Janja Nograšek
email: janja.nograsek@fu.uni-lj.si

Mirko Vintar
email: mirko.vintar@fu.uni-lj.si

Technology as the Key Driver of Organizational Transformation in the E-government Period: Towards a New Formal Framework

Keywords: Technological determinism, Socio-technical theory, Leavitt`s diamond, Model representing the role of ICT in e-government period

Relationship between technology and organisational changes in public sector has become the subject of increasingly intensive research within the last decade. Studies dealing such relationship could be divided in two major groups -first group regards ICT in the e-government period as the key factor of organizational transformation and the second group regards ICT as an equal and co-dependent element in relation to other organizational factors. These two groups of studies could be further classified within two organizational theories -Technological Determinism and Socio-Technical Theory. The aim of this paper is to critically analyse those theories in the sense of formal theoretical framework to explain relationship between ICT and other organisational factors through the lens of Leavitt`s diamond. On the basis of critical analysis and synthesis of available literature the draft of a new conceptual model for explaining such relationship will be proposed.

Introduction

For at least four decades, technology has gradually penetrated and influenced the operation of public sector organisations by changing and increasing its role with every new technological cycle. In the early stages, the influence was primarily visible in regard to the execution of administrative and technical as well as simpler professional tasks. During the later stages of intensive computerisation in particular during the egovernment period the influence of technologies upon the execution of processes rapidly increased, thereby causing them to become more standardised, formalised and more effective. The internet and related technologies caused a major leap forward in all spheres of operation of public sector organisations, namely in internal and external operations.

In parallel, to development of e-government the relationship between technology and organisational changes in the public sector has became the subject of increasingly intensive research and study. On the one hand a number of authors claim that information communication technologies (hereinafter referred to as ICT) in the egovernment period have the potential to create radical organisational changes (e.g. [START_REF] Bekkers | E-government and the emergence of virtual organizations in the public sector[END_REF], [START_REF] Bellamy | Governing in the Iinformation Age[END_REF], [START_REF] Ho | Reinventing Local Governments and the E-Government Initiative[END_REF], [START_REF]E-Government: Analysis Framework and Methodology[END_REF], [START_REF] Okot-Uma | Electronic Governance: Reinventing Good Governance[END_REF]). However, on the other hand there are also the authors who believe that ICT is only one of the elements within an organisation, which is reciprocally related to other elements within as well as outside of the organisation, and only appropriate connection between them enables optimum exploitation of the potentials of new technologies (e.g. [START_REF] Fountain | Building the virtual state. Information technology and institutional change[END_REF], [START_REF] Lazer | How to Maintain Innovation[END_REF], [START_REF] Maniatopoulos | E-government Movements of Organizationall Change: A Social Shaping Approach[END_REF], [START_REF] Van Wert | Questions about E-Government[END_REF]).

Technology, as a factor in the development of organisations in the broadest sense has for almost a century been the subject of interest to numerous social sciences (political and organisational sciences in particular). In studying its influences upon various social systems, numerous "theories" have also been developed, which are used to formalise this relationship. For our further analysis we selected just the two: of them: the Technological Determinism Theory on the one side and the Socio-Technical Theory on the other. 1Our initial assumption in this study has been that the development of e-government and its influence upon the organisational changes of government cannot sufficiently be placed into either of the above mentioned theories and models. On one side ICT is seen as the key factor of transformation of public sector organisations, however on the other side its influence more than ever depends upon other factors within an organisation.

The purpose of this paper is to follow the following three goals:

1. Critically analyse the above mentioned theories, particularly from the perspective of their applicability in the formal theoretical framework for explaining relationships between the increasingly intensive use of ICT in the government and technology related organisational changes. 2. Develop and introduce the draft of a new conceptual model for explaining the role and relationship between ICT and other key factors in an organisation for the successful development of e-government. 3. Examine the proposed model through analysis of the findings and statements of other authors, and define in more detail its features.

Chapter 2 introduces theoretical aspects regarding the role of technologies in changing organisations, analyses selected conceptual models and theories and examines their applicability towards explaining relationships between the development of e-government and related organizational transformations. Chapter 3 introduces the draft of a new conceptual model, a more detailed definition of its features and its evaluation. That is followed by the concluding chapter.

Theoretical Aspects regarding the Role of Technologies in Changing Public Sector Organisations

As a theoretical starting point for understanding the role of technologies in changing organisations, Leavitt's definition of organisation will be used, which is best illustrated by the well known Leavitt's Diamond [START_REF] Leavitt | Applied organization change in industry: structural, technical, and human approaches[END_REF]. For an in-depth analysis of the relationship between technology and the changes to fundamental institutional structures, we selected and examined two known theories appropriate for our discussion -Technological Determinism Theory and the Socio-Technical Theory.

Leavitt's Extended Model

One of the rather old and most recognised conceptual views regarding organisations is represented by Leavitt's Diamond (1964), which illustrates an organisation as a system of four entities -people, structure, tasks, and technology -and is frequently used as the basis for analysing the influence of technologies upon changes in organisations (e.g. [START_REF] Danziger | Enhancing the Quality of Computing Service: Technology, Structure, and People[END_REF], [START_REF] Lucas | The Role of Information Technology in Organization Design[END_REF]). Later, the model was extended by other authors (e.g. [START_REF] Kovačič | Prenova in informatizacija poslovanja[END_REF]) and a fifth entity was added: organisational culture (Fig 1). These key elements of organisation are interdependent, which means that changes in one of them cause changes in the other.

Technological Determinism

Technological determinism is a reductionist theory that presumes that the technological process defines the social progress. Technological determinism regards technology as the basis of society in the past, present and future. New technologies transform society on all levels: institutional, social and on the individual level [START_REF] Chandler | Technological or Media Determinism[END_REF]. However, such a definition contains the view, which assumes that technology is more or less independent from social matters. Here we speak of so-called hard determinism.

On the other side, soft determinism appeared as a response to the strict principles of hard determinism, and it emphasises the increased roles of inclusion and selection by an individual. According to this softer view, technology is placed within complex social, economic, political and cultural networks [START_REF] Lawson | Technology, Technological Determinism and the Transformational Model of Technical Activity[END_REF]. Even within soft determinism, technology is still the leading factor of social development, but it allows for an individual to adopt a decision regarding the predicted outcomes of a specific situation.

It is interesting that within social science research dealing with modern technologies such as the internet, we are witnessing the appearance of tendencies towards explaining the relationship between technology and society in a relatively deterministic manner (see [START_REF] Daly | Studying the impacts of the Internet without assuming technological determinism[END_REF]). If we place technological determinism within the context of the organisation, the technology in an organisation is the factor that directs the transformation of organisations and their elements.

Socio-Technical Theory

Socio-Technical Theory developed in the mid 20th century when researchers examining the impact of technologies on business efficacy and productivity came across some cases where employees resisted the introduction of new technologies through not achieving expected results and so on. Therefore, supported by sociological, psychological and anthropological sciences, the researchers established that the solution to such problems lies in combining the technological and sociological system. Socio-Technical Theory regards an organisation as a socio-technical system built from two correlated systems -social and technical. The technical system is composed of the processes, tasks and technologies needed to transform input into output, whereas the social system is composed of people (their believes, skills, values, knowledge, needs), the relationships between them, remuneration systems and authority structures [START_REF] Bostrom | MIS Problems and Failures: A Socio-Technical Perspective[END_REF]. Every (trans)formation of an organisation as a system must consider these two sub-systems. A return to the classic socio-technical principles provides an environment for successful organisational changes following the implementation of new technologies [START_REF] Appelbaum | Socio-technical systems theory: an intervention strategy for organizational development[END_REF], [START_REF] Bostrom | MIS Problems and Failures: A Socio-Technical Perspective[END_REF]. As can be seen from Fig 1, Leavitt's view of organisation and socio-technical theory is heavily intertwined, which makes Leavitt one of the founders of this theory.

Critical Analysis of Technological Determinism

In accordance with technological determinism, technology directs the transformation of public sector organisations, which means that technology or its potential cause changes in processes, structure, people and organisational culture. These elements are separate and all they allow is a free choice regarding the use of potentials, which are enabled by modern ICT. In this case, technology is an independent variable, whereas processes, structures, people and culture are dependent variables (Fig 2). In that sense, ICT in e-government period is seen as a tool for the reform of bureaucracy. Jain e.g. [START_REF] Jain | Using the lens of Max Weber's Theory of Bureaucracy to examine E-Government Research[END_REF] analyses e-government from two perspectives using the objective of Weber's bureaucratic model; first, as a tool for the "reform" of bureaucracy and second, that unsuccessful implementation of e-government is a result of bureaucracy. Egovernment as a tool of bureaucracy is also defined by the OECD [START_REF]Information Technology as an Instrument of Public Management Reform: A Study of Five OECD Countries[END_REF], which claims that e-government is a key factor in the reform of government and that ICTs support this reform in many areas. Bellamy and Taylor [START_REF] Bellamy | Governing in the Iinformation Age[END_REF] also justify such perspective by claiming that government can be transformed on the basis of technology, because information technology enables a new flow of information that endangers old norms and abilities. However, some highly cited authors strongly oppose these "optimistic" perspectives regarding the reform potential of technology (e.g. [START_REF] Kraemer | Information Technology and Administrative Reform: Will E-Government Be Different? IJEGR -Final[END_REF]) and support their scepticism through numerous studies and empirical research that was conducted in 1980s and 1990s in the US. Furthermore, within the last decade, there emerge authors who establish that the transformational function of technology is not deterministic, because in practice equal inputs often give completely different results in various environments within the development of e-government (e. g. [START_REF] Scholl | Organizational Transformation through E-government: Myth or Reality?[END_REF]). It can be said that the Theory of Technological Determinism is too one-dimensional and one-sided and does not provide enough formal framework for examining the influence of egovernment regarding organisational changes.

Leavitt's Model in the Context of Socio-Technical Theory

Leavitt's model within the sphere of Socio-Technical Theory (see Fig 1) has already been introduced in the introduction to this chapter, because Leavitt [START_REF] Leavitt | Applied organization change in industry: structural, technical, and human approaches[END_REF] is one of the authors of this theory. In accordance with the Socio-Technical Theory, public sector organisations are systems of correlated elements that are interdependent, and changes in one of them cause changes in the other. In this case, technology is only one of the components of the socio-technical system, and as long as processes, people, cultures and structures remain at the level of bureaucracy, the potentials of modern technologies cannot be exploited. Van Wert [START_REF] Van Wert | Questions about E-Government[END_REF] believes that the success of implementation of e-government is questionable, because officials want to own information and not share it and want their organisation to "shine" as opposed to others. On the basis of examining the implementation of e-public procurement in the local governments of Great Britain, Maniatopoulos [START_REF] Maniatopoulos | E-government Movements of Organizationall Change: A Social Shaping Approach[END_REF] warns of the importance of organisational, political and economic factors, which influence the development and use of the technologies of e-government such as e-procurement. Another advocates of the socio-technical perspective is Fountain [START_REF] Fountain | Building the virtual state. Information technology and institutional change[END_REF], who claims that ICT and organisational/institutional factors are reciprocally connected, that each of them may be a dependent and an independent variable, as each of them causes the other one.

ICT in e-government period is regarded by some authors as a tool for the radical transformation of public sector organisations and by others as merely one of the elements within an organisation that is equivalent to all of the other ones. Both author`s groups arguments could be agree to some extent but not completely. The superficial overview of I(C)T's role during various periods of the public sector's modernisation, as provided in the introduction, already leads to the establishment that its most powerful role has been played during the e-government period, constituting the greatest potential for transforming public sector organisations. This exact period of time is however facing the biggest challenge so far. No matter how high ICT's potential may be, no organisation can be transformed by it alone if it is not prepared, if it refuses to denounce the traditional, rigid sector and to form links within the organisation itself and among organisations, if it does not possess sufficient technical, system and process knowledge, if its managers refuse to take responsibility for change.

ICT's powerful role during the e-government period and its strong dependence on other elements within the organisation is precisely the reason which prevents both the social-technical and classical technological determinism theories from providing a satisfactory description and definition related to the transformation of organisations during the e-government period. That leads to the conclusion that a new model is needed that enables ICT to be placed into the centre of the socio-technical system as the key driver of organisational transformation. ICT as a central actor in such a model, however, cannot operate independently. An optimum potential utilisation is strongly co-dependent on the other elements of the model. This leads to the creation in some ways of a new conceptual model, which would provide the best description of the interdependent relationships among the key factors in the e-government period (Fig 3).

Primary Characteristics of the New Model

Being recognized ICT is a key factor during the e-government period and holds great potential for transforming public sector organisations. New technologies enable horizontal and vertical process integration [START_REF] Layne | Developing fully functional E-government: A four stage model[END_REF], simplified and significantly accelerated process execution, improved information management, more complex transactions, decreased staff burdening [START_REF] Indihar Štemberger | Towards E-government by business process change -A methodology for public sector[END_REF], [START_REF] Kim | Managing IT-enabled transformation in the pubic sector: A case study on e-government in South Korea[END_REF] and improved public services [START_REF] Indihar Štemberger | Towards E-government by business process change -A methodology for public sector[END_REF], [START_REF] Klievink | Realizing joined-up government -Dynamic capabilities and stage models for transformation[END_REF], [START_REF] Leitner | Organisational Changes, Skills and the Role of Leadership Required by eGovernment[END_REF]. They hold the potential for changing cultures, values and thinking [START_REF] Al-Shehry | The Motivations for Change Towards E-Government Adoption: Case Studies from Saudi Arabia[END_REF].

These are only but a few of the potentials that new ICTs undoubtedly have and which impose their central role during the e-government period. They are, however, integrated into organisations that throughout the 20th century were dominated by Weber's bureaucracy model, based upon a strict top-down hierarchy. Modern ICT can be thus confronted with a whole array of factors which prevent organizations from fully benefiting from its potential. This raises the question of which changes should occur in the other elements of the organisation that those potentials could be exploited to the optimum level. Based on the review of existing studies in this field, where those changes have already been detected or highlighted, the extension of necessary changes in every given element of our proposed model is provided in Table 1. The text below provides an assessment of the suggested model's individual elements with illustrative examples from existing studies.

Model Evaluation

In order to examine our assumptions regarding ICT's role and its great co-dependence with other key institutional elements and to support our proposed model some illustrative e-government examples will be presented below.

ICT as the key factor.

According to OECD's report [START_REF]E-Government: Analysis Framework and Methodology[END_REF], the internet and related technologies hold great potential for transforming the structure and processes in administration. Vintar [START_REF] Vintar | E-uprava -Pogled pod lupino[END_REF] links the application of electronic documents, e-business and internet in internal and external administration operations with the introduction of new systemic and organisational solutions as well as new management models. ICT introduction positively affects the development of public sector organisations by decreasing the number of hierarchical levels [START_REF] O'donnell | Transformational aspects of E-government in Ireland: Issues to be addressed[END_REF], [START_REF] Van Veenstra | Towards an Understanding of E-Government Induced Change -Drawing on Organization and Structuration Theories[END_REF], transforming a hierarchical structure into a network one, decentralising activities and developing new horizontally integrated and strategically independent agencies [START_REF] O'donnell | Transformational aspects of E-government in Ireland: Issues to be addressed[END_REF]. Procedure standardisation would promote the creation of a network structure [START_REF] Van Veenstra | Towards an Understanding of E-Government Induced Change -Drawing on Organization and Structuration Theories[END_REF] and enable release of control [START_REF] Li | How E-government affects the organisational structure in Chinese government[END_REF].

ICT and processes.

The processes themselves are most subjected to ICT's influences and potential. A rather significant number of authors reports about an increased process efficiency during the e-government period, mainly in terms of shortening the required time for executing a process [START_REF] Kim | Managing IT-enabled transformation in the pubic sector: A case study on e-government in South Korea[END_REF], [START_REF] Moon | The Evolution of E-Government among Municipalities: Rhetoric or Reality?[END_REF], [START_REF] Pollitt | Technological Change: a central yet neglected feature of public administration[END_REF], standardizing procedures [START_REF] Maniatopoulos | E-government Movements of Organizationall Change: A Social Shaping Approach[END_REF], [START_REF] Pollitt | Technological Change: a central yet neglected feature of public administration[END_REF], [START_REF] Van Veenstra | Towards an Understanding of E-Government Induced Change -Drawing on Organization and Structuration Theories[END_REF] and

Structure

on one hand, due to the horizontal and vertical integration, tasks are undergoing a despecialisation process, while on the other hand, a new task-structuring is required -Data digitalisation must be standardised, procedures being standardised for several departments or organisations simultaneously as procedures are simplified and informatised, the level of formalisation is decreased, while, on the other hand, a new procedure execution method requires new record safety, trust, maintenance and integrity rules decisions on the introduction of e-government is transferred to e-leaders, which appear both on the top and the middle level, which leads to a decentralised decision-making process the hierarchical structure is transformed into a network one facilitating and improving information management and exchange [START_REF] Indihar Štemberger | Towards E-government by business process change -A methodology for public sector[END_REF], but problems occur when a horizontal (integration among functions and services) and vertical (integration among organisations) process execution is required. In his analysis of U.S. municipal administrations, Moon [START_REF] Moon | The Evolution of E-Government among Municipalities: Rhetoric or Reality?[END_REF] finds that most administrations have reached Level 1 or 2 in service development (one-or two-way interaction), but none have been able to reach Level 4, which requires vertical and horizontal integration. Groznik and Trkman [START_REF] Groznik | Upstream supply chain management in e-government: The case of Slovenia[END_REF] link the unsuccessful completion of the e-public procurement process in Slovenia to an inadequate regeneration of business processes for reasons of insufficient horizontal integration. Klievink and Janssen [START_REF] Klievink | Realizing joined-up government -Dynamic capabilities and stage models for transformation[END_REF], in their analysis of progress towards joined-up government, which requires the integration among several organisations and departments, find that most Dutch public sector organisations have reached Level 2 -integrated organizations, but still have a lot of work to do until reaching Level 4 or 5 (inter-organisational integration and joined-up government).

ICT and structures.

Non-utilisation of the potential for vertical and horizontal process execution is thus linked to the existing public sector organisation structure. Laynee and Lee [START_REF] Layne | Developing fully functional E-government: A four stage model[END_REF], whose four-stage model of e-government transformation is based upon vertical and horizontal integration, highlighted that a management structure, based on specialisation, cannot be efficient during the e-government period. The tasks must be re-structured [START_REF] Scholl | E-government: A Special Case of ICT-enabled Business Process Change[END_REF]. Based upon his analysis of the introduction of e-public procurements into the British local administration, Maniatopoulos [START_REF] Maniatopoulos | E-government Movements of Organizationall Change: A Social Shaping Approach[END_REF] finds that the structural arrangement of local administrations is the main challenge of an eprocurement system implementation. Semi-autonomous units are based upon specialised services and are run by higher managers, intense rivalry and lack of cooperation. The change process is thus strongly affected by traditional structures. Li [START_REF] Li | How E-government affects the organisational structure in Chinese government[END_REF] finds that, despite large investments into technology, at the point of introducing e-government into the Chinese public administration, its structure remained essentially bureaucratic. The main challenge is thus how to apply this technology for achieving changes of the organisational structure towards an improved decentralisation and decreased formalisation.

ICT and people.

Closed and inflexible structures can certainly be subscribed to a great extent to the organisation's management, which is held responsible by many authors for the nonutilisation of ICT's potential. Elnaghi et al. [START_REF] Elnaghi | A Leadership Model for e-Government Transformation[END_REF] place emphasis upon the role of leading figures in an organisation as the key actors for a successful e-government implementation; they point out that lack of authority is the main obstacle towards the development of e-government, which is regarded by leaders as a technological mission and not as a strategic vision. A lack of project management is one of the main reasons for the rather unsuccessful implementation of e-procurement in Slovenia [START_REF] Groznik | Upstream supply chain management in e-government: The case of Slovenia[END_REF]. Similarly, Klievink and Janssen [START_REF] Klievink | Realizing joined-up government -Dynamic capabilities and stage models for transformation[END_REF], through analysing the progress toward a joinedup Dutch government, where most organisations can be found on the starting levels, found that project management and leaders play an ever-increasing role in achieving higher levels. A successful introduction of e-government requires interdisciplinary approaches and leaders who are able to combine their ICT knowledge with their understanding of the process dimension [START_REF] Griffin | Joined-up E-government: an exploratory study of UK local government progress[END_REF].

Inadequate staff competences also greatly hinder the utilisation of ICT's potential. The employee must be conscious of the fact that he/she is becoming the supervisor of the entire process and that he/she is not merely the person performing a task [START_REF] Layne | Developing fully functional E-government: A four stage model[END_REF]. Moon [START_REF] Moon | The Evolution of E-Government among Municipalities: Rhetoric or Reality?[END_REF] suggests that the biggest obstacle in the process of introducing egovernment initiatives into US municipal administrations is the lack of staff technical knowledge and the lack of technical staff members.

ICT and organisational culture.

The staff is also closely linked to the organisational culture, which is regarded by some as the main culprit for poor utilisation of ICT. Maniatopoulos [START_REF] Maniatopoulos | E-government Movements of Organizationall Change: A Social Shaping Approach[END_REF] thinks that the greatest challenge in introducing new technologies is the dominant organisational culture, which requires a different way of thinking. He reports that introducing XML standards into e-procurement procedures, organisations did not show great enthusiasm for the introduction of such structures and that employee still tend to execute the procedure manually. Also Klievink and Janssen [START_REF] Klievink | Realizing joined-up government -Dynamic capabilities and stage models for transformation[END_REF] saw changes in culture as one of the conditions for successful transition to higher levels of joined-up government.

The illustrative examples presented above show rather clearly that ICT on one hand holds the potential for radical transformation of public sector organisations, while on the other hand show that the utilisation of its potential is more than ever dependent upon the willingness of other organizational elements to accept it. The examples also clearly show that authors, who analyse the non-utilisation of ICT's potentials, find obstacles for that not only from one but from more factors. That indicates a great level of co-dependence among those factors as well as that an optimal introduction and utilisation of ICT's potentials requires a comprehensive multi-dimensional approach.

Conclusion

By confronting two recognised theories in the field of social sciences -technological determinism and socio-technical theory and by defining a new model -this paper attempts to introduce a new perspective regarding the discussed problem and to contribute to further examination and a stronger integration of the relationship between ICT and organisational changes during the e-government period. As some research have already shown, ICT plays a more important role during the egovernment period than ever before, while at the same time its inter-dependence upon other elements in the organisations must form stronger links than ever before in order to provide for the maximum realization of the ICT's potentials. New relationships and dependencies among the main factors of successful e-government development, attempted to be formalised through the suggested model, are on the verge of being developed. A successful implementation of the model in practice requires a strategic approach towards the development and transformation of public sector organisations.

At the same time, there must be acknowledged the limits and weaknesses of the suggested model, because a successful introduction of e-government and required execution of organisational changes in public sector organisations are not only affected by elements within organisations, but also by external factors such as the political will for change, financial resources, elimination of distrust towards new technologies, legal obstacles, user demands, etc. This model should be supplemented further with external factors, which are extremely specific in the public sector and cannot be directly compared to private sector organizations.

Fig. 1 .

 1 Fig.1. Leavitt`s Extended Model (Source: Kovačič et al., 2004, p. 66)

Fig. 2 .

 2 Fig. 2. Adjusted Leavitt`s Model Following Technological Determinism

Fig. 3 .

 3 Fig. 3. Conceptual Model Representing the Role of ICT in the E-Government Period

Table 1 .

 1 Necessary changes to individual elements, which provide the most comprehensive utilisation of ICT's potential

	Element		Extent of changes			Authors
	Processes	-	changes to the entire process		Layne & Lee
		-	significantly accelerated process execution;	(2001),	Scholl
			process can be executed 24/7		(2003), Kim et al.
		-	horizontal and vertical process executions	(2007), Klievink
		-	changes to the rules, which determine the	& Janssen (2009),
			process (trust, safety, maintenance and integrity)	Politt (2010)
	People	-	employees have to gain new and complex skills	Layne & Lee
			(e.g. self-organisation, confrontation with	(2001),	Ho
			unexpected tasks) and knowledge		(2002), O`Donnell
		-	leaders must be able to combine their ICT	et al. (2003),
			knowledge and skills with their understanding of	Griffin et al.
			the process dimension			(2004), Leitner &
		-	leaders must be able to develop a strategic vision	Kreuzeder (2005),
			and	comprehensive	human	resource	Indihar
			management, project management and user-	Štemberger	&
			orientation strategies			Jaklič (2007)
	Culture	-	transition to a service-oriented culture		Ho	(2002),
		-	the	employees	must	overcome	O`Donnell et al.
			departmentalisation thinking		(2003), Schedler
		-	employees must be encouraged to perform more
			challenging tasks, to be willing to take
			responsibility
		-	inter-departmental and inter-organisational
			cooperation and trust must be strengthened
		-	the leaders' way of thinking must be radically
			changed

However, one of the theories that would be worth mentioned at that point is also Structuration Theory proposed by Orlikowski; however this paper focused on first two theories.

& Schmidt (2004), Leitner & Kreuzeder (2005), Kim et al. (2007)


Hans Jochen Scholl
email: jscholl@uw.edu

Herbert Kubicek

Ralf Cimander
email: cimander]@ifib.de

Interoperability, Enterprise Architectures, and IT Governance in Government

Government represents a unique, and also uniquely complex, environment for interoperation of information systems as well as for integration of workflows and processes across governmental levels and branches. While private-sector organizations by and large have the capacity to implement "enterprise architectures" in a relatively straightforward fashion, for notable reasons governments do not enjoy such luxury. For this study, we evaluated 77 successful projects of government interoperation and integration from across Europe and found that the governance of highly interoperated information systems needs very close attention not only from a functional point of view, but also from a more general-policy perspective. If unchecked, interoperation and integration in government might have the potential to offset or neutralize important safeguards put in place by the constitutional design of separated powers and checks and balances. We found that IT governance might play a more important role than commonly acknowledged and could even provide important clues for informing potential changes in the model of democratic governance in the 21 st century.

Introduction

The Western model of governance, that is, government "of the people by the people and for the people" [START_REF] Lincoln | The Gettysburg Address[END_REF], is built on some core principles, which among others include the principles of limited government, separation of powers, checks and balances, judicial review, and the rule of law [START_REF] Anonymous | The Constitution of the United States[END_REF]. The implementation of these principles in practice has led to a type of government, which is effective, but unlike private enterprise deliberately not geared towards efficiency and gain. As a consequence, whenever a policy problem transcends the mandate and jurisdiction of a given governmental entity, this entity along with all other agencies and parties involved in the problem need to co-determine an outcome, which satisfies their respective needs. This process can be repetitive and tiresome; however, such inefficiency was intended by constitutional design.

Whenever separate jurisdictions intend to exchange information, in many cases laws, statutes, or regulations limit such exchange; or, the exchange might hinge upon the approval of individual government officials on a case-by-case basis. Typically, the process was slow and cumbersome. Despite the advent of modern information and communication technology (ICT), nothing much changed this state of affairs until the Internet made possible the effective connection of diverse information systems. At the end of the 20 th century, governments also began more systematically connecting and interoperating their ICTs (please note that henceforth we will interchangeably use the acronyms ICT and IT, that is, information technology). It soon became clear in that process that sustainable and effective inter-and intra-governmental interoperation required more than just the technical connectivity via some smart middleware [START_REF] Becker | Domain Specific Process Modelling in Public Administrations -The PICTURE-Approach[END_REF]. In many cases, administrative, statutory, and legal rearrangements had to be made. However, quite a few interoperation projects appear to have flown underneath the radar screen of public scrutiny, evaluation, and approval. We believe that the latter projects have been carried out as mere "technical" projects with little public visibility and attention. While we favor the improvement of government operations by means of modern ICT, we are also afraid of a mere technocratic understanding and implementation philosophy permeating and determining the model of governance.

The paper is organized as follows: We first briefly review the extant literature on interoperability, IT governance, and enterprise architectures in government. Then, we pose our research questions and detail the methodology used. Next, we present our findings followed by a discussion and an outlook on future research.

Brief Review of Related and Relevant Literatures

Interoperability has been distinguished from the act of interoperation as the capacity to engage in interoperation [START_REF] Scholl | E-Government Integration and Interoperability: Framing the Research Agenda[END_REF], that is, the more capable processes and systems are to engage in interoperation, the more they are interoperable (ibid). If such interoperability allows for ad-hoc interoperation based on adherence to standards and norms of operation, then such processes and systems are called highly interoperable (ibid). According to the authors interoperation and interoperability are distinct from integration (ibid). While the former refer to system and network-related aspects of operation, the latter encompasses the organizational and governance side of operation on process and workflow levels. This in turn can lead to tightly coupled, interoperable, and "integrated systems" on all levels. As Chen et al [5, p. 648] put it, "two integrated systems are inevitably interoperable; but two interoperable systems are not necessarily integrated." Various frameworks have been proposed to define the dimensions of interoperability [START_REF] Chen | Architectures for enterprise integration and interoperability: Past, present and future[END_REF], for example, as ability to exchange and use information between information systems [START_REF]IEEE standard computer dictionary : a compilation of IEEE standard computer glossaries[END_REF][START_REF] Veer | Achieving Technical Interoperability -the ETSI Approach[END_REF], or the exchange of information based on adhered-by standards [START_REF]Key principles of an Interoperability Architecture[END_REF]. The European Commission distinguished technical, semantic, and organizational interoperability [START_REF]Communication From The Commission To The European Parliament, The Council, The European Economic And Social Committee And The Committee Of The Regions: Towards interoperability for European public services[END_REF]. Yet, others break down the technical level into a low-level technical protocol level and a higher-level syntactic level. When synthesizing the various frameworks, four levels of interoperability emerge, (1) the (low-level) technical level, (2) syntactic level, (3) the semantic level, and (4) the organizational level, the four of which form a hierarchy. Part of the semantic and the organizational levels encompass what Scholl and Klischewski [START_REF] Scholl | E-Government Integration and Interoperability: Framing the Research Agenda[END_REF] have referred to as integration.

Enterprise architectures have emerged in the private sector over the past decades in order to more effectively utilize and coordinate enterprise resources and enterprisewide decision-making [START_REF] Kosanke | Enterprise engineering and integration : building international consensus : proceedings of ICEIMT '97[END_REF][START_REF] Shorter | Requirements for enterprise model execution and integration services[END_REF]. Such architectures have been the underlying concept for designing enterprise systems, for example, enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Although enterprise systems regularly interoperate well on lower technical levels, for the lack of common architectural standards, which would encompass all levels of interoperation (including the process, structural, and strategic levels) leading to high degrees of process and system integration, enterprise systems still do not satisfactorily interoperate on those higher levels of process and business [START_REF] Chen | Architectures for enterprise integration and interoperability: Past, present and future[END_REF]. The aforementioned interoperability frameworks attempt to fill this gap, however, with observably limited efficacy (ibid). Enterprise architectures in the public sector have been no exception to this observation [START_REF] Guijarro | Interoperability frameworks and enterprise architectures in egovernment initiatives in Europe and the United States[END_REF]. Since government is markedly distinct from private enterprise, the more appropriate term for the public-sector context would be "institutional architecture." Where enterprise systems and architectural standards were imposed in the public sector, problems from resource asymmetries, redundancies (for dual processing), and rigidities of operation and in terms of future development have been reported [START_REF] Jackson | Infrastructure and standards in Thai digital government[END_REF]. Beyond these constraints several other constraints to interoperation and integration have been discussed such as legal, jurisdictional, collaborative, organizational, informational, managerial, cost, technological, and performance constraints [START_REF] Scholl | E-Government Integration and Interoperability: Framing the Research Agenda[END_REF]. Governance of interoperability and institutional architectures, hence, extends beyond the technical realm.

Public-sector IT Governance

has not yet been defined in a widely accepted fashion in scholarly research. However, on a general plain, (public) governance has been defined "as regimes of laws, administrative rules, judicial rulings, and practices that constrain, prescribe, and enable government activity, where such activity is broadly defined as the production and delivery of publicly supported goods and services." [14, p. 235]. When transposing this broad definition of governance to public-sector governance of IT, one could define IT governance as "regimes of IT-related standards, agreements, methods, rules, and practices that constrain, prescribe, and enable the implementation and use of ICTs to support government activity." Other scholars have proposed definitions, which in part overlap our definition, which heavily leans on Lynn and friends' more general definition (cf., [START_REF] Van Grembergen | Structures, processes, and relational mechanisms for IT governance[END_REF][START_REF] Weill | IT governance : how top performers manage IT decision rights for superior results[END_REF]). Important elements of public-sector IT governance, hence, also include the concepts and practices of standardization and centralization, which Child had juxtaposed in his discussion of strategic choices [START_REF] Child | Organizational Structure, Environment and Performance: The Role of Strategic Choice[END_REF]. In the context of decentralized systems operated by relative independent organizational entities as typical in government, the adherence to standards is a prerequisite for any basic interoperability, which, however, also predetermines a certain model of participative and consensual IT governance that cannot rely on any central command and control outside jurisdictional boundaries [START_REF] Chen | Architectures for enterprise integration and interoperability: Past, present and future[END_REF][START_REF] Guijarro | Interoperability frameworks and enterprise architectures in egovernment initiatives in Europe and the United States[END_REF].

In summary, as demonstrated above interoperability, institutional (or enterprise) architecture, and IT governance are closely intertwined phenomena, which have not been systematically documented in the academic literature, and whose relationships are not fully understood in the public-sector context. Institutional architectures have to encompass the principles and define the mechanisms and levels of interoperability. The institutional architecture and principles, mechanisms, and levels of interoperability, in turn, are subject to the governance models of an institution and its IT. Once those principles, mechanisms, and levels are observed, architectures and IT governance models can be inferred. Also, conversely, given the model of institutional governance, institutional architectures as well as the principles, mechanisms, and levels of interoperability can be assessed with regard to their respective suitability and compatibility.

Research Questions and Methodology

Case Method. In the absence of any comprehensive study on the subject in the area of government, we pursued a multi-stage exploratory approach, in which cases of interoperability in government were identified, systematically documented, and analyzed. These cases were further scrutinized regarding indicators for institutional architectures and governance structures. We first performed qualitative and quantitative incase analyses followed by comparative cross-case analyses.

Study Question. For reasons of space constraints in this paper we present our highlevel research question as, (RQ) What are the characteristics of interoperability projects in government, also in terms of institutional architectures and governance structures, and how do they match up? Sample. We identified and were able to validate a total of seventy-seven cases of interoperability projects in the public sector from all across the European Union. These "good practice" cases contained sixteen back-office studies, thirty "eEurope Award" good practice cases, six Terregov study cases, and twenty-five good practice cases based on national nominations (please see http://www.egov-iop.ifib.de/). These interoperability cases broke down into thirty-one cases of specific services, seventeen integration cases, six infrastructure development cases, and twenty-three portal development cases. In terms of geographical breakdown seventeen cases were taken from Northern Europe (Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden), seven cases from Eastern Europe (Bulgaria, Hungary, Montenegro, Poland, and Romania), another seventeen from Southern Europe (Greece, Italy, and Spain), eighteen cases from Central Europe (Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, and Switzerland), and another eighteen cases were found in Western Europe (Belgium, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom). With regard to the level of government, fortysix cases were located at the national or federal levels, four cases encompassed multiple regions (or federal states), fifteen cases were found on the regional (or state) levels, five cases involved multiple local governments, and seven cases pertained to the level of local government.

The sample size and the case distribution seem to be fairly representative. However, all cases had been either nominated or proposed as "good-practice" cases, which creates a strong sampling bias in this study towards somewhat "good" and successful interoperability cases. When discussing the generalizability of our results, we will reemphasize this sampling bias.

Data Collection.

In previous rounds of study, comprehensive and systematically structured case reports had been created, which were used as base input data to this study (please see http://www.egov-iop.ifib.de/). For eighteen cases, which stood out in terms of centralization, standardization, or semantic interoperability, further indepth interviews with project owners and project members were conducted. As a next step, some forty experts from across Europe were invited to discuss these eighteen cases in a number of workshops. The data generated from the original case reports, the additional interviews and workshops were then compiled into extended case reports, which we then also used for this study.

Data Analysis. Case reports were analyzed in terms of the aforementioned four layers of interoperability (technical, syntactic, semantic, and organizational/business process) as well as (along these layers) in terms of the implementation, that is, the extent of standardization and, as an alternative, centralization. The coding was based on interoperability criteria and elements shown in Table 1. We employed a scalogram approach [START_REF] Guttman | A Basis for Scaling Qualitative Data[END_REF] in order to inductively verify whether or not the structures we found in the data were cumulative. These so-called Guttman scales indicate how strong a cumulative structure under study is. In other words, the occurrence of the higher level makes the existence of the lower layers in the structure more likely the more the overall structure is a cumulative one.

Table 1. Analytical breakdown of interoperability (IOP) levels 4 Findings

Hierarchy of Interoperability Layers. As indicated above, according to theory we expected to find the four levels of interoperability to represent a hierarchical structure, in which the next higher and more specific level of interoperability rests on the previous less specific one. As a consequence, higher layers of interoperability should not be found when lower levels were absent. Such a hierarchical structure would fit the definition of a so-called cumulative structure. In fact, in the vast majority of the cases, we were able to identify at least the lower two or three of four interoperability layers. The scalogram analysis [START_REF] Guttman | A Basis for Scaling Qualitative Data[END_REF] showed a strong cumulative structure (see Table 2) with a reproducibility coefficient of 0.987 (reproducibility coefficient = 1-(number of errors/number of cases*number of items)).

In fact, only four cases do not expose the overall pattern of cumulative interoperability layers. In all four cases, interoperability has been achieved on the business process level without a semantic interoperability layer underneath. However, this type of business process interoperability is achieved at the expense of "hard-wired" rigidity of process to use a technology term. When disregarding the four special cases, the four layers of interoperability have been found implemented in almost all cases forming an almost perfect Guttman scale.

We would like to remind the reader that the 77 cases were identified as goodpractice cases. In other words, it appears that the vast majority of good practice cases follow a layered architectural approach. In the absence of failure cases in this study, we cannot be sure, but we would not be awfully surprised to find this architectural principle of interoperability as a key success factor for successful interoperability projects in future research.

Table 2. Summary scalogram of 77 IOP cases

Standardization and Interoperability. In a completely decentralized IT environment, interoperability would be possible when two conditions were met (a) for every recurring exchange a specific exchange procedure needed to be established ex ante. This would be tiresome and costly if the demand for new exchanges increases; or, (b) interoperability would be enabled by means of standardization of exchanges (as, for example, via standardized protocols and procedures as prescribed by the four layers of interoperability. With perfect adherence to standards, hence, new exchanges would be implementable with relative ease. We were interested in what standards we would find in the cases with regard to the various interoperability layers. It was clear from the outset that we would sure find basic routing and directory services on the technical level. However, in the syntactic layer, we looked for data exchange formats such as EDIFACT or XML, in the semantic layer we expected to find data keys and ontologies for data fields, and in the business process level, we looked for workflow definitions based on common description languages.

Following the layered hierarchy, we hence found directory service definitions, data exchange format definitions, data key definitions, and workflow definitions. Table 3 shows the distribution of standards across the interoperability layers. For the thirtyone cases of specific government services, we found twenty-eight cases with a perfect Guttman scaling structure, twenty-three of which exhibited the standardization elements on each layer. The reproducibility coefficient of 0.9355 (all cases) and of 0.9677 (special government services) showed an almost perfect cumulative structure for these cases.

Centralization and Interoperability. When IT services are provided centrally, standards can but do not have to be used for providing interoperability. We found a number of centralized vehicles used for facilitating interoperability, which were not based on public standards such as (a) centralized directories for address translation and message routing (which we found in 62 of 77 cases and in 27 of the 31 specific government service cases), (b) centralized directories for user authentication (60/77 and 23/31), and (c) so-called core directories for data keys used in message data fields (38/77 and 14/31). We also found some centrally provided process functions, (d) data format conversion (33/77 and 17/31), (e) process control such as format validation, tracking, or tracing (55/77 and 25/31).

Select Observations. Elsewhere, we identified interoperability requirements as (a) multi-service exchanges when common data are exchanged for different services, (b) multi-stage exchanges when workflows occur between different stages of a service, (c) multi-area exchanges when data are exchanged between units in different geo-graphical areas, and (d) multi-file exchanges when common services are provided for different files [START_REF] Kubicek | Framing the governance of interoperaility in e-government[END_REF]. We cross-tabulated these interoperability requirements with the respective standards identified on the four interoperability layers and found for the 31 specific government services complete standardization for data exchanges (syntactic layer), and very high standardization also for data keys (semantic layer) and workflows (business process layer). However, standardization was relatively weak for directories (technical layer). When we analyzed how the interoperability requirements were met via centralization, we found that centralization was high to very high for address directories and process control, however, relatively low for authentication directories and core directories, and medium for conversions.

Permanent and/or temporary institutions. IT governance encompasses the assignment of authority for planning and controlling of IT infrastructures and services to organizational and functional units. In inter-governmental interoperability projects it was not always clear from the outset, which units had been assigned to planning the various options. Scholl and Klischewski [START_REF] Scholl | E-Government Integration and Interoperability: Framing the Research Agenda[END_REF] mention federations as more permanent configurations and working groups for more loosely-connected projects. In our sample we found different governance structures in the various phases of a given project life cycle. In the planning phase, the task of planning for interoperability assigned to either existing or new, and, either permanent or temporary institutions. If interoperation between already existing government services had to be established mostly existing institutions orchestrated the cooperation between the agencies involved because these existing institutions were able to build upon their experience in planning electronic exchanges. Wherever integration of processes was required between agencies spanning branches and levels of government and no previous collaborative relationship had pre-existed, new temporary institutions were formed such as project groups. Only in a single case a new permanent institution was formed where a clearinghouse for the whole social security sector (in Belgium) had to be created.

IT Governance: Agreements, Ordinances, and Adherence to Standards. If not centrally governed, that is, controlled by law or ordinance and enforced by monitoring or budgetary means, interoperability frameworks, standards, and institutional architectures are only as effective as the various parties involved adhere to them. Scholl and Klischewski [START_REF] Scholl | E-Government Integration and Interoperability: Framing the Research Agenda[END_REF] have argued that the more government agencies operate in an integrated fashion, the more they need formal agreements ensuring that modes and standards of interoperation on all levels are adhered to. When we inspected the data regarding the arrangements for enforcing the compliance with ordinances and/or the adherence to standards as well as to an agreed upon model of IT governance, we were able to identify mandatory standards in 14 of 31 specific government services, while 17 of 31 cases were based on recommended standards. Whereas mandatory standards had mostly been enacted by law (10 of 14 cases), quite many recommended standards had been established via agreements or contracts. While such outcome was expectable, we found it surprising that standards when sanctioned via formal agreements between collaborating partners still were found mandatory in only four cases and recommended in the other twelve. Obviously, in most cases signatories do not completely enact what they had agreed upon. Adjusting existing legacy systems to standards might have proven to o expensive, so that the signatories appeared to have opted in favor of greater flexibility.

We set out to investigate the characteristics of interoperability projects in government. In 77 overall cases, and more so, among those in the 31 cases of specific government services, we found that in these projects the various layers of interoperability (technical, syntactic, semantic, and business process) were specifically addressed. Particularly, on the higher layers high degrees of standardization were found across the cases, especially, in the 31 specific government service cases. This high degree of standardization is complemented by some degree of centralization of various services such as address directory service and process control. Interoperability in technical and functional terms appears to be ever better understood and executed in practice. The high use of standardized approaches also indicates that public-sector IT leadership understands the benefits of so doing. We would, however, like to reemphasize that these results are based on 77 cases of evidentially "good-practice" interoperability in government. We explicitly refrain from inferring that standardization (complemented by some degree of centralization) in government interoperability makes project success more likely. As Scholl and Klischewski [15, p. 911] suggested, we would need to analyze not only unproblematic outcomes as in this study but also problematic outcomes of type A (unsuccessful project aiming at desirable project goals) identifying the failure causes, and of type B (successful projects producing undesirable results) analyzing the sources and causes of undesired side effects.

For a type-B problematic outcome analysis, the 77 case reports rendered too little insight for us to make any qualified statement on that ground. However, what we noticed was an at least unmindful approach to transferring architectural (and that means, governance) principles from the private sector into government. Public-sector IT governance might incorrectly be interpreted as a purely technical and functional affair, which it is not. The laws and ordinances as well as the collaborative agreements regarding institutional architectures and IT governance models used by collaborating government agencies need to be carefully reviewed and assessed.

As mentioned above a linchpin in the Western-style model of governance is the notion that government needs to be and stay limited; and, in order to assure that government stays within those constitutionally designed explicit limits several safeguards have been devised such as the division of governmental powers and a system of checks and balances, as we pointed out in the introduction. However, interoperability, and, hence, the public-sector IT governance thereof, needs to be pursued by upholding these constitutional principles.

Our research results from these seventy-seven "good-practice" cases, that is, cases of successful interoperation in government, highlight that a successful model of governance of interoperability for a project in one area of government does not easily transfer to projects with other services in different areas, levels, and branches of government. We were able to describe and systematize the processes and instruments for establishing interoperation in the public sector. Also, we developed an empirically grounded framework for the governance of interoperability in government. However, we caution that the high-level categories in this framework have to be broken down and adopted to the respective context in any given interoperability project. Although seemingly impossible, it would nevertheless be undesirable to establish a single IT Governance regime across all sectors and levels of government. Based on empirical insight we dismiss the drive for establishing Enterprise Architectures in the public sector as inappropriate and problematic, at a minimum. Institutional architectures represent governance structures, and interoperability in the public sector requires governance structures different from the private sector. Even in industrial conglomerates with formal Enterprise Architectures we know of no cases, in which all affiliations completely adhere to the architecture. For good reasons, powers in the public sector have been separated and must remain so, in order to maintain the very foundations of the democratic system at large. Our findings show that IT governance needs to be established anew in each single case of cross-sector and cross-level interoperability. From a constitutional perspective, this is a comforting insight. Yet it will remain necessary to check new networked e-services for their capacity to uphold "democratic interoperability."