defining, among other directives for the state reform, the promotion of efficient and effective systems of services provision through a variety of channels adapted to the activity circumstances and the country (SHEPHERD, 1999). In addition, for the developing countries case, the evaluation of the ICT applications will involve the identification of challenges and opportunities critics that, if they are not taken advantage of, will imply their irremediable delay (HALLBERG & BOND, 2001).
The European Union recommend (CARELLI, 2001):
· To accelerate the public administration transformation and the governmental services improvement by means of a more intensive ICT use
· To guarantee the access of all the communitarian citizens to the "vital information" of its governments
· To establish safe channels for the communication between the citizen and the public administration
· To promote the public-private associations directed to the services provision and information access to the public sector.
Additionally, the OECD observes how the TIC offers new business opportunities, including the most modest people. Used widely, they provide the communities with means to participate in new sources of economic growth and expression, in the same way, new capacities are acquired. The public administration has the important responsibility to jointly work with the enterprise sector and the civil society to assure that not losing these opportunities (JOHNSTON, 2000).
In order to give answer to the requirements previously defined, the public administration has initiated the implementation of a series of electronic government initiatives.
In this ICT application on the part of the public administration, there are few studies focused on the expectations of the citizen toward the electronic government. The situation is more marked for the case of the developing countries. Additionally, experts consulted in the subject of public management think that a work developed in the ICT research at the relation public administration-citizen does not exist.
Furthermore, it is possible to conclude that the electronic government implies, for the public administration, the existence of internal and external relations with components of citizen participation, benefit of public services, access to the public information and, finally, interagency horizontal integration.
These components cover the different electronic government sectors; G2G-government to government, G2B-government to business and finally G2C-government to citizen (SEIFERT & PETERSEN, 2001).
Within this electronic government definition, at the G2C relation, it is necessary to consider the different citizen role (DUIVENBODEN, 2002):
· Customer: with a behavior different from that of the traditional customer role at the private sector, that normally acts voluntarily[2]
· Subject of the State: he is subject to norms, regulations and decisions defined by the public administration
· Citoyen: he is in capacity to actively participate in the policy processes
· Voter: he is in capacity to choose his representatives.
In his position of customer or applicant of services and information, the citizen has expectations that are distributed throughout the implementation phases of the electronic government initiatives as follows[3]:
· Presence: To maintain the citizen informed
· Interaction: To hear requirements and to know the citizen necessities. To initiate proceedings, although the final processing must be made through the traditional channels. Feedback on the undertaken processes
· Transaction: To work so that the necessities and requirements are expressed in the defined policies. To execute complete proceedings in line, that do not imply interagency integration
· Transformation: To execute all the proceedings in line, thanks to the vertical and horizontal interagency integration that forces to the redefinition of the functions and the organizations. “One-Stop Shopping” concept.
· Democratic Participation: To implement what the citizen decides.
The fulfillment, or not, of these expectations, generates a satisfaction level with the received service, which can be studied identifying the reasons for following 4 deficiencies(PARASURAMAN, ZEITHAML, & BERRY, 1994):
· Not to know what the citizen desires
· To establish mistaken norms
· To take deficiencies in the benefit
· To find differences between the expectations and the perceptions.
The development of a pioneering research applicable in the Latin American surroundings and specially comparing the Colombian case with a second Latin American country was considered from de previous premises. Its accomplishment entails the creation of a methodological base for the evaluation of a specific electronic service, and it is hoped, to be used in a wide range of electronic services in the public administration and its adjustment for a later application in other Latin American countries and, as far as possible, to the worldwide reality.
Finally, the Colombian academic and public administration surroundings, show great interest in the application of the defined results in this research[4], by its contribution to the implementation of the analyses process that require the initiatives advanced in this subject[5].
1.2 Problem Statement
Firstly, identify what the citizen expects from the electronic administration and how he perceives it. Based on the evaluation of a single public electronic service in two Latin American countries; next, generate a set of Best Practices about the implementation of electronic administration initiatives.
1.3 Objective
With the above statement, neither the components of citizen participation (e-democracy) nor the aspect of horizontal interagency integration G2G[6] will be reviewed. There will not be an in depth study of the government to business G2B relation and the positions of the citizen like subject of the state or voter.
Subsequently, the objective will be to give answer, through the evaluation of the electronic tax payment service between Colombia with a second Latin American country, to the questions:
· How does the Citizen perceive the present electronic administration initiatives?
· What does the Citizen expect from the present electronic administration initiatives?
· What can the Public Administration do to implement electronic administration initiatives?
1.4 Research Questions
1.4.1 How does the Citizen Perceives?
This question is important because clear distinctions emerge when the citizen perception toward the electronic government is evaluated(Council for excellence in government, 2001). Therefore, the public administration must identify the citizen perception toward the electronic services and his feeling towards the access channels. Understanding this, allows to identify the required resources for the initiative success and, to identify which services are more attractive so as to fix priorities (CLARK, 2002).
The citizen perception can be compared with the user satisfaction, that is a clearly defined concept in several sciences. In marketing, the user satisfaction is used to describe differences between alternatives. In addition, although the satisfaction cannot be evaluated directly using objectives measurements (ANDREASSEN, 1994), it can be evaluated using a weighed average of many indicators, which are influenced by 2 factors (YI, 1989):
· Expectations
· Experience with the service (Perception)
A study made at the governments of the north American counties and cities (NORRIS, FLETCHER, & HOLDEN, 2001) concluded that their electronic government initiatives respond to the citizen necessities. Nevertheless, other authors consider that the electronic government initiatives have not fulfilled many of the expectations and that they have remained in rhetoric (MOON, 2002). Really, these initiatives must been adapted to the developing countries conditions that are the scope of this research.
1.4.2 What does the Citizen Expects?
Observed the current perception it is necessary to measure the citizen expectations, since they have a sweeping effect in the electronic government success. For example, if a survey or another method proves that the citizen wishes to interact with the public administration for certain type of transactions, it can focus its limited resources on these expectations(CLARK, 2002).
When the citizen and the business put themselves "on line, not in line", they hope to obtain public services faster, easier to accede and with fewer errors(AL-KIBSI, BOER, MOURSHED, & REA, 2001). On the other hand, and due to the Internet proliferation, more citizens wait for greater comfort and more services of the local governments, including electronic tax payment, fines, in line registries and access to governmental documents (NORRIS et al., 2001) Again, they are conclusions on the industrialized countries reality that must be verified and adapted to the developing countries conditions.
In short, the movement towards the electronic government, in its nucleus, deals with the change in the form in which the citizen and the business interact with the public administration. Therefore, it makes sense to identify what they hope, wish, do not wish and what their worries are (COOK, 2001).
In addition, one of the reasons why usually the electronic government initiatives fails is that, instead of starting off the authentic demands, necessities and expectations of the addresses, the attention is centered in automating the current processes logic, that are built-in on inefficient and ineffective organizations slants, vices and habits (TESORO & ARRAMBARI, 2002).
1.4.3 What Can Public Administration Do?
Once known the citizen perception toward the existing electronic services and defined the expectations toward the desired services it is necessary to identify how to bridge the present situation to the wished one.
Observing the explosive growth of Internet users and the fast development of the electronic commerce in the private sector, the pressure has been increased so that the public administration implements electronic government initiatives (TAT-KEI, 2002).
It is clear that at a worldwide level there are beginning multitude of electronic government initiatives. The enthusiasm, partly, comes from the belief that the ICT can change the existing negative public administration image. But, the electronic government is not a short cut towards the economic development, the transparency, the saving, the efficiency; it is only one tool. Furthermore, it is necessary not to forget that the implementation of initiatives in the developing countries must be adapted to special conditions, with its necessities and obstacles.
The success of the electronic government initiatives requires a change in the way the public administration works, in the way it administers the information and in the way the public employees observe their position and interact with the citizen. It requires one active collaboration between the public administration, the citizen and the private sector, in a participative process, since there is not "one size" solution for all situations (HACHIGIAN, 2002).
Examples like the one of the British government[7], who is leader consulting the citizen expectations, demonstrate how it has been managed to define priorities between the possible and the wished things. Again, the reality of the developing countries is different from that of the developed countries. Therefore, perceptions and expectations must be identified before define what it is possible to be done, which surely will not be the same in the two regions (CLARK, 2002).
Regarding a specific Latin American situation, the electronic government initiatives are generated to respond or to anticipate to foreseeable changes in the citizen necessities, demands and expectations, to adapt or to fit the public organizations management to the demands that raises the immediate context, or by mere technological snobbishness. In atmospheres where usually it is not contemplated the social aspect of new applications, certain tendency can be pronounced to introduce them like "cosmetic" artifice, frequently without having the necessary resources to implant them, to develop them and to maintain them with reasonable efficiency levels or advantage (TESORO & ARRAMBARI, 2002). Therefore, it is necessary to define basic implementation parameters that ensure the initiatives success.
In agreement with the European Union ideas, the initiatives success implies to assure the citizens inclusion, to promote the confidence and the security in its procedures, to construct on the base of better practices, to impel the citizen participation and to observe the future (Unión Europea, 2001)
2 Theory Base
2.1 Knowledge Society
To begin with, it is important to make clear the difference between knowledge economy and knowledge society. The knowledge society is expressed in three facts(CARDONA, 2002b):