E-Government and Creating a Citizen-Centric Government

This chapter examines the relationship between e-government and the creation of a more citizen-centric government. This study provides a conceptual framework showing a possible relationship among management, resources, security, and privacy issues that would lead to creating a more citizen-centric government with e-government. It explores the opinions of chief information officers (CIOs) on e-government issues and effectiveness. A survey was administered to federal government CIOs in June and July 2005. The survey results revealed that CIOs who have higher management capacity and project-management skills were associated more with creating a more citizen-centric federal government. The contribution of this study to the literature on e-government is that it identifies two key attributes that CIOs can attain in order to reach higher stages of e-government advancement for their department or agency.

Perceived Effectiveness of E-Government and its Usage in City Governments

This article examines the perceived effectiveness of e-government by Information Technology (IT) directors in local governments in the United States. Most of the existing empirical research has examined the level of adoption of e-government; it does not focus on what is the overall effectiveness of e-government for city governments as this study does. This is accomplished through a survey of IT directors exploring their perceptions of e-government to determine whether this is related to the overall usage of e-government in cities. Websites were the most effective service channel for getting information; the telephone was the most effective service channel for solving a problem; while in person at a government office was most effective service channel for citizens’ to access city services. E-government usage was positively related to managerial effectiveness, having a champion of e-government, and perceived effectiveness of citizen access to online information.

Citizens, the Internet, and Terrorism Information

This chapter examines the role that citizens play when using the internet for gathering information. It is vital to understand the use of the Internet by citizens to address the issue of access to homeland security information. This chapter also provides information on how terrorism information is presented online and citizens’ use of this information is discussed. Jones, Hackney, and Irani (2007) believe that the key to the successful development of e-government is its citizens. There needs to be efforts to engage citizens in the adoption of e-government. These authors believe that this engagement will truly create a transformation of e-government that was envisioned by earlier writers in the field. This chapter discusses this level of engagement and shows that citizens are the least likely to use Internet for homeland security information if a terrorist attack occurs. Existing research on the adoption of e-government tends to focus on the supply of e-government in terms of the breadth and sophistication of government Websites. However, Streib and Navarro (2006) have examined the role the internet plays in public organizations using public opinion data, examining the demand for e-government. There is a need for more research on the demand for e-government and that is the focus of this chapter. The argument made in this chapter is that you need to understand citizens, and why they go online, to more effectively cater homeland security information to their needs. This chapter first discusses the important issue of the digital divide, the disparity between those that have Internet access and those that do not. This is followed by a discussion of citizen trust and satisfaction with e-government Websites. Followed this, there is a discussion of the citizen-initiated contacts literature as a framework that helps us understand why citizens contact government for information and services.

Conclusion

This book examined Homeland Security Information Systems (HSIS) and how this technology has influenced IT at all levels of government. The first part of the book provided background information on homeland security preparedness, e-government, and collaboration. The second part examined the impact of HSIS on federal, state, and local governments in the United States. The final part of this book examined some emerging issues in HSIS of citizens and their interaction with homeland security, information security, and online emergency management information. This chapter summarizes the key findings of the book and provides future research recommendations. The results in this book show that there is a need for homeland security preparedness and planning at all levels of government and HSIS are one critical component of planning efforts. The results demonstrate that top management support is critical for effective planning in order to ensure that these managers are fully on board with HSIS. Scarce resources at all levels of governments means that there is a priority setting process taking place, when choosing which HSIS should be incorporated. Citizen involvement is a key component to HSIS since citizens are normally the first on the disaster scene and their use of technology can help response efforts.

Emergency Management Websites

This chapter examines the provision of emergency management information on government websites. E-government websites can be an effective tool for communicating with residents of a community on preparedness measures that they can take, and provides information for those that have been impacted by disasters. This chapter demonstrates that there is much variability in the content provided on emergency management websites. This chapter focuses on the role of websites in emergency management through a content analysis of their websites. There chapter will first provide a rationale for studying e-government through emergency management websites. It will then examine the commonly found e-government growth models indentified in the literature. The factors that influence the adoption of government websites are also examined in this chapter. The most commonly found studies of the content provided on websites are benchmarking reports, which are discussed. Accessibility and transparency are two important issues in the advancement of e-government websites, and are also mentioned in this chapter. The main thrust of this chapter is a content analysis of state government emergency management websites. The conclusion to this chapter summarizes the main research findings of the chapter.

Information Security in Government

This chapter examines the important issue of the impact of information security in government. Information security is one of the critical issues of Homeland Security Information Systems (HSIS). As we know from Chapter 4, information security is one of the leading concerns of Chief Information Officers (CIO) in the realm of homeland security. This chapter explores the impact of information security on government similarly to a framework provided by Straub and Welke (1998) who believe that the organizational environment, individual characteristics, the information systems environment, and level of threats are related to management perceptions of information security risk. The argument is that the stronger the correlation between changes in these four factors this would have an influence on the perception of management of information security risk. Therefore, the more the organizational culture supports information security the greater the managerial concern. In this chapter there is an argument made that there needs to be more knowledge of the leading issues facing information security in order to influence the organizational culture. The first part of this chapter focuses on several information security issues that have been identified in the literature. These issues deal with management, policy, and end users of IT and their impact on information security. The second part of this chapter provides evidence from several information security surveys. The last part of this chapter deals with survey results from an information security survey of Texas state agencies.

Information Technology and Emergency Management

Section 214 of the E-Government Act of 2002 called on the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in consultation with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to ensure that IT is studied to enhance crisis preparedness and response as a consequence of natural and manmade disasters (Rao, Eisenberg, and Schmitt, 2007). This important e-government legislation demonstrates the vital role of IT in emergency management. E-emergency management is especially critical to understand given the important role that the different levels of government play in disasters. This chapter will show that there is a need to be comprehensive in IT and emergency management. For effective emergency planning there is a need to use IT to leverage planning efforts. Federalism mat-ters when doing emergency lanning and should be taken into account in these efforts. Citizens play a critical role in emergency management. Information that is timely, and of high quality, is essential for emergency management. The digital divide matters in planning for emergency management and there is an importance of public libraries in the event of a disaster to serve those populations impacted from the disaster. This chapter first examines the four functions of emergency management to determine how these functions relate to IT. Emergency planning and its application to IT adoption is discussed in this chapter. The intergovernmental aspects of emergency management are discussed to set the context of the environment that emergency responders work under. The role that citizens play in emergency management is discussed to determine the important influence they have over the process. The chapter also examines the impact of management information systems on emergency management. This chapter examines the important organizational, societal, and technology issues of IT and emergency management. There are results from a survey of state government directors of emergency management to determine what impact that IT has had on their departments. Finally, a conclusion summarizes the important findings of this study.

Collaboration and E-Government

Collaboration is an important element in the advancement of e-government (Hu et al., 2006). This chapter examines the level of collaboration among state governments to see how advanced they are in e-government. Collaboration is critical in homeland security because it is one of the often cited challenges in the time of a crisis (Reddick, 2008). In order to understand Homeland Security Information Systems (HSIS), one must delve into the impact of collaboration and e-government. There is a growing body of research on e-government and its impact on managerial effectiveness; with collaboration being an important area of management effectiveness (Yang and Paul, 2005; Reddick 2007). This chapter examines how state governments measure up against some noted principles of effective collaboration. The role of citizens in the collaborative process is examined, with citizens arguably being the key to more effective collaborative efforts through e-government (Vigoda-Gadot, 2002). Indeed, research shows that citizen involvement in the decision-making process through collaborative efforts will enhance democracy and accountability of governments (Vigoda-Gadot, 2003). In order to examine collaboration and e-government this chapter first outlines several key principles of effective collaboration and relates them to e-government. Second, this chapter provides a conceptual framework of collaboration and e-government. Third, there is a data analysis of a survey of Chief Information Officers (CIO) opinions on collaboration and e-government. The conclusion of this chapter summarizes and examines the impact of collaboration on HSIS.

Citizen-Centric E-Government

Electronic government or e-government in this chapter can be defined as the delivery of government information and services to citizens through the Internet 24 hours a day, seven days per week. This definition has been used in other empirical studies of e-government adoption (Moon and Norris, 2005a). This chapter adds to this definition Grant and Chau’s (2005) interpretation of e-government as a broad-based transformative initiative, which is consistent with creating more citizen-centric government. Gronlund (2005) reviews the various definitions of e-government and has found they share a common theme of the need for organizational transformation through technological implementation. Citizen-centric e-government is the delivery of government services continuously to citizens, businesses, and other government agencies through the Internet (Seifert and Relyea, 2004). Citizen-centric government through e-government acts as a transformational tool that provides a new government model based on being citizen focused (Schelin, 2003). Some scholars have argued that for e-government to fully realize its capabilities, it must transform government from agency-centric to citizen-centric (Seifert and Relyea, 2004). The term e-government emerged in the late 1990s. It was born out of the Internet boom. The literature on information technology (IT) use within government is different from e-government because it more often focuses on external use, such as services to citizens’ and organizational change (Gronlund and Horan, 2004). Definitions of e-government that focus exclusively on service delivery components fail to capture the more complex aspects of government transformation because of IT (Grant and Chau, 2005). The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of the e-government literature with a focus on how it influences citizens. In order to understand some of the issues associated with Homeland Security Information Systems (HSIS), we need to provide information on e-government and its impact on government. There is a discussion in this chapter of the evolution of the roles and responsibilities of federal CIOs. There also is a description of how the public sector CIO’s environment is uniquely different from what can be found in private sector. In this chapter, we identify what it means to create a more citizen-centric government through e-government. A conceptual framework is outlined explaining what factors one would expect to be associated with creating a more citizen-centric government. This chapter articulates how these findings can be used to move e-government to higher stages of development. There also are examples of HSIS creating more citizen-centric government towards the end of the chapter.

Homeland Security Preparedness

September 11, 2001 or 9/11 has put extra pressures on public officials and their agencies in the United States to prepare for new terrorist threats (Rosenthal, 2003). After 9/11 the idea of homeland security became a part of American thinking and behavior (Beresford, 2004). In this relatively new environment that governments must contend with, it is important to be aware of some issues associated with homeland security preparedness. The traditional distinction among the major sectors of the government has blurred, since the war on terrorism is no longer just the purview of military agencies (Wise and Nader, 2002). In this new environment both civilian and military agencies share the responsibility in protecting the homeland. This chapter attempts to address homeland security preparedness by focusing on city governments examining organizational, collaboration, and management elements of homeland security. The main purpose of this chapter is to set the context of homeland security preparedness. It is vital to know some of the issues that governments face in homeland security in order to understand how Homeland Security Information Systems (HSIS) might be used to address these issues. In order to accomplish this task this chapter first provides background information and an overview of some of the existing homeland security literature in public administration. There is a discussion of the research methods of this article and the results of a homeland security preparedness survey are presented. A conclusion demonstrates the significance of the key findings found in this chapter.