Search results

This paper analyzes how public administration may improve the service it offers to citizens through a suitable organizational culture; for this purpose, it starts by studying the specific features of the culture of public administration. In this respect, it analyzes the existing taxonomies in public administration, the role of culture in these agencies and how a diagnosis of such culture is made. Then, it describes the problems of bureaucratic culture, typical of many public agencies, and briefly describes the features of a public service, citizen‐oriented culture. Finally, it proposes a specific methodology for the modification of a bureaucratic culture into a culture based on the notion of serving the citizen, together with an analysis of when modification is necessary.

Introduction − Covid-19, which first emerged in Wuhan, People’s Republic of China, in January 2020, with an unknown source, spread to all countries of the world very quickly and caused the death of over two million people world-wide. This ever-increasing global need for health care has created a radical transformation in terms of not only in health care, but also in all public services. Transportation services for the transfer of patients to health institutions, education services due to the dangers of face-to-face training, justice services due to the postponement of non-urgent court proceedings, security services in terms of restriction sanctions and all public services in general due to the disruption of access to public services due to flexible working hours applied to public personnel has entered into an unplanned provision.

Purpose: The aim of this chapter is to identify the problems that arise in the provision of public goods and services due to the global epidemic of Covid-19, and to bring a new interpretation to the theoretical discussions about the optimal delivery level of public services when there is a situation of communicable disease.

Methodology: The principles of public goods and service provision of G20 countries, Covid-19 mortality rates, indicators of the well-being of healthcare delivery such as the number of bed and personnel, the type and number of devices used to diagnose the Covid disease, and the public service restrictions taken to eliminate Covid-19, have been evaluated by employing descriptive analysis. In order to prevent income and advanced levels from becoming distinctive features, G20 countries with similar income and development levels were selected for this research.

Findings: Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been a distortion in the preference of provision of almost all public goods, and it has been observed that the delivery level of public services affects each other since all are linked like a chain. Failure to achieve what is expected from international organizations, which should be in a regulatory position in this regard, has increased concerns about the optimal presentation level of all public goods, especially health, in the future. As long as there is a global pandemic and countries do not take effective measures, a bad second best position that is far from optimal results but provides that instant solutions.

Patient-centric exchanges, a major type of Health Information Exchange (HIE), empower patients to aggregate and manage their health information. This exchange model helps patients access, modify and share their medical information with multiple healthcare organizations. Although existing studies examine patient engagement, more research is required to investigate patients' attitudes and willingness to play an active role in patient-centered information exchange. The study's main objective is to develop a model based on the belief-attitude-intention paradigm to empirically examine the effects of patients' attitudes toward engagement in care on their willingness to participate in patient-centric HIE.

The authors conducted an online survey study to identify the antecedents and consequences of patients' attitudes toward engagement in care. To empirically test the research model, the authors collected data from a national sample (n = 357) of individuals in the United States. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM).

The proposed model categorizes the antecedents to patients' attitudes toward engagement in patient-related and healthcare system factors. The results show that patient-related factors (perceived health literacy and perceived coping ability) and health system factors (perceived experience with the healthcare organization and perceived patient-provider interaction) significantly shape patient attitude toward care management engagement. The results indicate that patients' attitudes toward engaging in their healthcare significantly contribute to their willingness to participate in medical information sharing through patient-centric HIE initiatives. Moreover, the authors’ findings also demonstrate that the link between patient engagement and willingness to participate in HIE is stronger for individuals who perceive lower levels of privacy and security concerns.

The authors validate the proposed model explaining patients' perceptions about their characteristics and the healthcare system significantly influence their attitude toward engaging in their care. This study also suggests that patients' favorable attitude toward engagement can bring patient-centric HIE efforts onto a path to success. The authors’ research attempts to shed light on the importance of patients' roles in adopting patient-centric HIE initiatives. Theoretical and practical contributions of this study are noticeable since they could result in a deeper understanding of the concept of patient engagement and how it may affect healthcare services in an evolving digital world. The authors’ findings can help healthcare organizations provide public citizen-centric services by introducing user-oriented approaches in healthcare delivery systems.

The purpose of this study is to understand why individuals choose to avoid using e-services due to security concerns and perceived risk when these factors are affected by the perceived degree of government cybersecurity preparedness against cyberattacks.

The authors adopt the information systems success model to predict the role of government security preparedness efforts in influencing the determinants of e-services avoidance. The conceptual model includes four variables: security concerns, perceived risk of cyberattacks, perceived government cybersecurity preparedness and e-services avoidance. Data from 774 participants were used to analyze our conceptual model.

First, the findings show that security concerns regarding personal information safety and perceived risk of cyberattacks are barriers to e-services use, with the former having a stronger effect. Second, the findings showed that perceived government cybersecurity preparedness significantly reduces security concerns and perceived risk of cyberattacks. Third, the post hoc group analysis between individuals with a bachelor’s degree or higher versus those without a bachelor’s degree showed that the effect of both security concerns and perceived risk of cyberattacks on e-services avoidance was greater for individuals without a bachelor’s degree. The same relationship between perceived risk of cyberattacks and e-services avoidance was not supported for individuals with a bachelor’s degree or higher.

Extant privacy research fails to adequately examine the role of institutional factors, such as government efforts, and how these mitigate or amplify cybersecurity concerns and risks related to e-services. This research takes the first step toward addressing this limitation by examining the influence of government cybersecurity preparedness efforts on the determinants of e-services avoidance.

Contends that public service quality is necessarily a democratic concept. Because the public generally has no choice and/or is disempowered, dependent or excluded in relation to the services it is entitled to, quality, both in its technical and non‐technical dimensions, must be defined through bargaining. Different groups, including citizens and communities as well as individual consumers, need to be empowered to make their needs and desires known. For this, a new kind of organizational infrastructure and culture are needed. These look remarkably like those being developed in current models of decentralization. The key elements in both quality and decentralization are the three building blocks of front and back line (or centre), and, most importantly, the public. The service chain connects them. It is the maintenance of this chain which now needs to be the concern of front‐line managers, to sustain democracy and ensure a holistic and integrated response to need and quality development. Some recent research on decentralized managers reveals the kind of integrative, boundary‐crossing skills which will be relevant, indeed essential, in future quality developments.

This study aims to explore under which institutional and organizational conditions the national e-government reform efforts of EU member states lead to very high availability of e-services.

Following e-government literature of information systems and public administration research, this study applies an analytical framework encompassing characteristics of the national politico-administrative system (state structure, government capacity, managerial innovation orientation and civil service system) to understand why a common policy framework does not lead to convergence but great variety in the degree of e-service availability. A comparative case study approach using fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) is applied to systematically compare e-service availability in the former 28 EU member states.

Three configurations of sufficient conditions are identified: government capacity in conjunction with either bureaucratic human resource practices, centralized state structure or managerial innovation orientation. Three country clusters are derived: effective bureaucrats, effective centralists and effective managers.

The results demonstrate the importance of administrative effectiveness for the digital transformation. Rather than mimicking best practices, countries are advised to learn from better performing countries that are most similar in terms of institutional and organizational characteristics of the politico-administrative system.

This paper aims to introduce a systematic computing and analytical procedure that is applied to the co-author network to identify the temporal evolution and growth of research collaborations in the area of e-governance. The empirical analysis of the temporal co-author network can trace the emerging authors and knowledge bursts over time.

The study applied social network theory to trace the author collaboration patterns in the domain of e-governance. Analysis of the co-author network using micro and macro parameters was done to trace the temporal evolution of the author collaborations.

E-governance is a multi-disciplinary research domain split over streams of management, politics, information technology and electronics. Hence, research collaborations play a significant role in its advancement. The knowledge sharing between individual authors, institutions and groups through research collaborations, resulting in extensive sharing of data, equipment and research methods, has boosted research activities and development in e-governance. In this paper, the authors systematically analyse the current scenario of research collaborations in the area of e-governance using co-author network to estimate its impact on the advancement of the field. The authors also analysed the temporal evolution of the co-author networks, which show remarkable growth of research collaborations in the domain of e-governance from the year 2000.

The co-author network analysis is only a proxy measure for the analysis of research collaborations. The names of the authors and the university affiliations used in the article are as retrieved from the research repository of Scopus. The degree, citations and other parameters related with authors have scope only within the environment of the co-author network used in the analysis. The criteria used in the study is limited to the degree of research collaborations and the number of co-authored publications in the giant component of the co-author network.

Institutions, authors and governments can trace and select suitable topics and choose research groups of co-authors over the world for future research collaborations in e-governance. The knowledge about the emerging and most discussed topics gives an overview of the global research trends of e-governance.

The study identified the evolution of creative collaborations in e-governance in the global perspective. The methodology introduced here is helpful to detect the proficient and productive author collaborations and the spectrum of related e-governance research topics associated with them. As the author collaborations can be mapped to the institutional and country-level collaborations, the information is helpful for researchers, institutions and governments to establish the best collaborations in e-governance research based on the author proficiency, collaboration patterns and research topics as per the requirements.

The paper introduces a novel research methodology using temporal analysis of co-author network to identify the evolution of research patterns and the associated research topics.

Most local governance assessment tools are entirely or partially based on stakeholders’ surveys, focus groups and benchmarks of different local governments in the world. These tools remain a subjective way of local governance evaluation. To measure the performance of local good-governance using an unbiased assessment technique, the authors have developed a framework to help automate the design process of a data warehouse (DW), which provides local and central decision-makers with factual, measurable and accurate local government data to help assess the performance of local government. The purpose of this paper is to propose the extraction of the DW schema based on a mixed approach that adopts both i* framework for requirements-based representation and domain ontologies for data source representation, to extract the multi-dimensional (MD) elements. The data was collected from various sources and information systems (ISs) deployed in different municipalities.

The authors present a framework for the design and implementation of a DW for local good-governance assessment. The extraction of facts and dimensions of the DW’s MD schema is done using a hybrid approach, where the extraction of requirement-based DW schema and source-based DW schema are done in parallel followed by the reconciliation of the obtained schemas to obtain the good-governance assessment DW final design.

The authors developed a novel framework to design and implement a DW for local good-governance assessment. The framework enables the extraction of the DW MD schema by using domain ontologies to help capture semantic artifacts and minimize misconceptions and misunderstandings between different stakeholders. The introduction and use of domain ontologies during the design process serves the generalization and automation purpose of the framework.

The presently conducted research faced two main limitations as follows: the first is the full automation of the design process of the DW and the second, and most important, is access to local government data as it remains limited because of the lack of digitally stored data in municipalities, especially in developing countries in addition to the difficulty of accessing the data because of regulatory aspects and bureaucracy.

The local government environment is among the public administrations most subject to change-adverse cultures and where the authors can face high levels of resistance and significant difficulties during the implementation of decision support systems, despite the commitment/engagement of decision-makers. Access to data sources stored by different ISs might be challenging. While approaching the municipalities for data access, it was done in the framework of a research project within one of the most notorious universities in the country, which gave more credibility and trust to the research team. There is also a need for further testing of the framework to reveal its scalability and performance characteristics.

Compared to other local government assessment ad hoc tools that are partially or entirely based on subjectively collected data, the framework provides a basis for automated design of a comprehensive local government DW using e-government domain ontologies for data source representation coupled with the goal, rationale and business process diagrams for user requirements representations, thus enabling the extraction of the final DW MD schema.

Village health volunteers are community health volunteers in Thailand that have helped the government deliver public health services for many years, particularly during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Though labeled as “volunteers,” the village health volunteers are recruited, trained and supervised in a manner similar to how a government agency recruits, trains and supervises its street-level bureaucrats (SLBs). This study examines the two factors that affect how these street-level quasi-bureaucrats use their professional discretion: transformational leadership and public service motivation (PSM). Transformational leadership means a leadership style that develops, shares and sustains a vision to elevate SLBs to higher levels of performance, while PSM is defined as an SLB’s predisposition to make a difference by working in the public sector with a sense of calling. This study attempts to analyze the mediating role of psychological empowerment in the relationship between transformational leadership, PSM and professional discretion.

The paper uses a three-wave survey-based quantitative method to avoid common method biases. This method provides evidence gathered from 105 subdistrict health promotion hospitals and 798 village health volunteers (VHVs) in five provinces in Thailand.

PSM and transformational leadership influence the village health volunteers' use of professional discretion indirectly through the psychological empowerment mechanisms that make them feel positive toward their village health volunteer role and responsibility. The authors' findings suggest that the hospital directors' transformational leadership induces the village health volunteers' use of professional discretion by making them feel competent to do their work and feel fulfilled and valuable about their work. Similarly, the village health volunteers' PSM leads them to use professional discretion by making them feel fulfilled and valuable and by convincing them of the social and community impact of their work.

While existing research focuses on VHVs' role in alleviating capacity constraints on the health care system, this study revealed an equally important role played by hospital directors. These directors' transformational leadership was instrumental in enhancing VHVs' psychological empowerment – particularly their perceptions of the meaning of their work and their competence – that ultimately enabled them to use professional discretion in their work. This study also highlighted the importance of VHVs' PSM, which leads to their use of professional discretion via the meaning and impact dimensions of psychological empowerment. Based on this study, PSM should also be incorporated into the community health volunteers' recruitment criteria. Also, public health agencies should consider including transformational leadership in the hospital directors' training programs and their promotion criteria.

As VHVs' high-PSM level was found to enhance their professional discretion, the process of recruiting ordinary citizens to serve as community health volunteers should incorporate assessment of the candidates' PSM. Also, the Ministry of Public Health should design and assign tasks that citizen volunteers, particularly VHVs, consider meaningful and at which they feel competent.

Aside from technical training, directors of the subdistrict health promotion hospitals should regularly receive soft skill training (i.e. leadership training) and transformational leadership characteristics should be included in the government criteria for promotion.

While past research has examined the impact of other leadership styles on psychological empowerment, this study took a further step by examining the mediating effects of psychological empowerment on the relationship between transformational leadership and professional discretion among VHVs. The authors analyzed the mechanism linking PSM to the VHVs' professional discretion. In addition, by examining the relative importance of different dimensions of psychological empowerment, this study offers a nuanced understanding of the psychological processes by which transformational leadership and PSM shape the SLBs' use of professional discretion in their work.