88143662

@ 2012 e-Service Journal. All rights reserved.
No copies of this work may be distributed

in print or electronically without express written permission from Indiana University Press. 73
Infrastructures for
Public Service Delivery:
Aligning IT governance and architecture
in infrastructure development1
Anne Fleur van Veenstra
Delft University of Technology
Gustav Aagesen
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Marijn Janssen
Delft University of Technology
John Krogstie
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
ABSTRACT
Governments are developing infrastructures to accelerate online service delivery. Service
infrastructures are shared facilities that can be used and congured in such a way that
different public organizations are able to create their own online services. This paper
investigates the governance and architecture of these infrastructure developments by
conducting a cross-country analysis. We developed a comparative framework for analyzing
two countries that share many institutional similarities: Norway and the Netherlands.
Furthermore, the typical complexities of infrastructure development are analyzed and
trade-offs are identied. We found many similarities between the service infrastructure
1. This paper is a revision of the paper The Entanglement of Enterprise Architecture and IT-Governance:
The Cases of Norway and the Netherlands, presented at the 44th Hawaii International Conference on
System Sciences (HICSS-44), January 411, 2011.
Anne Fleur van Veenstra, Gustav Aagesen, Marijn Janssen, and John Krogstie
74 e-Service Journal Volume 8 Issue 3
development and architecture in the two countries, but as a result of the governance being
different, differences in e-services development could be observed. While Norway enables
integration of building blocks into e-government initiatives of individual government
organizations by developing a Business Process Management building block on the national
level, in the Netherlands local governments integrate the building blocks with implementa-
tion support from the national level. The differences in governance between the two
countries lead to different ways of e-government infrastructure development and, ulti-
mately, to different ways of e-services delivery. Governance is thus an important contingency
inuencing infrastructure development. A key element for advancing infrastructure
development is to ensure the complementarity of IT architecture and governance.
KEYWORDS: e-government, public service delivery, service infrastructure, next generation
infrastructure, business process management, cross-country comparison
INTRODUCTION
To inspire and support e-government developments, governments all over the world cre-
ate national e-government infrastructures to provide generic functionalities that can be
used by different public agencies to develop electronic services (Janssen, Chun, and Gil-
Garcia, 2009). A service is a series of interactions between the service provider and clients
resulting in an observable output (Spohrer, Maglio, Bailey, and Gruhl, 2007). The con-
cept of service infrastructures is based on the idea that basic building blocks are devel-
oped and shared among the many governmental users to create services. Governments
can use the services provided by the infrastructure to create electronic services (e-ser-
vices) to their customers (citizens and businesses) by composing them out of the available
building blocks. The main advantage is that organizations do not need to develop, main-
tain or control major parts of the systems themselves, but instead they can re-use existing
building blocks to create their e-services. At the same time a basic infrastructure stimu-
lates standardization of services, development and interoperability (Landsbergen and
Wolken, 2001). This promises to reduce control, operating, and maintenance costs (Ka-
plan, 2005) and e-government is given a boost (Janssen et al., 2009).
This infrastructure for e-service delivery is built on top of the Internet-based com-
munication infrastructure, which ensures connectivity with citizens and business, as
shown in Figure 1. Although this gure presents a simple overview, infrastructure devel-
opment is a complex undertaking. The complexity of service infrastructure development
is a result of the technology used, as well as of the interactions among different organiza-
tions and the different stakeholders that are involved in the set-up of a joint infrastruc-
ture. Stakeholders may have different and potentially conicting objectives and priorities
(Flak, Nordheim, and Munkvold, 2008). Development of such service infrastructures
likely varies widely among different countries. It is often guided by National Enterprise
Architectures (NEAs),which aim to align business and IT, interrelate elements, and give
Infrastructures for public service delivery
75
direction to e-government developments (Zachman, 1987; Janssen and Hjort-Madsen,
2007; Ebrahim and Irani, 2005). Yet, we lack insight into the development of such infra-
structures and how this inuences e-services delivery. Furthermore, a closer look needs to
be taken at how governance of such infrastructures can be set up effectively between the
central level that is primarily in charge of developing these building blocks, and the pub-
lic agencies and local governments that provide e-services to citizens and businesses. IT-
governance, also called governance in this paper, aiming to direct and oversee an
organizations IT-related decision and actions such that desired behaviors and actions are
realized (Huang, Zmud, and Price, 2010, p. 289), needs to manage such dependencies.
This paper investigates the architecture and governance of service infrastructure
development as well as the complexities involved in this development by looking at the
impact it has on public service delivery. The investigation is carried out by comparing
developments in two countries: Norway and the Netherlands. These countries share the
aim to establish a service infrastructure that can be employed to enable individual gov-
ernment agencies to re-use existing building blocks for e-services delivery. A systematic
and structured comparison will be conducted by rst developing a framework aimed at
understanding and explaining the development of service infrastructures. Governance is
required to assure the consistency and timeliness of enterprise architecture (Winter and
Schelp, 2008; Perks and Beveridge, 2002). Therefore, we investigate aspects of both gov-
ernance and the NEA. A cross-country analysis allows us to explore differences in service
infrastructure development and their inuence on e-services delivery. As these two coun-
tries have many similarities, this will allow us to identify the inuence the few differences
have. This paper is structured as follows. First, we develop a framework for comparison
of service infrastructure development. Then, we investigate service infrastructure and e-
services development in Norway and the Netherlands and compare the two countries.
Finally, after a discussion on the outcomes of this comparison, we present conclusions
and recommendations for further research.
Figure 1. Overview of positioning and use of service infrastructures
COMPARATIVE FRAMEWORK
The set-up of generic service infrastructures inuences the outcome of e-government de-
velopments and the provisioning of services to citizens and businesses. Policies shape the
direction of e-government development by deciding which projects are initiated and sup-
ported by the government. But despite the formulation of a shared vision on the direction
of e-government (Ministerial Declaration on eGovernment, 2009), the actual imple-
mentation of policies may take on different forms at the national and local level. NEAs
are formulated to guide the development of such service infrastructures. Furthermore, to
guide decision-making and the adoption of NEAs, governance is recognized to be of im-
portance. While NEAs are an instrument to guide implementation, IT governance di-
rects decisions-making processes.
National Enterprise Architecture (NEA)
NEAs can be used to guide the development of e-government. Architectures help to
shape both the service infrastructure as well as the use of the infrastructure by local gov-
ernments and government agencies. The existence of isolated, overlapping in function
and content, highly fragmented, and unrelated computerized applications have led to
isolated islands of technology (Peristeras and Tarabanis, 2000). Architecture is an in-
strument to guide e-government developments and ensure that the individual efforts are
coordinated. Traditionally, the purpose of EA is to effectively align the strategies of en-
terprises with their business processes and the coordination of their resources (Ebrahim
and Irani, 2005; Zachman, 1987). Enterprise architectures dene and interrelate data,
hardware, software, and communication resources, as well as the supporting organiza-
tion required to maintain the overall physical structure required by the architecture
(Zachman, 1987; Richardson, Jackson, and Dickson, 1990). Architecture can be viewed
at various levels, including hardware, network, system, application, business process and
enterprise level (Richardson et al., 1990; Armour, Kaisler, and Liu, 1999). Many govern-
ments have embraced enterprise architecture as an instrument to further develop e-gov-
ernment (Janssen and Hjort-Madsen, 2007; Bellman and Rausch, 2004) and there are
many existing architecture frameworks (Lillehagen and Krogstie, 2008).
IT Governance
Information technology (IT) governance, also referred to as governance in this paper, rep-
resents the framework for decision rights and accountability to encourage desirable behav-
ior in the use of resources (Weill, 2004). Governance involves the mechanisms to direct
and guide IT-related decisions by allocating responsibilities, communications and align-
ment procedures and processes to manage the dependencies between responsibilities
77
(Huang et al., 2010). IT governance mechanisms determine how communication, re-
sponsibilities and decision-making structures are formalized (Weill and Ross, 2005). Ross
(2003) criticized enterprise frameworks for taking a technologist view. She claims that
these frameworks do not highlight the role of institutions and capabilities critical to adop-
tion and diffusion of architecture. IT governance, or in this context architectural gover-
nance, is often viewed as a necessary conditions for ensuring success. The tension between
centralization and decentralization of IT decision-making authorities is one of the major
recurring issues in literature (e.g. King, 1983; Peak and Azadmanesh, 1997; Sambamur-
thy and Zmud, 1999). With the advent of the Internet, Web services technology has be-
come viable to centralize functions that are currently or were formerly performed at a
decentralized level. There is disagreement in the literature about the driving forces behind
centralization decisions (e.g. King, 1983; Peak and Azadmanesh, 1997; Sambamurthy
and Zmud, 1999). King (1983) found three aspects control, physical location and func-
tion that can be centralized or decentralized.
Framework for Comparison
An important issue in comparative cross-country research is to create a framework that
allows comparison of concepts that are sufciently equivalent (Gharawi, Pardo, and
Guerrero, 2009). Various cross-country frameworks can be found in literature. Pollitt
and Bouckaert (2005) compare public management reform among countries by looking
at the global, national, and cultural environment, as well as the institutional, manage-
ment, and work level. Cummins et al. (1996) study tax reforms and investments using a
panel. Afonso, Schuknecht and Tanzi (2005) compare public sector performance and
efciency among countries, and Janssen and Hjort-Madsen (2007) compare NEAs. Fur-
thermore, frameworks for comparing e-government development have been developed.
Beynon-Davies (2007) set up a framework to position e-government as a socio-technical
phenomenon capturing elements from business and informatics. Nour, AbdelRahman
and Fadlalla (2008) developed a framework for evaluating the core values of e-govern-
ment projects according to the degree of e-government readiness and the level of democ-
ratization. Although all of these frameworks show relevant aspects for comparison, few of
these frameworks include aspects of e-government infrastructure developments.
Only the framework of Janssen and Hjort-Madsen (2007) is related to our research
domain and it was therefore taken as a starting point. This framework for comparing
NEAs within public administrations comprises ve elements: 1) policies, actors and struc-
tures; 2) governance; 3) architecture model; 4) architecture principles and standards; and
5) implementation (Janssen and Hjort-Madsen, 2007). The framework for our compara-
tive study extends this by adding IT governance, which guides central and decentralized
actions and the construction of tools and infrastructure components to facilitate e-services
delivery. While on the one hand government strategies for establishing service infrastruc-
tures are partly implemented through the development of NEAs, on the other hand, the
governance and support directed at government agencies shape the individual agencys
ability to act according to these policies. Thus, our framework extends the framework of
Janssen and Hjort-Madsen (2007) by focusing on the infrastructure and through identi-
fying governance structures and measures taken in order to support the implementation
of the NEA.
The framework evolved iteratively together with the investigation and analysis of the
case studies. After identifying the guiding principles of infrastructure development (poli-
cies, IT governance, and enterprise architecture) from literature, we investigated the case
studies for any other guiding elements. The framework in Figure 2 describes (from top to
bottom) the policies dened at a national level that aim for e-government development as
well as any external factors that may be of inuence on both the policies as well as the e-
government developments. Governance measures are formulated to support implementa-
tion of these policies. Governance measures are additionally inuenced by other external
factors such as technology affordances and stakeholder expectations (Aagesen and Krog-
stie, 2011). Governance includes instructions and allocation of tasks and responsibilities to
different public agencies. We also found two further categories of factors to be of inuence
on the infrastructure development during the execution of the case studies. To support the
adherence of tasks and responsibilities to policy objectives architecture methods, guidelines
and standards are dened and made available to the various government agencies. These
can be used to aid adoption and guide implementation and to monitor and measure policy
outcomes. In addition to the knowledge-based procedural support provided through
methods and guidelines, infrastructure components can be provided centrally with a similar
goal of supporting the public agencies ability to deliver their e-services effectively.
Public agencies and local governments are both e-service providers to citizens and busi-
nesses and developers of these services. In an e-services infrastructure they can be producers
as well as consumers of shared services. Infrastructure components are the building blocks with
which e-services can be developed. This interaction is shown at the bottom of our model.
Represented by the numbers (15) in the model, our aim is to investigate the following:
1. Organization: How is the governance of e-government organized? How are re-
sponsibilities divided? Which governance mechanisms exist and what instructions
are given to public organizations?
2. Architectural support: Which methods, guidelines and standards are made avail-
able centrally to public organizations as a means of support and control of e-gov-
ernment projects?
3. Infrastructure: Which infrastructure components are provided centrally to sup-
port service delivery?
79
4. Use and adoption: How do governance and support differ among public agencies
and local governments, and what roles do these organizations play towards estab-
lishing a national service infrastructure?
5. E-services: How do public agencies and local governments interact with citizens
and businesses? What are the differences between services provided? What is the
role of the service infrastructure in this?
By performing a cross-country comparison of e-government infrastructure devel-
opment, it is possible to identify how policies have been implemented and where policy
implementations are different. We will also be able to see which governance mechanisms
are currently deployed and which support mechanisms (methods, tools, and frameworks)
are being developed. We used the inductive case study methodology developed by
Figure 2. Framework for cross-country comparison of service infrastructure development
Eisenhardt (1989) to derive the aspects of our framework. By having a clear research goal
in mind (exploring service infrastructure development), but without postulating hypoth-
eses beforehand, we selected cases using theoretical sampling. This meant that we chose
two countries that were clearly developing e-government infrastructure and that are able
to provide data for answering the research question.
Then, using different data collection methods, similarities between the two cases
were identied and subsequently the elements of the framework were drafted. The cases
were investigated by studying relevant policy documents from the respective govern-
ments and the organizations involved with infrastructure development between March
and September 2010. The rst round of data collection was based on Norwegian reports
published between 2005 and 2010. This was followed by an effort to nd equivalent or
differing Dutch data, which was succeeded by repeated efforts until structures or mea-
sures for one of the two governments were found or found lacking or differing in the
other. Subsequently, we invited key actors from Norway and the Netherlands to com-
ment on our description of infrastructure development in their respective country to vali-
date our ndings. In Norway, feedback was provided from within the Ministry of
Government Administration and Reform. In the Netherlands, from within the Ministry
of the Interior and Kingdom Relations.
CASE STUDIES
In this study we compare Norway and the Netherlands. The reason for doing a cross-
country comparison between those two countries is that they share a number of institu-
tional similarities. Both are constitutional monarchies and parliamentary democracies
with around 430 municipalities and around a dozen counties or provinces. Some basic
statistics to compare both countries are denoted in Table 1. Data pairs are from 2007 to
2010, depending on availability. This shows that both countries have a high Internet and
broadband penetration. The main difference is population density, which is very low in
Norway and very high in the Netherlands. Furthermore, Norway has a long-stretched
territory, with vast areas without settlement.
Norway
The Ministry of Government Administration and Reform (FAD) has been responsible
for the coordination of government IT policy since 2004. This includes an overarching
coordinating responsibility for IT adoption in municipalities, despite the fact that re-
gional and local development is usually the responsibility of the Ministry of Local Gov-
ernment and Regional Development (KRD). The Ministry of Transport and
Communications is responsible for telecom policy. Furthermore, there are a number of
coordinating bodies of a more or less formal nature, both between and within sectors.
81
Being responsible for the policy creation and the future strategy and directions for
the development of e-government in Norway, FAD has dened the public sector as the
rule maker, the pilot, the service provider, and the developer of public services. At the
general level the goal is to have cohesive, safe, user-centered and efcient public IT. Cur-
rent focus areas include: better coordination of efforts and project management (but also
program and portfolio management), privacy matters in transfer of data in remits, trans-
parency in automatic processes, open user surveys to understand satisfaction, use and
needs, and understanding the need for anonymity and pseudonyms in government infor-
mation systems.
Organization. A separate agency for public management and e-government (Di) was
established in January 2008 as a merger of three government ofces: Norway.no, the
eProcurement secretariat, and Statsconsult. Responsibilities for Di include better integra-
tion of work in areas such as reform, IT, management, organization, restructuring, infor-
mation policy and procurement policy. Responsibility for the maintenance and
innovation of the national information infrastructure framework is allocated to the Nor-
wegian Register Authority (BRREG).
The central instrument of control the Ministries have on national agencies is the
allocation letter (Tildelingsbrev). It passes on economic boundaries, priorities, goals and
means of reporting results for the given organizational unit. In order to follow up and to
ensure that national agencies are doing sufcient architectural planning in e-government
Table 1. Key gures on Norway and the Netherlands
(taken from http://ssb.no/, http://cbs.nl/)
Norway The Netherlands
Citizens (millions) 4.86 16.6
Pop. density pr km
2
14 392
Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in Purchasing
Power Standards (PPS) (EU-27 = 100)
131 119
Unemployment rates represent unemployed persons as a
percentage of the labor force (%)
3.1 5.9
Gross domestic expenditure on R&D (GERD) as a
percentage of GDP (of businesses)
1.57 1.73
Number of ministries (number) 17 14
Households with Internet connectivity / broadband (%) 86/78 90/77
Number of municipalities/provinces 430/19 431/12
projects, a self-declaration form is to be sent to the Ministry of Finance and FAD as part
of the budgeting procedure and in applying for funding of new projects. This comply-or-
explain principle is mandatory for national agencies and encouraged for local govern-
ments. Completing the form involves describing potential reuse of existing services,
project risk and risk management, the socio-economic value generated through the proj-
ect, adherence to dened architecture principles, and the use of established core compo-
nents and electronic identication mechanisms. In addition to the self-declaration form,
procedures for central evaluation of IT projects have been initiated to prevent duplication
of efforts. All these initiatives are maintained and overseen by Di. Separate procedures
to evaluate the nance and budgeting as well as value realization of suggested IT efforts
are initiated by the Agency for Financial Management (SS).
Architectural support. There are three contributing types of initiatives within methods,
guidelines and standards that stand out in Norway. The rst is the focus on competen-
cies and cross-agency management collaboration. This is achieved through establishing
separate Web sites for procurement and project support for managers. In addition to this,
guidelines and support for planning and quality assurance for IT projects are established
by Di, and guidelines for creating socio-economic analysis as a part of project proposals
are provided by SS.
The second is the set of centrally dened architectural principles that act as guid-
ance under information systems planning and development. The principles include ser-
vice orientation, interoperability, universal availability, security, openness, exibility and
scalability. Di is responsible for the management of the principles and will develop
models for adoption and compliance.
The third is the reference catalogue dening mandatory and suggested standards
for data for government IT systems. First launched in 2007, the reference catalogue pro-
vides public organizations, suppliers and other stakeholders with an overview of recom-
mended and mandatory standards relevant to IT solutions in the public sector. It is
decided by the government that the reference catalogue should be used by all national
agencies when planning new solutions. The Norwegian Association of Local and Re-
gional Authorities (KS), being the employers association and interest organization for
municipalities, counties and local public agencies, has established a separate standardiza-
tion body, responsible for representing the local governments in the national reference
catalogue as well as translating the national reference catalogue to the local level. The
reference catalogue is supported by a separate regulation for the use of IT standards in
the public administration. Taking effect from January 2010, this regulation can enforce
the use of standards both on public agencies and local governments.
Infrastructure. The Norwegian government set out to pursue a cohesive policy to ensure
efcient re-use of public information for increased value creation and the development of
83
new services. Large-scale new national IT projects are to be assessed as to whether they
can use the shared IT components or whether they may have or can develop components
that can be made available to all. It is a precondition that these assessments must not re-
sult in especially negative consequences for the project and for innovative operating solu-
tions linked to it. Already existing shared components include an electronic identication
component, the Altinn portal, which is a common Internet portal for public reporting,
norway.no/ norge.no as a one-stop public service center for citizens, and the national pop-
ulation register, property register and business register.
A new overarching IT architecture for the public sector is being developed. This
architecture includes the second-generation national information infrastructure for Nor-
way (Altinn 2). The Altinn platform additionally provides interfaces for automated data
delivery from businesses, acts as a centralized third party intermediary for data integra-
tion, provides multi-actor process support and allows task allocation and task sharing.
All Altinn services should be created to allow Web service access as providing a Web-
based user interface is not required for all services.
For future service development, there are ambitions for examining how legal pro-
tection can be catered for in relation to fully or partially automated decision-making so-
lutions. The government set out to review the division of labor between supervisory
authorities, in processing of personal privacy data, within the interests of facilitating
closer cooperation and coordination (FAD, 2006).
Use and adoption. Local governments in Norway are highly autonomous. Thus, there is
currently no direct authority in e-government matters that can enforce best practice or
measures for increased consolidation of services at the local level. Due to this, the com-
ply-or-explain principle is so far only mandatory for national agencies, but is advised as a
desktop exercise for local governments. Similarly, the planned national information in-
frastructure is not customized in favor of the local governments. Di/FAD have been
criticized for not supporting local government requirements sufciently, and separate
projects are underway to address this problem in particular. One example of this is the
need to establish shared components that can act in accordance to archiving laws in order
to enable local governments to make full use of the Altinn framework.
Shared-service networks exist on the local level, and there has been established a
separate set of guidelines for municipal collaboration by FAD. Separate goals for e-gov-
ernment for the local governments has been developed by KS.
E-services. In establishing electronic self-service solutions, each public agency/sector
must make relevant services available via the norge.no and Altinn portals. This is in addi-
tion to any access to services available directly using the agency Web sites. Separate
guidelines for electronic forms on the Internet have been made available through the
ELMER initiative. ELMER improves Web forms through guidelines for equal presenta-
tion across agencies and increased usability.
The Altinn 2 framework provides a separate service development framework
(TUL) for government service interaction and cross-agency integration. It supports the
developer in composing service process ows based on predened service building blocks
in combination with separately developed modules for interacting with professional sys-
tems in government agencies. The predened service building blocks provide support for
data submission, messaging, information services, link/authorization services, data dis-
tribution services, and support for creating cross-agency compound services.
The Netherlands
The responsibility for e-government is shared between the Ministry of the Interior and
Kingdom Relations (BZK) and the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and In-
novation (EL&I). There is no single ministry in charge, which resulted in critique on the
lack of direction and control of e-government (Docters van Leeuwen, 2009). While BZK
is mainly involved in e-government service development for citizens, is EL&I concerned
with developments for businesses. Most developments to improve service delivery, how-
ever, originate within individual government organizations, often at the level of local
government.
The main e-government policy pursued until 2010 is to realize a national e-govern-
ment infrastructure consisting of generic building blocks to be used by all government
organizations for their services provisioning. This policy, which is the responsibility of
BZK, is carried out through a joint priorities program of municipal governments, provin-
cial governments, water boards, and the central government. The program is called the
National Implementation Program (NUP) and identies nineteen generic building
blocks to be implemented by all government agencies as well as developing six example
projects aimed to show the advantages of e-government implementation. Currently a
follow-up program to the NUP is developed that focuses more on implementation and
on developments in the back ofce, instead of the front ofce.
BZK and EL&I are also responsible for a government-wide policy that has many
links with e-government: the decrease of the administrative burden for citizens and busi-
nesses. Currently, citizens and businesses often need to provide the same information
twice to different government organizations. By integrating service delivery of public or-
ganizations as well as integrate chain processes, the public sector aims to diminish the
administrative load by 25% in 2010, which it has claimed to have achieved, as a dimin-
ishment of 28% was claimed to have been realized in reality (Rijksoverheid, 2009).
Organization. The central management of e-government lies with a government steering
group and an underlying governance structure in which all parties are represented. In
85
addition to this governance, the development and maintenance of e-government resides
mainly in two public agencies. The most important agency is the ICTU foundation that
was set up in 2002 to develop IT-projects for multiple government organizations. The
ICTU foundation was set up to become a camping site for cross-organizational IT-proj-
ects. The comparison with a camping site was made to show that a wide array of projects
was set up within the organization, which is still a collection of loosely connected e-gov-
ernment development programs.
While the responsibility for the NUP is at the Ministerial level, most generic build-
ing blocks and example projects are developed by ICTU. The foundation is also responsible
for the implementation of open standards and for the national e-government benchmark.
Another governance activity ICTU is involved in is providing local governments with
guidance to implement the e-government infrastructure building blocks on request.
The other important public agency involved in e-government development is Lo-
gius, which is the service organization maintaining all generic building blocks once they
have been developed. Furthermore, two advisory boards have been established to oversee
standardization and to test all new laws and regulations on their administrative load.
Architectural support. To create greater interoperability and more uniformity towards
citizens and businesses, a national reference architecture was developed in 2002: the
Dutch Government Reference Architecture (NORA). NORA has been growing since
and its focus is currently shifting more towards realizing interoperability between gov-
ernment agencies. On the basis of NORA, a number of sub-architectures were created
for specic groups of government organization, such as the municipalities, provinces,
and the water boards.
The standardization board holds a list of standards that need to be used, based on
the comply-or-explain principle. This means that for all public IT projects that require
procurement at the European level, these standards need to be implemented or a very
good explanation needs to be given if they are not. Furthermore, the municipalities have
to comply with the objective that they should set up a policy for using open standards. By
the end of 2009 half of the local governments had adopted the policy objectives for open
standards and open software. Also, the standardization board will set up an interopera-
bility framework that will be complementary to the reference architecture NORA.
Infrastructure. In the past, government organizations developed their own infrastruc-
ture blocks such as authentication mechanisms and electronic forms. As a result of a pol-
icy of centralization, now a set of nineteen generic building blocks has been identied to
be used by government organizations to maintain their online presence and ensure in-
teroperability. The main e-government building blocks are the Citizens Service Number
(BSN), DigiD, the MyGovernment.nl (MijnOverheid.nl) citizens portal, vital record
registries, e-forms and a gateway for transactions between businesses and the government
(DigiPoort). Although implementation of these generic infrastructure blocks is falling
behind relative to their implementation schedule, they are considered to be the basis of
future e-government developments.
Use and adoption. Local governments such as municipalities, provinces, and water
boards are actively stimulated to implement generic building blocks. A program organi-
zation was set up at ICTU for the purpose of implementing the infrastructure building
blocks in local governments, as well as a program aiming to maintain the quality of e-
government developments within local governments, and a benchmark that serves the
same purpose.
Most large semi-autonomous national agencies, such as the Inland Revenue Ser-
vice and the organizations responsible for unemployment benets and student loans, are
highly autonomous. They are also front-runners in the eld of e-government develop-
ment. They, therefore, are stimulated or targeted by central government policies, but de-
velop most of their activities themselves. Furthermore, they set up a cooperative
consortium called the Manifest group that actively develops common e-government
projects for these executive organizations, such as the DigiD authentication mechanism.
E-services. Municipalities are considered to become a one-stop-shop for e-services in the
direct environment of citizens (Jorritsma, 2005; VNG, 2010). This is based on the idea
that municipalities are best equipped with local knowledge and have an understanding of
the needs of their constituents. A set of guidelines for citizens interactions, the Citizens
Service Code, was developed including ten guiding principles for governments to comply
with when developing and implementing services.
The NUP policy framework dened generic building blocks in six categories: e-
access, e-authentication, the unique citizens identication number, information ex-
change, registries, and open standards. Among the generic building blocks for e-access
specically designed to meet citizens needs is the personalized citizens portal MijnOver-
heid.nl. This portal aims at integrating all personalized service delivery of public agen-
cies. For businesses, a different portal was designed aiming to integrate all the information
they may need: answerforbusiness.nl (antwoordvoorbedrijven.nl). Furthermore, under
the NUP framework, six example projects were appointed to showcase the advantages of
e-government development and implementation. Through the identication of these
projects, focus is slowly shifting from infrastructure development to the development of
(cross-organizational) services.
Cross-country Comparison
Table 2 provides a summary of the national case studies based on our framework. Over-
all, the studies show many similarities between the Norway and the Netherlands and we
87
Norway The Netherlands
1. Organization
Di as the separate e-government agency
(established 2008) developing methods and
coordinating policy enactment
Provider of competency support (passive)
ICTU as the separate e-government
agency (established 2002) serving as the
main focal point of infrastructure
development
Provider of centrally funded competency
support (active)
2. Architectural support
Centralized architecture development and
translated into domain and organizational
architectures at the local level
7 Dened architectural principles for e-govern-
ment planning and development
Focus on increased competencies for public
agency managers
Improved planning and reduced project
failures
Reuse of previous efforts and knowledge
management
Reference catalogue for electronic formats and
standards
Procedures for central evaluation of IT-projects
Centralized architecture development and
translated into domain and organizational
architectures at the local level
Many principles, no overarching architec-
ture of dependencies among building
blocks and centralized/decentralized
division of activities
National references architecture, domain
architectures guided by models and best
practices
Focus on (open) standards
3. Infrastructure
-everal available core components
Central BPM tool for integrating cross-organi-
zational processes
Service development framework at the central
level
everal available core components
No central mechanism for integration;this
happens at the local level
Many bottom-up initiatives, fullling the
need of local agencies for business process
management and orchestration
No service development framework at the
central level
4. Use and adoption
Comply-or-explain principle only mandatory
for national agencies;requires describing use of
shared components
Direct support to regional agencies from the
central government on e-government matters is
limited to that provided through guidelines
and facilitated collaboration environments
Comply-or-explain principle for some
standards only;not all shared components
and standards are part of this
Local governments are free to adopt
building blocks and architecture
Table 2. Cross-Country comparison of service infrastructure development
were able to identify similar structures and dynamics between equivalent agencies in
both countries. Still, some differences between the two countries were identied, that
resulted in differences in service infrastructure development and e-services.
Organization. Concerning the organizational aspects, Norway has a separate ministry
for government administration and reform responsible for e-government at the Ministe-
rial level (although having limited inuence, being the department with the lowest bud-
get), while in the Netherlands there is no equivalent. The separate e-government agencies,
Di and ICTU have further taken on different approaches to e-government. ICTU,
being established in 2002 has a history for active involvement in e-government projects,
while Di has focused on its role as a facilitator for increased competency and manage-
ment collaboration, planning and project management in e-government projects through
training and online resources.
Architectural support. Architecture principles for e-government planning and implemen-
tation exist in both countries. But while the Norwegian principles are limited to seven, The
Netherlands has hundreds, most which are technology-oriented and at a different granu-
larity level. Both Norway and the Netherlands established reference catalogues for elec-
tronic formats and standards, but while in the Netherlands this is aimed at all government
organizations including local governments, in Norway it is only aimed at public agencies.
Another main difference between the two countries is, that in Norway support mecha-
nisms are more centrally organized. In the Netherlands, meanwhile, support to local gov-
ernments has gained much more attention as they are aimed to become the one-stop-shops
for e-service provisioning to citizens. In Norway, less support to local governments is given.
Infrastructure. Norways goal is to provide all services through portals running on this
infrastructure. While in the Netherlands portals have been set up, their use was under-
mined by the service delivery activities by the local level and the executive agencies. For
example, the citizens portal is hardly used today, although this may change as develop-
ments are still ongoing and recently some of the major executive agencies have commit-
ted to it use for their services provisioning. The Norwegian Altinn portal was originally a
portal for businesses, but the scope shifted towards becoming the current national infra-
structure for all public e-services provisioning. Furthermore, a strong focus on BPM can
be found in Norway. Similar efforts are not present in The Netherlands.
5. E-services
Services developed by single agencies should
additionally be made available on centralized
portals
Most citizens interactions withthe local
level (around 75%) and the executive
agencies
Local customization and integration of
building blocks
89
Use and adoption. Both countries have a few strong semi-autonomous national agencies
that are front-runners in e-government development. National agencies in Norway are
bound to the comply-or-explain principle for e-government developments, while in the
Netherlands these organizations are more or less self-governed and only need to comply-
or-explain for specic technical standards. This allows them to autonomously collaborate
within the Manifest Group and develop their own infrastructure building blocks. Mu-
nicipal consortiums exist both in Norway and the Netherlands and allow for economies
of scale. Again, the main difference between the two countries is that autonomous na-
tional agencies are more centrally governed and bound to standards in Norway, com-
pared to the Netherlands. A second difference is that Dutch municipalities are actively
supported and funded by the national level in their e-services development, while in
Norway there is no direct (nancial) involvement.
E-services. In Norway core components for parts of the service delivery chains are devel-
oped, whereas in the Netherlands, organizations are responsible for their own service de-
livery developments. The idea behind the latter strategy is that local governments know
best the needs for services of their constituents, whereas in Norway the main idea is to
support the e-services development by providing the developers with tools for composing
services. In the Netherlands, this support is mainly provided to local governments
through nancial support. E-services development in the Netherlands took off at an ear-
lier stage than in Norway, as local governments could go ahead developing services for
their own organization with the support of the central government, spurring adoption.
Currently therefore there is a strong focus on standardization in the Netherlands, to en-
sure that the different organizations will still be able to exchange information, as it may
be too late for fully shared e-services development.
Therefore, in the Netherlands policies aiming at standardizing inter-organiza-
tional data exchange are implemented, while at the same time the diversity of e-services
delivery across organizations is embraced. The strong central governance in Norway
mainly focusing at the large public agencies thus leads to differences in e-services from
the Netherlands that, as a result of a more loose central governance has mainly focused
on diversied e-services delivery by local governments. This means that uniform services
will be available through portals in Norway, but more diverse services tailored to local
needs will be available through Dutch municipalities.
COMPLEXITIES IN INFRASTRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT
The framework enables analysis of both cases in a structured manner. However, develop-
ment of the service infrastructure to improve e-government service provisioning is an
endeavor that has to deal with many complexities. These complexities are important to
understand, as they strongly inuence development choices. Without understanding
them, incorrect conclusions may be drawn from our analysis. Complexity is an inherent
property of infrastructure development. By using the lens of complexity a richer view
than by using reductionist and deterministic approaches can be accomplished. A com-
plex system is often viewed as a system consisting of interacting parts that change over
time (Simon, 1996). Complexity is difcult to dene (Edmonds, 1996). This does mean
that the precise analysis of the factors inuencing complexity is necessary to advance our
understanding of the system. The interviews revealed that complexity in both cases is
found in several aspects, including:
1. The large number of stakeholders: stakeholders have varying interests as their situa-
tions are different. They have many relationships, which mutually inuence each
other;
2. Changing boundaries: it is hard to dene the boundaries of the infrastructure as
well as of the IT of an individual organization, as these may shift as the infrastruc-
ture evolves;
3. Balancing generality and specicity: infrastructures are generic to ensure broad use,
whereas specicity can add more value. This balancing process is continuous;
4. The need for supporting a wide variety of e-services, which poses different require-
ments on the service infrastructures, which may be subject to change over time;
5. Balancing the national and the local level: as both levels are struggling for gaining
control and realizing progress, emphasis can shift between the two levels over
time;
6. Heterogeneity of the systems landscape: the embedding and use of the infrastructure
in the existing systems is hampered by legacy systems. The essential role of archi-
tecture is to ensure that the right conditions are created;
7. Path dependencies: previous decisions concerning the infrastructure may spur or
constrain future development and adoption of the infrastructure; and
8. Governance and architecture are strongly interwoven: shared infrastructures require
clear governance that t the institutional situation and infrastructure develop-
ment best.
The complexities make it hard to determine a best way to advance developments. We
argue that it is essential being sensitive to changes that might occur and therefore it is nec-
essary to have continuous monitoring mechanisms in place. These mechanisms need to
ensure that a constant evaluation of which developments t the current timeframe best is
carried out.
The rst complexity involved is the existence of many different stakeholders having
different objectives and interests. This becomes clear from the cross-country comparison
when looking at the different Ministries responsible for e-government developments in
the Netherlands, as well as the several organizations responsible for different aspects
91
of e-government, such as development, maintenance and standardization. In Norway a
similar situation is present, although responsibility is centralized in one Ministry. Still,
different agencies are responsible for planning and quality assurance, set-up of guidelines
and analysis and standardization. Different agencies may have different objectives regard-
ing the joint infrastructure based on their responsibilities.
A second complexity is concerned with the boundaries of the service infrastruc-
tures. It is yet unclear when an infrastructure is complete, and the requirements on the
infrastructure may shift over time. This becomes clear from the cross-case analysis by
looking at the Netherlands, where there a focus on setting up portals in the past shifted
to increased focus on standardization as it became clear that many government organiza-
tions already developed their own websites. This also inuences the boundaries of orga-
nizations. Once a new centrally infrastructure component is developed and adopted
replacing a previous component implemented locally, the responsibility and ownership
boundary shifts from local to central.
Ensuring the balance between creating generic building blocks and leaving room
for organizations to create service delivery mechanisms that are specic enough to satisfy
the needs and wishes of their clients is a third complexity. This complexity can be dem-
onstrated by looking at the development of the business process management building
block that was developed at the national level in Norway, whereas this is left to the local
agencies in the Netherlands. In Norway, focus is on the centralization of governance to
create a national service infrastructure with generic building blocks in place, whereas in
the Netherlands local governments are considered to know best the needs and wishes of
their specic constituents and, therefore, their actions are only supported by the service
infrastructure. The absence of a coordinating Ministry in the Netherlands can explain
the lack of focus on the development of a central BPM component handling cross-orga-
nizational processes.
A fourth complexity is concerned with the wide variety of e-services to be delivered
requiring to citizens and businesses. In practice, not all demands on the infrastructure are
met and in both countries a focus on certain e-services can be observed. In Norway, focus
is on the support of the public agencies, while in the Netherlands focus is on the local gov-
ernments to become one-stop-shops. Public agencies often have less distinct business pro-
cesses and more similar services to deliver than regional agencies, and are therefore
probably better manageable. Joining up, and having these agencies to adhere to a dened
best practice is, thus, relatively easier. Evolving the infrastructure to meet their needs be-
fore considering the needs of the local government agencies may be more manageable.
Keeping the balance between the national and the local level is a fth complexity
involved in the development of service infrastructures. In both countries, based on the
autonomous nature of local governments, it is not an option for the central level to en-
force practices. Still, we observe differences in governance and in the level of active
support for local e-government development between the two countries. Norway shows a
strong centralization of governance efforts, whereas in the Netherlands, focus is on the
local level, through the early and active support of the e-government support agency
ICTU. In both cases, central government initiatives are often criticized for not taking the
requirements of local governments sufciently into account. Bottom-up initiatives
through municipal consortiums are mirroring centrally dened directions for e-govern-
ment, but are often not generic enough to develop into national infrastructure building
blocks. Over time, it is likely that for some aspects the local level may become dominant,
such as for developing one-stop-shops, whereas for others, the central level may become
dominant, such as for standardization.
The heterogeneity of the systems landscape is a sixth complexity involved in the
development of service infrastructures. This is best exemplied by the situation in the
Netherlands, where many developments are driven bottom-up, causing fragmentation
that makes it less likely that it will be possible to pursue the development of a single na-
tional e-government information infrastructure. For example, there are many initiatives
of creating shared service centers at the local level, which blocks the creation of a single
shared service center. Different work practices using different applications are developed,
impeding the creation of common building blocks.
A seventh complexity is the existence of path dependencies. Path-dependent histo-
ries are related to available alternatives, and the presence or absence of increasing returns
and attendant path dependencies (Eisenhardt & Martin, 2000), which spur or constrain
the adoption of the infrastructure. These may be seen as the characteristics of complex
systems that have a memory and that can be guided by inuencing the conditions affect-
ing decision-making. Decisions that have been made in the past, still inuence and con-
strain decisions that need to be made today.
A nal complexity involved is that governance and architecture are strongly inter-
woven. While the infrastructures and the main building blocks in both countries show
many similarities, governance is different. The differences we observe between e-govern-
ment infrastructure developments of the two countries can largely be attributed to the
degree of centralization of governance and the degree of active support given to e-govern-
ment developments. Centralization or decentralization aspects of IT governance is a cen-
tral theme in literature (Sambamurthy and Zmud, 1999). Some aspects are outside the
control of the local level and need to be dealt with by the central level and vice versa.
While in Norway most attention is given to the national agencies through centralized
governance, in the Netherlands much support is given to the local governments. A result
of this combination of decentralized governance and active support by ICTU is that the
Dutch e-government landscape is fragmented and little collaboration can be observed.
Norway, initially not providing direct support to individual agencies, has taken on a dif-
ferent approach: through focusing on centralized architecture development and by
93
providing a service development framework on which individual agencies can create their
own services, coherence among the infrastructure building blocks is easier to achieve.
The analyses of both countries show that a key element for advancing infrastruc-
ture development is to ensure the alignment of the IT architecture and governance. From
our comparison it has become clear that decisions about the NEA and the governance
inuence e-services delivery. While in Norway a strong central governance was in place
from the start, uniform e-services that adhere to clear architecture principles are devel-
oped by public agencies through national portals. In the Netherlands, however, more
loose governance aiming at the autonomous development of e-services accompanied by
different architectures for different types of local governments has led to more diversied
e-services provisioning tailored to local needs. This shows that in order to ensure specic
goals for e-services provisioning, governance and architecture need to be aligned.
DISCUSSION AND LIMITATIONS
The countries included in this case study share many institutional characteristics, such as
the large autonomy of local governments and executive government agencies as well as
the guidance provided on the central level by a specialized organization set up for e-gov-
ernment development. By selecting and subsequently analyzing case studies that are rep-
resentative of such decentralized public administrations, theoretical sampling allows for
analytical generalization, referring to generalization on the basis of a restricted collection
of data with the same characteristics (Yin, 1989). The ndings from this study may thus
be generalized to countries that share these characteristics with Norway and the Nether-
lands, but it is uncertain whether the ndings can also be generalized further.
By exploring the complexities of e-government infrastructure development, this
paper aimed to contribute to literature and practice in three ways. Firstly, by developing a
framework that identies the state of infrastructure development in public administra-
tions. Secondly, by contributing to current literature on service infrastructures by explor-
ing the complexities involved. And thirdly, by showing the implications for governance
and architecture.
The framework presented in this paper allows for giving a straightforward and
structured overview of service infrastructure development and its guiding mechanisms.
Furthermore, the framework contributes to literature on infrastructure development by
enabling identication of typical complexities. The complexities are important to under-
stand, as they inuence the shaping and emerge of the infrastructure. This framework
gives insight into the choices that are faced, as well as into the implications of these
choices as it demonstrates the interdependencies of the different aspects to e-government
infrastructure development. While existing frameworks mainly focus on the develop-
ment of e-services within the wider context of e-government, this framework provides
insight into the development of service infrastructures that can be used by government
agencies to create their own e-services. Hence, it contributes to literature on e-govern-
ment development by providing greater insight into the backdrop of e-services develop-
ment by including aspects such as IT governance and architecture.
The complexities involved include a number of trade-offs that need to be addressed
by the central government providing guidance to e-government development as well as
by the individual organizations aiming to develop e-services. Insight into these complexi-
ties likely contributes to research and practice of service infrastructure development as
yet little systematic knowledge has been gathered on the difculties that are faced. Jans-
sen, Chun, and Gil-Garcia (2009) provide an overview of literature on service infrastruc-
ture development demonstrating the need for further research on the difculties faced
during development.
The cases show the importance of aligning of governance and architecture. Com-
plexities are mainly found on the interrelations between different aspects and levels.
While citizens have most contact with their local governments and harmonization of
local government services can therefore lead to an increase in e-government development
and acceptance, centralized development will remain necessary to ensure standardiza-
tion and mitigate fragmentation of developments leading to duplication of efforts and
redundancy. One way to drive developments further may be to centralize architecture
development to ensure standardization in infrastructure development, and to decentral-
ize governance to enable organizations to develop their services in a way that suits them
best and thereby spur adoption. Nevertheless, a requirement is that the IT architecture
and governance should be complementary to each other. Having centralized components
without having the proper governance in place to ensure local adoption of these compo-
nents is useless. And on the other hand, if local variety of e-services is valued, governance
needs to be developed that stimulates this localization of services. Thus, service infra-
structure development needs to address trade-offs that exist between different aspects of
development and ensure alignment between IT governance and architecture.
CONCLUSION
Many countries develop e-government infrastructures to spur e-service development.
However, little is known about the relation between IT governance and architecture and
about the complexities involved in this development. Current theories, frameworks, and
tools are incomplete or of limited use in helping to understand and manage the complex-
ity of these emerging interdependent infrastructures. The complexity originates from the
large number of stakeholders, shifting boundaries, balancing generality and specicity,
dealing with a wide variety of e-services, balancing the national and the local level, hetero-
geneity of the systems landscape, path dependencies, and the entanglement of governance
and architecture. Service infrastructures development is inuenced and shaped by these
complexities. The framework developed in this paper helps to understand the elements
95
that create these complexities. The framework shows that at least ve elements should be
described to understand the infrastructure development: (1) governance; (2) architectural
methods, guidelines, and standards; (3) information infrastructure; (4) the roles of local
and national agencies; and (5) the service interactions between citizens, businesses and
public agencies.
Using this framework we compared infrastructure development in Norway and the
Netherlands. The infrastructures in both countries show many similarities, but their gov-
ernance is different. In Norway core components that provide generic centralized support
for parts of service delivery chains are developed, whereas in the Netherlands the focus is
on municipalities as one-stop-shops based on the idea that they have the best understand-
ing of the local situation. Norway, thus, has centralized IT governance, whereas in the
Netherlands this is decentralized. As a result, in Norway most policies focus on support
for national government agencies, while in the Netherlands nancial support is provided
to local governments. Furthermore, the differences in governance also explain differ-
ences between specic infrastructure components. For example, while Norway enables
integration by developing a centrally provided business process management building
block, in the Netherlands local governments compose and integrate the building blocks.
Whereas this has resulted in a large number of different approaches to business process
management, this does allow for local customization. Governance should, thus, be
viewed as an important contingency inuencing service infrastructure development.
The cases show the complexity of infrastructure development, as many trade-offs
exist between different objectives of service infrastructures. Further research should look
at these interdependencies, such as between (de)centralized development and gover-
nance. While centralized development suggests more standardization, decentralized de-
velopment suggests a faster development and acceptation of e-government at the local
level. Important guiding mechanisms for service infrastructure development are archi-
tecture and governance. Therefore, an important nding is that architecture and gover-
nance should be complementary.
Investigating these interdependencies can benet from comparing additional
countries and additional elements. This study only included the development of infra-
structures in two rather similar countries. To investigate other contingencies of
service infrastructure development, other countries should be included in the compari-
son too. Another possible research direction is the comparison of development methods
(including processes, methods and tools) and how components are build and put to-
gether through architecture and standards, to accommodate both run-time and design-
time usage scenarios of the infrastructure. Recommendations for further research thus
include both the wider application of the framework to include more cases as well as the
inclusion of additional aspects inuencing service infrastructure development.
REFERENCES
Aagesen, G., and Krogstie, J. Service Delivery in Transformational Government - Model and Scenarios,
Electronic Government, an International Journal, Special Issue on: E-Government: Past, Present, and Fu-
ture (8:2), 2011, pp. 242-258.
Afonso, A., Schuknecht, L., and Tanzi, V. Public sector efciency: An international comparison, Public
Choice, (123:3-4), 2005, pp. 321-347.
Armour, F.J., Kaisler, S.H., and Liu, S.Y. A big-picture look at Enterprise Architecture,IEEE IT Profes-
sional (1),1999, pp. 35-42.
Bellman, B., and Rausch, F. Enterprise Architecture for e-Government, in Electronic Government, Lec-
ture Notes on Computer Sciencs3183, Springer Verlag, Berlin/Heidelberg, 2004, pp. 48-56.
Beynon-Davies, P. Models for e-government, Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy (1:1),
2007, pp. 7-28.
Cummins, J.G., Hassett,K.A., and Hubbard, R.G. Tax reforms and investment: A cross-country com-
parison, Journal of Public Economics(62:1-2), 1996, pp. 237-273.
Docters Van Leeuwen, A.Wederzijdse gijzeling in machteloosheid, of de As van het Goede? Rapportage
NUP-review,December 10, 2009.
Ebrahim, Z., and Irani,Z. E-government adoption: architecture and barriers,Business Process Manage-
ment Journal(11), 2005, pp. 589-611.
Edmonds B. What is Complexity? in Heylighen,F., and Aerts,D. (eds.), The Evolution of Complexity,
Kluwer, Dordrecht, 1996.
Eisenhardt, K., and Martin, J. A. Dynamic capabilities: What are they? Strategic Management Journal (21),
2000, pp. 1105-1121.
Eisenhardt, K. M. Building Theories from Case Study Research, Academy of Management Review(14:4),
1989, pp. 532-550.
Flak, L.S., Nordheim, S., and Munkvold B.E.Analyzing Stakeholder Diversity in G2G Efforts: Combining
Descriptive Stakeholder Theory and Dialectic Process Theory,e-Services Journal(6:2), 2008, pp. 3-23.
Gharawi, M. A., Pardo, T.A., and Guerrero, S. Issues and strategies for conducting cross-national e-gov-
ernment comparative research, in The 3rd International Conference on Theory and Practice of Elec-
tronic Governance, 2009, pp. 163-170.
Huang, R.,Zmud, R.W., and Price,R.L. Inuencing the effectiveness of IT governance practices through
steering committees and communication policies,European Journal of Information Systems (19), 2010,
pp. 288-302.
Janssen,M., Chun, S.A., and Gil-Garcia, J.R. Building the Next Generation Digital Government
Infrastructures,Government Information Quarterly (26), 2009, pp. 233-237.
Janssen,M., andHjort-Madsen, K. Analyzing Enterprise Architecture in National Governments: The
Cases of Denmark and the Netherlands, in 40th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System
Sciences (HICSS-40), 2007.
Jorritsma, A. Publieke diensverlening, professionele gemeenten. Visie 2015 Comissie Gemeentelijke Di-
enstverlening/Commissie Jorritsma, 2005, http://www.vng.nl/Documenten/Extranet/Actuele%20
berichten/visiejorritsma.pdf, accessed February 28, 2011.
Kaplan, J. Sorting through software as a service,Network World, November 21, 2005, http://www.net-
workworld.com/columnists/2005/112105kaplan.html, accessed February 28, 2011.
King,J.L. Centralized versus Decentralized Computing: Organizational Considerations and Manage-
ment Options,Computing Survey(15), 1983, pp. 320-349.
Landsbergen Jr., D., and Wolken Jr., G. Realizing the Promise: Government Information Systems and the
Fourth Generation of Information Technology, Public Administration Review (61:2), 2001, pp.
206-220.
Lillehagen, F., and Krogstie, J. Active Knowledge Modeling of Enterprises, Springer Verlag, New York, 2008.
97
Ministerial Declaration on eGovernment. 5th Ministerial eGovernment Conference: Teaming up for the
eUnion, Malm, 2009.
Ministry of Government Administration and Reform [FAD].An information society for all, Report No.
17 to the Storting, 2006.
Nour, M.A., AbdelRahman, A.A., and Fadlalla, A. A context-based integrative framework for e-govern-
ment initiatives, Government Information Quarterly (25), 2008, pp. 448-461.
Peak, D.A., and Azadmanesh, M.H. Centralization /Decentralization cycles in computing: Market
evidence,Information & Management (31), 1997, pp. 303-317.
Peristeras, V., and Tarabanis, K. Towards an enterprise architecture for public administration using a top-
down approach,European Journal of Information Systems(9), 2000, pp. 252-260.
Perks, C., and Beveridge,T. Guide to Enterprise IT Architecture, Springer Verlag, New York, 2003.
Pollitt, C., and Bouckaert, G. Public Management Reform: a comparative analysis, Oxford University Press,
2004.
Rappa,M.A. The utility business model and the future of computing services,IBM Systems Journal (21),
2004, pp. 32-42.
Richardson, L., Jackson, B.M., and Dickson,G. A Principle-Based Enterprise Architecture: Lessons From
Texaco and Star Enterprise, MIS Quarterly(14), 1990, pp. 385-403.
Rijksoverheid. Doelstelling minder administratieve rompslomp in tijd gehaald, December 11, 2009,
http://www.rijksoverheid.nl/documenten-en-publicaties/persberichten/2009/12/11/doelstelling-
minder-administratieve-rompslomp-in-tijd-gehaald%5B2%5D.html, accessed 23-02-2011.
Ross, J.Creating a strategic IT architecture competency: Learning in stages, MIS QuarterlyExecutive (2),
2003, pp. 31-43.
Sambamurthy, V., and Zmud,R.W. Arrangements for Information Technology Governance: A theory of
multiple contingencies,MIS Quarterly (23), 1999, pp. 261-290.
Simon, H.A. The Sciences of the Articial, The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1996.
Spohrer, J., Maglio, P.P., Bailey, J., and Gruhl, D.Towards a Science of Service Systems,IEEE Computer
(40:1), 2007, pp. 71-77.
Vereniging van Nederlandse Gemeenten (VNG). Dienstverlening draait om mensen, March 2010, http://
www.vng.nl/Documenten/Extranet/Gemeentelijke%20dienstverlening/20100310__ Dienstverlening
_draait_om_mensen%20.pdf.
Weill,P. Dont Just Lead, Govern: How best Performing Organisations Govern IT,MIS Quarterly Execu-
tive(3),2004, pp. 1-17.
Weill, P., and Ross,J. A matrixed approach to designing IT governance,MIT Sloan Management Review
(46), 2005, pp. 26-34.
Winter, R., and Schelp,J. Enterprise architecture governance: the need for a business-to-IT approach, in
ACM symposium on Applied Computing, 2008, pp. 548-552.
Yin, R.K. Case Study Research: Design and methods, Sage publications,Newbury Park, CA,1989.
Zachman, J.A. A Framework for Information Systems Architecture,IBM Systems Journal (26), 1987, pp.
276-292.

88143662

Caricato da

Informazioni sul documento

Descrizione originale:

Copyright

Formati disponibili

Condividi questo documento

Condividi o incorpora il documento

Opzioni di condivisione

Hai trovato utile questo documento?

Questo contenuto è inappropriato?

Copyright:

Formati disponibili

88143662

Caricato da

Copyright:

Formati disponibili

@ 2012 e-Service Journal. All rights reserved.

No copies of this work may be distributed

Potrebbero piacerti anche