Davide Arduini
email: davide.arduini@uniurb.it

Antonello Zanfei
email: antonello.zanfei@uniurb.it

Mario Denni
email: mario.denni@agcm.it

Gerolamo Giungato
email: giungato@istat.it

The e-Government services delivery of the Italian municipalities

Keywords: Innovation system, Dynamic capabilities, Technology adoption, Electronic government, Innovation in services, Two-part model

This paper focuses on factors associated with the development of e-government services by local public administrations (PAs) in Italy. Using data from 1,176 municipalities in 2005, we show that the combination of internal competencies and context-specific factors is different when explaining decisions to start e-government activities vs. the intensity of such activities. Local PAs involved in egovernment are larger, carry out more in-house ICT activities and are more likely to have intra-net infrastructures than PAs offering no digitized services. They are also located in regions having large shares of firms using or producing ICTs, where many other municipalities offer digitized services, and where population density is low. The range and quality of e-gov services increase with their stock of ICT competencies, their efforts to train workers, and their ability to organise interfaces with end-users. Moreover, the range and quality of services is correlated with the broadband infrastructure development of regions.

Introduction

In advanced economies the public sector has been under pressure to increase transparency in administrative procedures and decision making processes as well as increase the efficiency of its services to citizens and business enterprises. These pressures are the result of a combination of factors, including increasing competition in political arenas, institutional changes and technical progress. The use of digital technologies at all levels of Public Administrations (PAs) and the development of "e-government" services are a key aspect of this transformation 1 . Studies on digital technology adoption and on ICT based services supplied by public organisations, however, reveal the existence of a considerable heterogeneity across EU countries and regions 2, 3 . In other words, not all PAs are equally prone to involvement in e-government nor are they equally active in this field. Using data on 1,176 Italian municipalities in year 2005, this paper contributes to our understanding of this diversity. More precisely we analyse the factors that are associated with PA decisions on whether and how to become involved in e-government activities.

The analysis carried out in this paper can be cast in a general framework that explains innovation as the result of a process wherein the competencies of innovating entities co-evolve with the technological, institutional and economic environment in which they are active 4 . In this case, we shall focus on a specific category of innovators, namely local-level public administrative bodies, which we shall call "municipalities" from now on. We shall use the provision of digitalised front office services to the citizens, firms and other institutions (e-government) as a measure, though partial, of municipality innovation. Furthermore, we consider the relevant technological, institutional and economic context for innovation to be largely represented by the "regions" in which municipalities are located. While the choice of territorial aggregation is always arbitrary, we thought it sensible and feasible in terms of data availability to utilise the Eurostat NUTS2 level of analysis for Italy, which corresponds to the 21 subnational regions that were institutionalised in 1970 following a constitutional provision of 1948. In this general framework, we shall show that different competencies and contextual factors matter when considering innovation rate between or within municipalities.

The rest of this paper is organised as follows. Section 2 draws together different streams of literature to single out the key factors that can help explain innovation in public services in general and e-government in particular.

Background literature on innovation and implications for public services

Innovation in services has attracted increasing, albeit still limited, attention in economic literature 5, 6, 7 . As particularly stressed by the evolutionary approach, our understanding of innovation can greatly benefit from the analysis of competencies of firms and institutions. This stream of literature views innovators as depositories of largely tacit knowledge incorporated in such firm-specific assets as routines, skills, technical and organisational capabilities 8, 9 . Such assets, normally identified with the comprehensive term "competencies", are the result of conscious efforts to invest in training of human capital and in institutionalised R&D. Moreover, competencies originate from learning processes associated with production, the use of technology and the interaction with external parties (other producers, users, and institutions) which are themselves depositories of knowledge assets.

To explain better the introduction of innovation in general, and of e-government services as a special case of innovation in services, one also needs to acknowledge the importance of context specific factors. There is a general consensus on the role played by demand conditions as fundamental drivers for innovation. The hypothesis that extensive and growing demand stimulates innovation was originally proposed by Schmookler 10,[START_REF] Schmookler | Invention and Economic Growth[END_REF] and tested at different levels of analysis with a focus on the manufacturing industry 12, 13, 14 . Most contributions on innovation in services emphasise the importance of demand determinants of innovative activities 15, 16 although there are few empirical studies concerning this issue. In the public sector case, attention has been given to the role of governmental bodies in public procurement of advanced technology, hence as actors on the demand side affecting innovation carried out by supplier sectors 17, 18 .

Apart from the characteristics of demand, innovation is affected by a number of other context specific factors and by the complex networks of relationships among the different actors involved in innovative activities 19, 20 . Important interdependencies can be observed between all components in innovation systems, whether the systems are defined at the national, regional or sectoral level.

The interactive and systemic nature of innovation is mediated by spatial factors, such as geographic proximity and localised knowledge accumulation. Emulation processes across innovators, user-producer interactions, knowledge exchanges and involuntary information leakages are favoured by close interaction and day-to-day contact between actors involved. There is significant evidence of inter-regional variations in the generation and adoption of new technology, revealing that innovation tends to be geographically bounded 21, 22, 23 .

Data sources and empirical strategy

In this section we illustrate the data and methods we utilize to examine the factors affecting the innovative activities of Italian PAs. As stated in the introduction, our unit of analysis is based on local PAs (municipalities), and we use their involvement in the provision of digitalized front office services (e-government) as the dependent variable in our econometric exercise. We expect different factors at the municipality and contextual levels to be associated with the introduction of e-government services. These factors were selected from the existing literature on innovation processes, as in Section 2. Let us first illustrate our data sources and then discuss how these are utilized for analytical purposes.

Data

Our empirical tests are based on data at both municipality and contextual (mainly regional) levels. For one variable only data is collected at the level of the Italian provinces. Data on several regional level variables have then been drawn from different surveys. One is the 2005 survey on the usage of ICT in Italian firms with 10 employees or more. Data on employees in ICT sectors come from the 8 th General Industry and Services Census carried out in 2001. Data on inhabitants at the municipality level are taken from the Istat project "Demography in Figures". The MIUR (Italian Ministry of University and Research) survey on the tertiary education provides data on the number of graduates in ICT disciplines as a measure of human capital endowments in fields relating to e-government. For all the variables where information is available at regional level, the same value is assigned to every municipality belonging to the same region. As a result, we have no intraregional variance and only in inter-regional variation at this level of analysis.

Finally, information on the diffusion of broadband infrastructure and services are taken from the Broadband Observatory. These are the only data to which we have access available at the provincial level. Table 1 provides a brief description of all the explanatory variables considered in the empirical application and their source.

[TABLE 1 HERE]

The dependent variable: the Front Office Index (FOI)

The dependent variable in our econometric exercise is a composite indicator measuring the availability and the level of interactiveness of on-line services for each administration. Information on these two dimensions come from the Cnipa dataset. Examining the official websites of 1825 municipalities, Cnipa singles out 266 different on-line services. The same service can be recorded for more than one municipality. This results in an initial dataset of 21,337 observations. For each of them, using a taxonomy introduced by Capgemini 24, 25 , by means of four dichotomic variables Di, the dataset indicates whether or not there are specific characteristics that each reflect a different degree of interactiveness in on-line services: the possibility of downloading administrative forms necessary to receive the service (indicated as D 1 ); the possibility of exchanging interactive information about the service, such as asking specific questions and obtaining answers (D 2 ); the presence of an authentication procedure through which the user can be identified and given a personal account as a means to enhance security (D 3 ); finally, the possibility of carrying out the whole transaction process on-line (D 4 ). This represents the most comprehensive level that can be provided for an on-line service.

Note that each service may show none, some, or all of these features.

For analytical purposes, we followed a two-step procedure. First, we employ Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) to associate four binary variables to the 21,337 on-line services observed, so as to compute a weight for each of the four features. At the end of the first step, we have a score for each of the 21,337 entries in the dataset reflecting the "intensity" of the on-line service in terms of quantity (given by the 0/1 Di variables) and level (given by the weight associated to each Di variable) of actions it performs. For a given on-line service, the score is higher the higher the number of characteristics that service exhibits as well as the higher the degree of interactiveness of these characteristics. Second, we compute a final score for each municipality (the base unit of our analysis) by adding the scores received by all the services provided through its official website. This is our Front Office Index (FOI). It is a positive function of both the number of on-line services offered by the administration (the higher the number of on-line services supplied by the municipality, the greater the number of non-null scores computed and hence the higher the FOI associated to the same municipality) and of the "quality" of each of these services (the higher the score of each on-line service provided by the municipality, the higher its final FOI).

Independent variables and controls

In light of the selective review of the literature carried out in Section 2, we singled out a set of variables associated with the development of e-government services. These variables can be divided into two broad categories: characteristics of municipalities and contextual (mainly regional) features.

Municipality level variables aim primarily at capturing a large variety of technical and organisational competencies of local administrative bodies. As discussed in sections 2, internal capabilities are considered key drivers of innovation -especially in the evolutionary and resource based views of the firm, which have also been looked at in studies on innovation in service sectors. We distinguish three different sets of internal competencies: i. Competencies embodied in personnel employed in the municipalities This is Municipality ICT Empl variable, expressed by the number of employees whose core activities are related to ICT, i.e. software design, computer based operations and maintenance. This variable reflects the actual stock of human capital qualified for the development and provision of digitalised services. Municipality ICT Training is a dummy to identify whether in 2005 municipality i has undertaken specialised training programs in any of 5 technical fields that are relevant for e-government activities. Through this indicator we mean to capture the conscious effort made by the institution to improve the quality of competencies in these areas. Municipality inHouse ICT is expressed as the percentage of ICT related activities carried out in the public organisation by means of internal staff. This variable indicates how capable the organisation is to take care of ICT activities with its own resources, without resorting to specialised external competencies.

ii iii. Competencies embodied in the PAs' organisation To capture this aspect of internal competencies we introduced several indicators of how pervasive ICT is in the overall organisational structure of the municipality. Measures of this type are: Municipality EDP-based activities, expressed as the share of total activities carried out at the municipality level operated using EDPbased systems; Municipality Interface, a dummy identifying whether or not the PA has set up an ICT based system that allows the user to deal with a single on-line administrative interface (the so called "Sportello Unico" in Italian technical jargon); and Municipality Multichannel, a dummy indicating whether or not the PA makes use of diversified channels to provide services, other than face-to-face contacts, that are not based on the web. These alternative channels include inter alia call centers, mobile messaging or interactive cable TV.

As noted, there are important contextual factors which complement internal capabilities as key drivers for innovation in general and in public services in particular. Such "external factors" include: a. Demand size Factors at work on the demand side can be partly captured by our variable Municipality size, which is expressed in terms of the number of inhabitants resident in the territory of the local PA. While this indicator is defined at the municipality level, we suggest that it will help identify the extent of potential demand for e-government services. Consistently with the literature on demand-pull innovation, on demand externalities, and on user-producer interaction which we reviewed in Section 2, we assume Municipality size to be positively associated with egovernment development.

b. Demand quality

To carry out a more detailed analysis of demand factors at a broader level (relative to the municipality level we have just considered), we first use variables that identify specific categories of users, such as ICT User Reg and Egov User Reg. These are respectively expressed in terms of the percentage of total firms in the region that were reported in 2005 to have adopted ICT-based services in general or e-government services in particular. Unfortunately we do not have lagged data on use of digital services, which would enable us to test whether epidemic patterns of innovation diffusion, induced by previous adoption, can affect the development of egovernment. Nevertheless, consistent with systemic approaches to innovation, we can expect that higher shares of companies that use digital services will be positively associated with more extensive and effective user-producer interaction, thus creating greater opportunities for PAs to offer new or improved ICT based services.

As well, we attempt to capture how polarised demand is by identifying the percentage of inhabitants of the region that are concentrated in the capital city (Capital Share Reg). According to the literature on spatial diffusion of innovation, technology adoption tends to be more timely and intensive in locations where larger numbers of potential users are concentrated, especially in the initial stages of technical change 26 . As e-government is in its initial phase of diffusion, one might expect that the higher the share of population in capital cities and in metropolitan areas, the more these services will be concentrated there. c. Supply factors E-government activities of PAs are affected by the presence of other innovative actors in the same area. Among these actors are the other municipalities offering digitalised services. We capture this factor by means of our variable Municipal E-gov Suppliers Reg, expressed as the share of e-government service providers out of the total number of local administrative bodies in the Region. Consistently with systemic as well as spatial innovation approaches, we expect this variable to be positively related to the innovative activities of PAs. In fact, when a high number of innovators are located in a given area, knowledge spillovers will be facilitated and greater incentives are created that push less dynamic institutions to enter the innovation race.

Interdependencies can also be observed between e-government service providers and local ICT producers. We proxy this factor with a separate variable we named ICT Producer Ntnl Share defined as the ratio between the percentage of employees in ICT manufacturing and service sectors out of the total number of employees in the Region, and the same percentage calculated at the national level. This factor is positively associated with the development of e-government services for two main reasons. First, municipalities located in regions with higher shares of ICT producers are in a better position to gain access to relevant technology, including both hardware and software. Second, where public and private markets overlap, as in the case of voice or image transmission over IP, a competitive presence of ICT service providers stimulates municipalities to expand the range of services offered through their city networks.

Another supply-side, context specific factor we wish to account for is the state of communication infrastructure. For this purpose we introduce BroadBand Share, defined as the share of total population of the province in which a municipality is located reached by at least one broadband service provider. We consider wide availability of broadband connections an important condition for the provision of advanced e-government services because it demonstrates high quality infrastructure and might also reflect the existence of (actual and/or potential) competition in the provision of network solutions. Both the technological level and the degree of competition in the provision of network infrastructure are normally associated with higher rates of generation and diffusion of advanced communication services 27 .

We further control for the availability of a pool of qualified human capital, a factor particularly emphasised in studies on the generation and diffusion of innovation in ICTs 28 . To capture the role of this factor, we calculate the ratio between the percentage of graduates in ICT disciplines out of total graduates in the Region and the same percentage at the national level (ICT Degrees Ntnl Share Reg). Indeed, this indicator will at the same time reflect the qualitative level of actual and potential workers in ICT manufacturing and service sectors and the competencies of potential users. In both cases the impact on e-government service provision should be positive.

Finally, we also introduce controls for macro-regions. This enables us to account for a number of other observable and unobservable sources of heterogeneity which might affect the provision of e-government services, including income levels, degrees of industrialisation, and sectoral composition of the areas where municipalities are located.

The Econometric model

The choice of the econometric model strongly depends on the distribution of the dependent variable, namely the FOI index. Almost 30% of the observed municipalities do not provide on-line services, i.e. the composite indicator is nil for these units. Thus, our dependent variable is continuous over strictly positive values but takes value zero for a nontrivial fraction of the sample. Given the nature of our dependent variable we argue that a standard censored model would not be appropriate. In fact, municipalities can be thought of as solving an optimization problem, wherein the optimal choice might well be the corner solution, y=0. The case of limited dependent variables often arises in econometric analysis, especially when the behaviour of economic agents is being modelled. The traditional approach in dealing with such a problem is the Tobit model. However, this approach requires that the censoring mechanism derives from the same model that generates the outcome variable while in our case the censoring mechanism and outcomes may be more flexibly modelled using separate processes 29 . A two-part model allowing the zeros and non-zeros to be generated by different densities enables us to specify a model for the censoring mechanism and a model for the outcome, conditional on the dependent variable taking positive values. This allows the separation of the estimation of a standard Probit model (using all observations available) from that of an OLS model (using only observations with FOI > 0).

We use a Probit in the first part of our model to analyze the municipality's decision to offer on-line services via its official website. This allows us to explain innovation differences "between municipalities", i.e. which PAs have a propensity to offer e-government services. The second part is a linear regression model to investigate the determinants of the intensity of e-government development in terms of both quality and quantity of on-line services. Using the terminology introduced earlier, this would allow us to explain innovation differences "within municipalities".

Results

Table 2 illustrates the results of the econometric exercise we carried out using the data and methodologies discussed in Section 3. The whole set of independent variables illustrated in Section 3.3, was used in both stages of the two part model. The last two columns of Table 2 report the results obtained from the final specification, following the entire selection procedure and controls for heteroskedasticity.

[TABLE 2 HERE]

Results from the final specification are by and large consistent with the view we have developed in this paper. As we suggested earlier drawing from different streams of literature, the specific kind of innovation analysed herenamely municipalities' provision of digitalized services -is the result of a combination of internal competencies and of context specific factors. The econometric test suggests that different combinations of such variables are at stake when assessing PA decisions on whether or not to supply digitalized services and when considering the intensity of e-government activities (number and quality of services provided). In other words, factors associated with variations in innovative activities "between municipalities" are different from factors associated with differences in innovation "within municipalities". Outcomes from the Probit specification in column 5 can be interpreted as "between effects", while those obtained from the OLS part of the model and reported in column 6 illustrate "within effects".

More specifically, our econometric exercise yields the following sets of results. First, the environment in which municipalities are active, seems to influence the start up of digitalised services more than their intensity.

Second, among the context specific factors we analysed, demand size and quality stimulate innovative entry into e-government service provision. Demand size at the local level is captured by the number inhabitants resident in the municipality area (Municipality Size). It has a positive and significant impact on differences in innovation between municipalities, reflecting demand pull considerations as well as other bandwagon effects induced by demand externalities and user-producer interactions.

Demand conditions appear to play an even more important role at the regional level. Companies which have already adopted ICT services appear to have the highest impact on the decision of municipalities to get involved in e-government activities (see coefficient of ICT User Share Reg in column 5 of Table 2), suggesting that capable business users are of paramount importance for PAs. Even after controlling for ICT user firms, the impact of E-gov User Share Reg, i.e. the percentage of firms using e-government services, still remains positive and significant in our Probit regression. Although we do not have a data panel to evaluate how previous patterns of adoption affect diffusion, this result is largely consistent with the idea that innovation is favoured by pioneer users.

Third, demand polarisation hampers innovation in public services. This is shown by the negative coefficient of Capital Share Reg in column 5 of Table 2, indicating that a high weight of the region's capital will inhibit innovation elsewhere, especially in the early stages of development of new services.

Fourth, emulation effects, knowledge exchanges, and competitive pressures can be observed on the supply side. The most important factor positively associated with the decision to supply digitalised services appears to be the number of e-government providers in the region (see coefficient of Municipal e-gov supplier Reg in column 5 of Table 2). Emulation factors matter here, especially in the presence of increasing competition in the political arena at the local level.

Fifth, advanced communication infrastructures do not influence the start up of e-government but do affect egovernment intensity. The only context specific factor that seems to impact significantly on innovation within, rather than on innovation between, municipalities is the diffusion of broadband in the area in which they are located (see coefficient of BroadBand Share in column 6 of Table 2). The presence of broadband infrastructures does not seem to affect significantly the decision to start up the digitalization of public services. At this stage the objective of municipalities is the presence on the web of relatively simple applications and services such as information services (e.g. basic tourist information and guidance to the citizen on administrative procedures) and communication services (e.g. self-managed webspaces to be used by associations and organizations, links to other public administration sites, discussion fora). On the other hand, broadband connections become essential when the egovernment service supply is richer (in terms of the number of services provided) and more articulated (in terms of interactivity levels and technologically complex).

Sixth, the decision to enter e-government activities is associated with a narrower range of generally less complex internal capabilities than those needed to increase the intensity of digitalised services. Differences in innovation between municipalities are not affected by the number of workers with experience in ICT nor by the efforts made to train existing workers. Increasing the range and quality of services is associated instead with a much wider set of more complex competencies (see OLS specification in the last column of Table 2).

Conclusions

Using evidence on 1,176 municipalities in Italy, and combining several datasets on the characteristics of local PAs and of the territory in which they are located, we evaluated different factors associated with the development of egovernment services.

In more general terms, the combination of internal competencies and context specific factors is different when explaining the decision to start e-government activities vs. the intensity of such activities. Regional factors concerning both the demand and the supply of services appear to affect only the decision to enter e-government activities. Competencies needed to expand and improve the quality of services are much more numerous and complex than the ones associated with the mere decision to start e-government activities.

The examined evidence is consistent with a view of e-government development as a process of gradual, step by step involvement, wherein municipalities initially engage in exploratory activities, favoured by an external context conducive to innovation and by very limited internal competencies. Once more efforts are made to expand and improve services supplied, more qualified competencies and more advanced environmental conditions need to be created. There is no guarantee that such circumstances occur, so that further development of currently embryonic egovernment is at risk. This calls for increasing investments in training, human capital formation and in hardware and software devices at the individual municipality level. It also requires greater efforts to improve the technological environment in which PAs are active, including investments to improve the quality and accessibility of digital communications networks.

  For municipality level variables, data are obtained by merging two different surveys. One is the survey conducted by Italy's National Bureau of Statistics (Istat) in 2006 on the usage of ICT in 3,323 Italian local public administrations. It collects information on the diffusion and use of ICT in the local public administrations. The other is the survey carried out in 2006 by the National Centre for the Information Technology in the Public Administration (Cnipa) on the official websites of 1,825 Italian municipalities. It includes information on some 266 on-line services provided by the municipalities. The intersection of the two datasets yields cross-sectional information referring to 1,176 municipalities in 2005, providing the final sample size used in the econometric exercise.

  . Competencies embodied in ICT based devices and instrumentation Indicators we used are: Municipality intranet, which measures the percentage of the computers connected to a Local Area Network (LAN); Municipality Broadband, a dummy variable identifying whether or not the municipality's offices have broadband access to the internet; and Municipality OpenSource -that is, the share of open source systems out of the total number of software packages that are in use at the municipality's offices. Since open source software is less established as a technical solution, and its development is by and large based on the interaction among communities of experienced users, we consider its rate of adoption as an indicator of both the innovativeness of systems in use and of the skills of technical personnel employed by the PA.

Table 1 .

 1 Municipality InHouse ICTShare of ICT-related activities operated with internal staff. ICT-related activities taken into account are: project management, software development, hardware management, software management, systems management, network management, database management, ICT-related security, web/internet technologies development and management, web content management, data entry, PC users assistance, ICT training, and e-commerce systems Variables description (cont.)ICT User Share Reg Simple mean of shares of ICT user firms out of the total number of firms in the region. ICT is: using extranet, internal automated systems for purchases, internal automated systems for payments; using Internet for banking and financial services, staff training, and acquiring digital information and services; providing products catalogue on web site; purchasing products/services via InternetICT Producer Ntnl Share RegRatio of the number of employees in ICT sectors in that region to the national mean. To define the ICT sectors we follow the OECD classification. As for manufacturing, ICT sectors include: manufacture of office, Ratio of the number of graduates in ICT faculties in that region to the national mean. According to the OECD definition, ICT faculties include: engineering and engineering trades, manufacturing and processing, architecture and building, life sciences, physical sciences, mathematics and statistics, and computing

	Variable	Description

E-gov User Share Reg

Simple mean of shares of e-Gov user firms out of the total number of firms in the region. E-gov is using municipality web site to: obtain information; download formats; submit formats and complete the

Table 1 .

 1 Variables description (cont.) Dummy for north-east regions: Veneto, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Trentino-Alto Adige, and Emilia Romagna --Dummy for Mezzogiorno regions: Abruzzo, Molise, Campania, Basilicata, Puglia, Calabria, Sicilia, and Sardegna --

	Variable	Description

Table 1 .

 1 Variables description (end) Significant at 10% level. ** Significant at 5% level. *** Significant at 1% level.

	Variable	Full Models	Selected Models	Heteroskedastic Robust Estimates
		Probit	OLS	Probit	OLS	Probit	OLS
		1	2	3	4	5	6
	Municipality characteristics
	Municipality ICT Empl	0.062	0.010**		0.010**		0.011**
		0,062	0,004		0,004		0,005
	Municipality ICT Training	-0,077	0.192**		0.196**		0.177**
		0,133	0,094		0,094		0,090
	Municipality InHouse ICT	0.381**	1.053***	0.447**	1.058***	0.560**	1.063***
		0,192	0,140	0,178	0,137	0,219	0,136
	Municipality BroadBand	-0,047	0.255***		0.220***		0.251***
		0,109	0,084		0,082		0,330
	Mun. EDP-based Activities	1.232***	0.710**	1.220***	0.641**	1.292***	0.720**
		0,419	0,333	0,413	0,331	0,456	0,331
	Municipality Interface	0,056	0.300***		0.295***		0.281***
		0,131	0,091		0,090		0,084
	Municipality OpenSource	0,034	0.303**		0.341**		0.265*
		0,239	0,151		0,149		0,152
	Municipality Intranet	0.276**	0.175*	0.261**	0.195**	0.556**	0,124
		0,123	0,095	0,119	0,092	0,220	0,094
	Municipality Multichannel	0,258	0.312***		0.288**		0.288***
		0,200	0,112		0,111		0,106
	Municipality Size	0.065***	0.001**	0.070***	0.001**	0.094***	0.001**
		0,009	0,000	0,008	0,000	0,015	0,000
	Regional and contextual characteristics
	Capital Share Reg	-0.019*** -0,001	-0.020***		-0.021***
		0,005	0,005	0,005		0,006
	Municipal E-gov Suppliers Reg	2.642***	0,176	2.717***		3.216***
		0,655	0,466	0,629		0,690
	ICT User Share Reg	1,696	1,729	2.590*		2.944*
		1,729	1,437	1,475		1,758
	E-gov User Share Reg	0,058	0,081	0.104**		0.124**
		0,077	0,072	0,051		0,052
	ICT Producer Ntnl Share Reg	0.392*	-0,169	0.483**		0.484*
		0,23	0,197	0,210		0,251
	ICT Degrees Ntnl Share Reg	0,254	-0,234
		0,274	0,268
	BroadBand Share	0,163	1.021***		0.772**		0.897**
		0,46	0,387		0,338		0,376
	Constant	-2.037*** -5.219*** -1.987*** -4.872*** -2.293*** -5.094***
		0,480	0,446	0,412	0,303	0,486	0,334
	Macro-Regional Controls	NO	NO	NO	NO	YES	YES
	Num. Obs.	1176	815	1176	815	1176	815
	Pseudo R 2 / R 2	0,322	0,343	0,318	0,338		0,352
	LR-test (Wald) / F-test	466,29	24,44	461,62	37,24	(134.88)	33,99
	Standard errors in italics.

*

Table 2 .

 2 Estimation results: Probit and OLS


Hannu Larsson
email: hannu.larsson@oru.se

Ambiguities in the Early Stages of Public Sector Enterprise Architecture Implementation: Outlining Complexities of Interoperability

Keywords: eGovernment, Interoperability, Maturity models, Implementation, Coordination, Complexity

In recent years the development of eGovernment has increasingly gone from service provision to striving for an interoperable public sector, with Enterprise Architectures being an increasingly popular approach. However, a central issue is the coordination of work, due to differing perceptions among involved actors. This paper provides a deepened understanding of this by addressing the question of how differing interpretations of interoperability benefits affect the coordination in the early stages of implementing a public sector Enterprise Architecture. As a case-study, the interoperability efforts in Swedish eHealth are examined by interviews with key-actors. The theoretical framework is a maturity model with five levels of interoperability issues and benefits. The findings highlight the need to clarify decision-making roles, ambiguities concerning jurisdictions between authorities and that differing perceptions of IT-infrastructure is connected to overall goals. The paper also suggests a re-conceptualization of eGovernment maturity by moving away from sequential models.

Introduction

In recent years the development of eGovernment has increasingly gone from service provision to integration of back office systems and striving for an interoperable public sector [START_REF] Scholl | E-Government Integration and Interoperability: Framing the Research Agenda[END_REF]. It has been shown that eGovernment implementation projects tend to be overambitious and often fail, with more or less severe consequences. It has been suggested that this is partly due to that these projects focuses too much on IT (Information Technology), but are rather a part of an agenda of policy change [START_REF] Hjort-Madsen | Architecting Government: Underastanding Enterprise Architecture adoption in the public sector[END_REF][START_REF]BCS: The challenges of complex IT projects[END_REF]. It has also been shown that IT policies in the public sector often rely on the underlying assumption that technology, by itself, will transform public organizations from stovepipes to integrated administrative systems focused on citizens' needs [START_REF] Bekkers | The Myths of E-Government: Looking Beyond the Assumptions of a New and Better Government[END_REF], and that emphasizing IT might lead to a waste of resources as organizational learning and collaboration is not prioritized [START_REF] Klischewski | Can e-Government Adopters Benefit from a Technology-First Approach? The Case of Egypt Embarking on Service-Oriented Architecture[END_REF]. Also, there is "overconfidence in the ultimate efficacy of interoperating" in eGovernment projects, meaning that ensuring technological interoperability does not necessarily lead to a functionally integrated public sector. This is due to a vast amount of organizational and legal issues [START_REF] Scholl | E-Government Integration and Interoperability: Framing the Research Agenda[END_REF]. In essence there are several issues related to over empathizing technology over social aspects, i.e. considering the whole Information System (IS), encompassing technology as well as human activities in relation to technology [START_REF] Bacon | A Systemic Framework for the Field of Information Systems[END_REF]. In trying to treat both social and technical aspects of interoperability different approaches have been taken, with Enterprise Architectures (EA) being increasingly popular [START_REF] Klischewski | Can e-Government Adopters Benefit from a Technology-First Approach? The Case of Egypt Embarking on Service-Oriented Architecture[END_REF][START_REF] Seppanen | Key Issues in EA-Implementation: Case Study of Two Finnish Government Agencies[END_REF]. The purpose of EA is to work as a framework or method for aligning business processes and IT use, covering organizational as well as technical aspects [START_REF] Guijarro | Semantic interoperability in eGovernment initiatives[END_REF]. However, previous research shows that EA in the public sector to a large extent is immature, and the IT-architecture and business architectures often are not sufficiently integrated [START_REF] Hjort-Madsen | Architecting Government: Underastanding Enterprise Architecture adoption in the public sector[END_REF], and might be treated separated from each other [START_REF] Seppanen | Key Issues in EA-Implementation: Case Study of Two Finnish Government Agencies[END_REF]. Hence the actual efforts to implement interoperability do not necessarily match the overall goals.

Another central implementation issue is the coordination of projects, and creating a shared vision of the future between them [START_REF] Ebrahim | E-government adoption: architecture and barriers[END_REF][START_REF] Weerakkody | Integration and Enterprise Architecture Challenges in E-Government: A European Perspective[END_REF]. Government IS projects are complex since different organizations or groups of actors might perceive goals differently. This might be problematic as goal convergence (and hence interoperability) might not be reached if different actors act upon incongruent perceptions of goals [START_REF] Shin | Convergence and divergence: Policy making about the convergence of technology in Korea[END_REF]. In designing an IS the architects are involved in a process of "anticipatory decisionmaking", which involves trying to predict future use, and sets the course for future actions [START_REF] Bell | Information management in law enforcement: The case of police intelligence strategy implementation[END_REF]. However, the vision of the future use has some degree of interpretative flexibility and is "a contested object of social and material becoming" and not a point in time where change is bound to happen [START_REF] Moore | Gendered Futures? Women, the ICT Workplace and Stories of the Future[END_REF]. Thus, a central aspect is how different organizations and actors differing goals, practices and technologies relates to an overall plan and their interpretation of it [START_REF] Cordella | Information systems in the public sector: The e-Government enactment framework[END_REF]. An IS does thus not follow a predictable or neutral trajectory, but is rather dependent upon the specific setting in which it is implemented as different actors might question the intended purpose, and reinterpret it in order to suit local needs [START_REF] Elbanna | Strategic systems implementation: diffusion through drift[END_REF].

Case studies on the focuses, purposes (perceived benefits) and limitations (issues) to interoperation and integration in eGovernment projects has been suggested as relevant topics for further research [START_REF] Scholl | E-Government Integration and Interoperability: Framing the Research Agenda[END_REF]. Also, how eGovernment strategies influence interoperability work [START_REF] Klischewski | Can e-Government Adopters Benefit from a Technology-First Approach? The Case of Egypt Embarking on Service-Oriented Architecture[END_REF] as well as how motivations are aligned and what the expected outcomes are in large-scale eGovernment projects has been highlighted [START_REF] Fedorowicz | Strategic alignment of participant motivations in e-government collaborations: The Internet Payment Platform pilot[END_REF]. This paper addresses the question: How does differing interpretations of interoperability benefits affect the coordination in the early stages of implementing a public Enterprise Architecture? This issue is addressed by means of a case study on the Swedish strategy for eHealth which aims to implement a national EA in the healthcare sector. The case focuses on national and regional collaboration and coordination efforts. As a theoretical framework a maturity model for eGovernment interoperability is used.

Theoretical Framework

In order to categorize the findings there is a need to apply a theoretical framework to classify which kind of benefits and issues that is treated during implementation. The eGep (eGovernment Economics Project) model provides a framework for achieving a comprehensive theory-based measurement of eGovernment [START_REF] Codagnone | eGovernment Economics Project (eGEP) Measurement Framework -Final Version[END_REF] and is used as it has been proposed as being suitable for developing a deepened theoretical understanding of eGovernment [START_REF] Grönlund | Ten years of eGovernment: the end of history and a new beginning[END_REF]. The eGep has three value drivers; 1) Financial & organizational (cashable gains, employee empowerment, improved IT architecture) 2) Political (transparency, accountability, participation) and 3) Constituency (reduced administrative burden, inclusive services, user value) [START_REF] Codagnone | eGovernment Economics Project (eGEP) Measurement Framework -Final Version[END_REF]. As the model has a strong emphasis on measurability (e.g. number of services, number of service users etc.) it risks losing in-depth understanding of complex issues [START_REF] Grönlund | Ten years of eGovernment: the end of history and a new beginning[END_REF]. Thus, in this paper only the value dimensions (and not the measurement tools) are used, as the paper focuses on understanding rather than measuring eGovernment. The model has also been criticized for potentially lacking the ability to determine actual progress [START_REF] Grönlund | Ten years of eGovernment: the end of history and a new beginning[END_REF]. Hence, there is a need to combine the model with another model which can assess progress. For this purpose Gottschalk's model for eGovernment interoperability maturity levels is used. It is suitable as it focuses on internal processes of interoperability, instead of more general stage-models that focus on service delivery and/or democracy which is a wider scope then would be useful in this paper. The framework consists of five interoperability levels; 1) Computer -semantic and technical issues, 2) Processlinking of work processes and information exchange, 3) Knowledge -IT-enabled knowledge sharing and cooperation among employees from different organizations, 4) Value -combining processes and knowledge sharing to create value by changing practice, and 5) Goal -Ensuring that no conflicting goals exist between the cooperating organizations. The framework is to be used as guidance for research as well as for organizations to be to be able to assess which level they are on and systematically plan development, as organizations reach higher interoperability levels over time. Gottschalk argues that the highest theoretical level of interoperability is not necessarily the most suitable for an organization, as transaction costs might be unnecessarily high if working to achieve a not needed level of interoperability. Gottschalk also argues that further research on variables to be included in the model, and suggests looking into the role of management, legal issues, organizational culture and benefits, as well as the role of technology at each stage [START_REF] Gottschalk | Maturity levels for interoperability in digital government[END_REF]. Hence these five aspects are included in order to highlight different kinds of issues. The value drivers from the eGep model represent the perceived benefits.

Method

As the purpose of the study was to get a deepened understanding of EA implementation, an interpretative case study approach was suitable [START_REF] Walsham | Interpretive case studies in IS research: nature and method[END_REF]. Interviews were chosen as the main method for data collection as the involved organizations in the case study are heterogeneous, hence flexibility and scoping was needed [START_REF] Myers | The qualitative interview in IS research: Examining the craft[END_REF]. The data material consists of 21semi-structured interviews. The interviews were divided into two main parts; national actors and regional actors and were performed between August and December 2010. The first four interviewees were selected as they are key actors in the national level work with the EA for the healthcare sector, representing the major organizations involved in the EA-program; One project leader of a keyproject, the head of the national Municipal Coordination Group (MCG), the head of the overall organization of eHealth work and one member of the architecture group in Center for eHealth in Sweden (CeHiS).These interviews were performed to gain a deeper understanding of the plans for implementation, getting access to informants at the regional level, and refining the interview guide for the forthcoming interviews.

Interviewees for the second stage were selected by recommendations from the national level actors. These were nine municipality coordinators (members of the MCG) and eight County Council actors. Their roles varied and the set included ITprofessionals as well as CIOs. One of the County Council actors was also employed by the national architecture group. These interviews focused on how different actors worked with the strategy on a regional level, perceived benefits, issues and enablers as well as perceptions of future work with interoperability in healthcare. All interviews were analyzed by identifying relevant statements concerning perceived benefits of interoperability or issues in coordination. Statements concerning similar issues or benefits were grouped into themes and placed in a matrix (Table 1 in the results section). The seven benefits and issues (found on the y-axis) are; The three values from the eGep model (Political-, Constituency-and Financial & Organizational benefits), which correspond to Gottschalk's suggestion to include benefits. The four issues are Gottschalks other suggested variables (found on the x-axis); Management issues, Organizational culture issues, Legal issues and Technology issues.

An example showing how analysis was done: One municipal coordinator stated that "the central project has decided that we shall use a specific type of eCards which are to be used for healthcare, but it is not suitable for us as we deal with more than just healthcare...". This was categorized as a relating to the computer level (concerning technology) and being a management issue of mapping out which architectural requirements and prerequisites that exist in the involved organizations.

When all themes had been mapped into the matrix an overview of the perceived benefits and issues in the case had been created. These were then analyzed in relation to each other, in order to determine which themes that were related. This led to the themes from the various levels of the model being integrated into three overall themes; Unclear structures and roles for decision-making concerning IT, Ambiguities concerning legal foundations and jurisdictions, and Problems and enablers with following a set path. These overall themes are used to discuss the findings in context, as the perceived benefits and issues reach across several levels of interoperability

Case Description -eHealth in Sweden

Swedish healthcare is distributed among several care providers. The 290 municipalities are responsible for social services and home care, but also for a vast amount of other services such as schools and waste disposal. Healthcare thus has limited resources and focus. The 20 County Councils are responsible for hospitals and medical care, and almost exclusively focus on healthcare. Healthcare is also handled by private care providers although to a lesser extent.

In 2006 the National strategy for eHealth was released, setting the ground for an EA program. The strategy aims to improve healthcare by means of interoperability, which is seen as a prerequisite for other quality drivers such as allowing patients a choice of provider and efficiency by allowing different providers to be able to hook up on standardized systems. The strategy initially focused on IT and hospital care, as it was mainly driven by an interest group for county councils. In 2010 a new Strategy was released, where the social services care (a municipal responsibility) was also included. A predominant change was also that the focus had now been turned towards practice and benefits rather than IT. Since the launch of the initial strategy municipalities have taken a more active position in the program. The program is however funded by county councils and thus municipalities are included to a lesser extent in the development. Neither have all municipalities accepted the strategy, which all county councils have. Under the organization CeHiS there is the previously mentioned MCG which serves as a forum for representatives for all regions (of 10-40 municipalities) to come together and give CeHiS insight into municipal perspective, as well as bringing knowledge of the national situation back to the municipalities, in order to strive for a more holistic view of the entire program. Henceforth the reader should keep in mind that program refers to the EA program while project refers to smaller parts of it.

In this section the results are analyzed using the matrix (Table 1) in order to highlight the perceived benefits and issues in achieving these in the implementation of the program. The overall themes (T1, T2 and T3) concern several interoperability levels as well as different types of benefits and issues, and are plotted out in Table 1. Theme 2 covers most of the benefits, while the other themes focus more on issues.

Theme 1 -Unclear Structures and Roles for IT Decision-Making

The central issue in this theme concerns where decision making for IT-projects should take place. In the interviews three central questions were raised concerning municipal decision-making; mass, mandate and lack of IT-competence. First, as there are 290 municipalities it is not possible to "sit down in a room together" on a national level. This is also an issue raised by several actors on a regional level, as 10-40 municipalities are also hard to get together. Hence, it is problematic to establish forums for discussion (a computer level management issue), which is dealt with in different ways in different regions. Some regions have joint steering groups with municipal representatives and county council representatives where they discuss eHealth issues together, however not necessarily making decisions. Other regions have more informal cooperation, mainly focusing on informing each other on what is going on. In these regions the issues are treated in different groupings with unclear boundaries regarding which issues that are treated where. In these situations the regional municipality coordinator has the task of trying to keep different groupings up to date as well as being informed about what is going on in these. This is experienced as a hard task due to lack of formalized structure for discussions on eHealth issues. Concerning mandate there are issues regarding how decisions can be taken as well as who has the responsibility to take them. In some steering groups there are municipal representatives with the mandate to make decisions concerning eHealth for the region, by being appointed by other municipalities to do so. More often however the discussions in different groupings can only result in suggestions to the municipalities, leaving them with the option to just say no to decisions that does not suit them. This is raised by several actors. One states that it is about "finding a suitable level of cooperation", not making it too risky or costly for smaller municipalities to accept recommendations. Some of the county council and municipal actors note that decision-making in municipalities tend to be slow and has to run through different levels in order to be approved. Some argue that the slowness is partly due to a lack of IT-competence, especially in smaller municipalities.

Lack of competence on IT (a computer level organizational culture issue) might also result in ambiguities concerning decision-making as IT-projects are traditionally perceived as belonging to IT-departments (a goal level organizational culture issue). Often, municipal politicians do not want to take responsibility for issues concerning what they perceive to be an IT-project, arguing that it belongs to the civil servants in the IT-departments and social services. The problem is that in several of the municipalities it is not clear who should make a decision concerning eCards or who has the competence to deal with requirements for the municipality as a whole and not just for healthcare or by the IT-department (a computer level management issue). From several municipal coordinators' perspective decisions on technologies to procure should be taken with regards to the full responsibilities that municipalities have outside of healthcare, which in their perception needs clearer structures and political support. This conflict concerns the perceived purpose of establishing an ITinfrastructure (a goal level technology issue) which is connected to a financial benefit on the goal level, concerning reduced costs for sharing IT-infrastructure.

Theme 2 -Ambiguities Concerning Legal Foundations and Jurisdictions

The central issue of this theme concerns uncertainties of what was legal to do, and who actually had a say in this. One perceived benefit of working with interoperability is that patient safety will be improved (a value-level constituency benefit) by being able to access relevant information about patients who give their consent. A new law (the Patient Data Act) was introduced in 2008 in order to allow information sharing. However, at a later stage obstacles to this appeared. The (Swedish) Data Inspection Board (DIB) criticized how the law was put in practice as they argued that, during a test run of a key-project, the procedures to ensure patient privacy had not been sufficiently considered, with specific regards to patients who due to mental impairments could not give or deny consent. It was argued that there was no legal ground for medical staff to take part of information regarding these patients as it would be a breach of integrity. Thus, several actors perceive that a central value creation of using eHealth applications was inhibited for a large patient group as the constituency benefits of faster information provision and more reliable information (on the process and knowledge level respectively, which also concerns financial benefits on the same levels) were lost due to legal obstacles. Hence, the overall perceived political benefit of patient participation (on the goal level) contained a conflict regarding the legal issues of ensuring data privacy and ensuring patient safety (which concern the process and value level respectively). As an effect of the unexpected interpretation of the law the DIB established itself as a central actor concerning interpretation of laws. In 2010 the DIB urged all organizations implementing the program to be cautious regarding privacy. In several interviews this statement was raised as a central concern for projects under the program, as the DIB does not provide legal advice beforehand. Hence, organizations wanting to implement new projects for which there is no template (such as several projects under the program) are told that they should implement and then the DIB will assess whether or not it lives up to legal requirements. This is experienced as an issue of assuring legal foundations for decision-making (on a computer level) as to avoid forcing local organizations to take high risk decisions.

Being able to do what is best for the patient is expressed as the central constituency benefits (on a goal level) in striving for interoperability. While the Patient Data Act opened up for the county councils sending patient information to municipalities it is not yet legal for municipalities to send such information to the county councils. Hence the program has started to implement an agenda which has requirements that go outside the programs jurisdiction to change (a goal level management issue). Some actors express a concern that it is "not even legal yet" to share information from municipality to county council. Others emphasize that although it is not yet legal laws will "probably be changed". Essentially these different beliefs are about discussing what is thought to be achievable (a value creation level management issue). Some actors argue that as the Patient Data Act has replaced the earlier law it might be possible to change other laws as well in order for the program to function as planned. However, due to the unexpected turn of events with the Patient Data Act, other actors remain skeptical to the possibility of changing other laws. This is a legal issue concerning a conflict between either enabling cross-organizational data sharing by changing laws or adapting the program to existing laws (both on the computer level).

Several of the actors raised issues concerning laws and procurement. The central point is that there is a lack of directives on how to handle joint procurement of services as well as whether different regional organizations could provide services to each other without having to go through a full procurement process. In several regions it was intended that the county councils, being more technically developed, would provide eCards to the municipalities. It was however unclear whether they could do this or not. These uncertainties concerning legal foundations of how to go about implementation costs a lot of time and effort in the regions. This is a problem as several municipalities do not have funding to set up the administrative apparatus for the technological solutions (such as eCards and staff registries) on their own. Thus, several municipalities wish to buy these services from the county council, although are not sure whether they are allowed to do this which is experienced as a legal issue concerning barriers to cooperation in procurement (on the computer level) and a lack of national coordination (a computer level management issue). Several actors experience problems concerning which authority they should listen to and wish for greater coordination from a national level, with clearer guidelines to act upon. This is because different authorities might give contradictory statements. One municipal coordinator states that "we get different directives from different directions". For instance it is not clear to the regions under which authorities' jurisdiction certain questions lie, such as how procurement is allowed to be performed. Hence several actors highlighted the need to resolve high-level differences in interpretations of laws (a goal level legal issue). Similarly there is a perceived need to clarify the requirements for technologies in the program. Several actors empathize the perceived need for clear directives (a management issue on the computer level). CeHiS is currently trying to establish itself as a central actor in the Swedish eGovernment setting, which is experienced as problematic by CeHiS as well as among the regional actors. It is clearly problematic to negotiate with the multitude of other authorities that has a say in Swedish eGovernment and has different perceptions and interpretations, for instance regarding laws. Another example is that there are different opinions concerning standards for eCards, as some argue for the use of digital ID-cards that are handled by banks, while the eGovernment delegation argues for use of more open standards, allowing multiple solutions. This is experienced as problematic in relation to the specific standard for eCards that is already procured for eHealth, which is currently being implemented in several regions.

Theme 3 -Problems and Enablers with Following a Set Path

The central issue in this theme concerns difficulties with new perspectives emerging in the program. As municipalities only recently have started to be involved in the project on a national level and a central issue relates to differing mission scopes of the organizations (a goal level organizational culture issue). Since the initial strategy was mainly driven from a county council perspective the program is now faced with challenges of meeting up with municipal needs. For instance, staff registers and eCards have already been procured and planned into the program, and it thus becomes problematic that some municipalities are skeptical to whether these technologies are suitable for them. While some municipalities follow the lead of the county councils (as suggested by CeHis), others are skeptical towards adopting these technologies.

Relating to the regional decision-making several municipalities perceive the eCards as a great challenge as it incorporates a strategic decision that goes outside of eHealth as it involves wider architectural prerequisites for procurement (a technology issue on the computer level). From their perspective the choice of eCards for municipalities should be useable for all sectors (such as for staff in schools). This is connected to that several of the municipalities perceive that working with interoperability in eHealth can act as leverage to interoperability for other sectors as well which conflicts with other actors perceptions of this (which is both a technology and a management issue on the goal level, as it concerns IT-infrastructure and implementation strategy).

As specific eCards and other technologies planned to be used in eHealth might not meet demands from other municipal sectors the skeptical municipalities are put in a problematic situation. Choosing this eCard might, in their perception, cause eHealth to work as a stovepipe as other practices or communication with other authorities, might not be able to use the same eCards as a means for login and identification. This is perceived as a problem for two main reasons; practicality and cost (which is financial & organizational benefits on the value-creation level as well as on a goal level, concerning efficient use of tax-money). One ideal picture raised by some actors is that healthcare should avoid creating yet another system to log in to, but instead strive for single-sign-on. This is also the purpose of the specific eCard for eHealth, although some municipalities do not perceive that this would allow for single-sign-on for municipal users as they will have to communicate with other organizations then the county councils. It is seen as potentially risky and costly due to differing requirements from other authorities. These requirements are not experienced as technically compatible with the eCards for healthcare, which makes some municipalities hesitant towards adopting these solutions. Other municipalities do perceive the eCard as suitable for other municipal sectors as well, and has thus chosen to implement it, although still potentially requiring other cards for communication with other organizations. Another aspect in this is that several county councils and municipalities perceive the specific eCard as a requirement in the program, while others do not, which relates to the issue of which authority that has the mandate in this question (a goal level management issue). Several actors refer to the eGovernment delegations' statements concerning more open standards for eCards and eID, and are thus not willing to implement the specific eCards. The example of eCards is also a symbol for a wider criticism that municipalities prerequisites and requirements has not been sufficiently taken into consideration in the strategy. This issue is also experienced at a national level and concerns ambiguities of what the financial and organizational benefit of better infrastructure (on the computer level) means.

Some of the projects planned to make up the technical infrastructure for eHealth, such as a the specific types of eCards, one of the architects at CeHiS argue, are not in line with what is now considered to be needed for a proper architecture. This is partly due to that municipal needs have not been fully considered. However it is not considered feasible to change the rules during an ongoing game. The architectural group was created after the strategy was designed, and architectural demands are currently being outlined. This is hence done after several technologies have already been procured, started being implemented and are considered to be central to eHealth by several actors. The other architect interviewed (who was also employed by a county council) argues that several issues experienced at a regional level concerning differing architectural preconditions and needs cannot be treated in work on a national level. He states that "The problems experienced in my region are wider then what I am assigned to work with on a national level. [...] Locally we cooperate with municipalities while it is not a part of my assignment nationally". This is because the architectural unit at CeHiS is employed to work from a county council perspective, and not for municipalities. The overall perceived problem is about the inability to adapt to newly discovered architectural prerequisites and needs (a computer level management issue). At the time of writing CeHiS is in dialogue with other authorities, as well as internally, concerning standards and alternatives for infrastructure.

Conclusions

In this paper the question raised was how differing interpretations of interoperability benefits affect the coordination in the early stages public sector EA implementation. An eGov maturity model was used as the theoretical framework, which clarified how several levels interact. The findings are summarized in four conclusions; 1. In local and regional EA implementation, interpretations of the purpose and scope of a program, and what implications it might have on other parts of eGovernment, can differ. This can lead to ambiguities concerning where decisions should be taken, making coordination hard. EA programs do not only need to acknowledge organizational issues as well as IT, but also needs to highlight the relation to programs in other parts of the public sector, which might overlap. 2. Conflicts intrinsic to eGovernment programs and relations between national authorities need to be taken into consideration, as unclear jurisdictions might cause confusion among local and regional actors. Hence, being up-front about conflicts, and opening up for discussions on how to deal with them, is vital for coordination. 3. If new organizations get involved in a program, differing goals of implementing a program influence the requirements on IT-infrastructure. Hence, EA programs need to maintain enough flexibility so as to be able to adapt. 4. Using maturity models which perceives development of interoperability as sequential creates an over-simplified picture of implementation. This delimits scientific usefulness, as different "levels" do not follow sequentially. Instead a reconceptualization of maturity models should be discussed. These models have also been criticized by others for being deterministic and simplified [START_REF] Coursey | Models of E-Government: Are They Correct? An Empirical Assessment[END_REF], which is strengthened by the findings in this paper, as each "stages" cannot be treated separately.

The paper contributes to previous research by providing a deepened understanding of how differing motivations and perceived purposes of interoperability makes alignment problematic. With this paper I hope to raise further discussions concerning these complexities. Further research can address eGovernment evolution with a longitudinal approach, as this case study only covers a limited period of time.

Forthcoming research efforts can also elaborate on how to conceptualize eGovernment evolution in ways that incorporates complexity and ambiguities, and does not reduce evolution to something that is assumed to happen in a straight line or through specific stages.

Table 1 .

 1 The three themes of interoperability benefits and issues plotted out.

					Value
		Computer	Process	Knowledge	creation	Goal
	Political benefits					T2
	Constituency benefits		T2	T2		T2
	Financial &
	Organizational benefits	T3	T2	T2	T3	T1, T3
	Management issues	T1, T2, T3			T2	T2, T3
	Organizational culture
	issues	T1				T1, T3
	Legal issues	T2	T2		T2	T2
	Technical issues	T1,T3				T1, T3