Karine Barzilai-Nahon
email: karineb@uw.edu

Hans Jochen Scholl
email: jscholl@uw.edu

Siblings of a Different Kind: E-Government and E-Commerce

This paper reports on the last phase of a longitudinal exploratory study, which aims to compare similarities and differences between e-Commerce and e-Government. In two stages, we collected rich data via focus groups of experts from both public and private sectors. This paper reports on our findings in the areas of Process Management, Information Management, and Stakeholder Relations. We found the trajectories of the two phenomena of e-Commerce and e-Government to be quite distinct such that one can hardly serve as a role model for the other. Yet, comparing the two phenomena still unveils a high potential for cross-pollination.

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Introduction

When we began this longitudinal exploratory study of similarities and differences between e-Commerce and e-Government in 2006 [START_REF] Barzilai-Nahon | Comparing E-Government with E-Business Challenges[END_REF][START_REF] Barzilai-Nahon | Similarities and differences of e-Commerce and e-Government: Insights from a pilot study[END_REF][START_REF] Scholl | E-Commerce and e-Government: How Do They Compare? What Can They Learn From Each Other?[END_REF], we discovered that e-Commerce and e-Government had fairly different drivers, priorities, and governing principles, while at the same time certain processes were similar. The main drivers studying the subject were the gap of literature and few studies which exist, that compare the two sectors. Also, a deeper understanding of the similarities and differences between e-Commerce and e-Government may lead to cross-fertilization and reduction of unnecessary reduplication in both sectors.

In this paper we present our detailed findings in three important areas of comparison (1) process management, (2) information management, and (3) stakeholder relations. This paper reports on three of then areas, which we studied in our longitudinal exploratory study. However, this does not imply that the other areas are of lesser importance. It is only due to space constraints that we refrain from presenting results in areas such as digital divides, citizen/customer focus, technology management, standardization, interoperability, human resources, and cost/benefits. We will present and discuss those findings elsewhere. However, the three areas mentioned above are central to the understanding of the similarities and differences of e-Commerce and e-Government.

This paper is organized as follows. First, we briefly update the pertinent literature on e-Commerce and e-Government. Second, we introduce and discuss the study design followed by the presentation and discussion of our findings. We aim at creating a theoretical foundation for a later theory testing-oriented stage of research and present the theoretical development in the form of five topical clusters and sub-clusters. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for the better understanding of theory and practice.

Review of Related Literatures

The body of comparative literature on e-Commerce and e-Government has not grown much over the past few years. Except our own work [START_REF] Barzilai-Nahon | Comparing E-Government with E-Business Challenges[END_REF][START_REF] Barzilai-Nahon | Similarities and differences of e-Commerce and e-Government: Insights from a pilot study[END_REF][START_REF] Scholl | E-Commerce and e-Government: How Do They Compare? What Can They Learn From Each Other?[END_REF], we found only one further study engaging in comparative analysis of the two phenomena [START_REF] Morgeson | Does E-Government measure up to E-Business? Comparing end user perceptions of U.S. Federal Government and E-Buisness web sites[END_REF]. However, that study based its analysis on surveying user perceptions of relative performance and functionality of US Federal Government websites versus commercial providers such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, CNN, and USAToday among others. As opposed to those authors, we were interested in identifying the drivers, motivations, challenges, and achievements of e-Government and e-Commerce from an internal and behind-the-scene perspective. For anticipating and isolating potential similarities and differences between e-Commerce and e-Government, we also looked at related streams of literature [START_REF] Boyne | Public and private management: What's the difference?[END_REF][START_REF] Perry | The public-private distinction in organization theory: A critique and research strategy[END_REF][START_REF] Rainey | Comparing public and private organizations[END_REF] On a more general plane, public-to-private differences have been identified in three areas: [START_REF] Anthony | Planning and control systems; a framework for analysis[END_REF] environmental drivers and constraints, (2) organizational mandates and scope, and (3) internal processes, complexities, and incentives [START_REF] Rainey | Comparing public and private organizations[END_REF]. The private sector has been also praised for its higher agility, greater resourcefulness, less burdensome bureaucracy, and stronger motivation to proactively innovate when compared with public sector organizations [START_REF] Bozeman | Public management information systems: Theory and prescriptions[END_REF][START_REF] Perry | The public-private distinction in organization theory: A critique and research strategy[END_REF][START_REF] Rainey | Comparing public and private organizations[END_REF]. These differences also surfaced in a study, which compared the strategic priorities of Chief Information Officers (CIOs) in both public and private sectors. It was found that public-sector CIOs focused on (a) the implementation of an IT architecture, (b) cultural change, (d) hiring/retaining skilled professionals, (e) and streamlining business processes, while private-sector CIOs emphasized (a) simplifying business processes, (b) improving services, (c) effective relationships with senior executives, (d) preventing intrusions, and (e) the implementation of IT architecture. Process change via streamlining and service improvement were more highly ranked by private-sector CIOs [START_REF] Ward | A comparison of the strategic priorities of public and private sector information resource executives[END_REF].

Further, the business models of e-Commerce and e-Government differ in significant ways: while the e-Commerce business model aims at creating customer value and at generating revenue, the e-Government business model is based on laws, statutes, and regulations providing citizens and firms with access to government information and services, and also delineating intergovernmental relationships, strategies, and interoperation of electronic government information systems (EGIS) [START_REF] Janssen | A survey of Web-based business models for e-government in the Netherlands[END_REF], see also [START_REF] Stahl | The Paradigm of E-Commerce in E-Government and E-Democracy[END_REF]. Citizens' acceptance of e-Government rests on trust, information access, public accessibility, quality of service, time saving, efficiency of service, and social awareness [START_REF] Park | Measuring Factors That Influence the Success of E-government Initiatives[END_REF]. Also, in e-Commerce several sub-models may be found [START_REF] Chang | Positioning In a New Dynamic E-Commerce Business Model[END_REF], which explain certain differences particularly in process management. Finally, as our previous studies uncovered, similarities between e-Commerce and e-Government were found regarding (1) process improvements, (2) backend (process) integration, (3) cost savings, (4) information sharing, (5) vertical and horizontal systems integration, (6) increased responsiveness and service quality, (7) standardization efforts, and (8) the criticality of senior leadership support. Differences between the sectors were f o u n d t o p r e v a i l r e g a r d i n g ( 1 ) t h e d r i v e r s a n d m o t i v a t i o n s f o r e -

Research Questions and Method

Study Questions. Except for the few studies mentioned above, we had to deal with a rather thin base of knowledge in this particular area of research and could only incorporate an emergent theoretical framework, which was mostly derived from our own studies on the subject. This led us to follow through with our originally envisioned, two-stage exploratory research approach [START_REF] Arthur | Designing fieldwork strategies and materials[END_REF][START_REF] Creswell | Educational research : planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research[END_REF][START_REF] Patton | Qualitative research and evaluation methods[END_REF] addressing the two overarching research questions of (R1) W h a t i s s i m ilar in private-sector e-Commerce and public-sector e-Government, and how does it matter? (R2) What is different in private-sector e-Commerce and public-sector e-Government, and how does it matter?

Both e-Commerce and e-Government projects and implementations are engrained in institutional and social settings [START_REF] Giddens | The constitution of society : outline of the theory of structuration[END_REF][START_REF] Orlikowski | Information technology and the structuring of organizations[END_REF] leading to a mesh of socio, technical, and organizational complexities, which defy the reduction of the study problem to a few variables. As a consequence, we opted for the empirical format of focus group discussions, which has proven highly effective in study situations of this kind [START_REF] Finch | Qualitative research practice : a guide for social science students and researchers[END_REF][START_REF] Greenbaum | The handbook for focus group research[END_REF][START_REF] Greenbaum | Moderating focus groups : a practical guide for group facilitation[END_REF][START_REF] Krueger | Focus groups : a practical guide for applied research[END_REF][START_REF] Madriz | Focus groups in feminist research[END_REF]. In focus groups, the interaction between participants can be expected to lead to rich data and high data quality [START_REF] Patton | Qualitative research and evaluation methods[END_REF]. In our study design, we incorporated two stages of data collection. In the first stage, we had sector experts discuss the overall research questions with other experts from the same sector. We compared the findings in each sector, and identified similarities and differences between the two sectors. The first stage entailed six focus groups with 17 individuals from the public sectors, and 18 from the private sectors. Based on this first stage analysis, we developed a theoretical model represented by a set of 29 propositions [START_REF] Scholl | E-Commerce and e-Government: How Do They Compare? What Can They Learn From Each Other?[END_REF]. In the second stage, we presented the propositions we developed in the area of process management, information management-, and stakeholder-relations to a focus group which comprised three experts from each sector together. This second-stage focus group approach with experts from both sectors, we expected, would amend our insights and give us further clues regarding the soundness and validity of our initial theoretical concept which was derived from separate-sectored focus groups.

Sampling Method. The sampling had to be purposive [START_REF] Ritchie | Designing and selecting samples[END_REF], since certain criteria outlined below had to be met in order to qualify for meaningful data. We also stratified the sample using Anthony's framework, which distinguishes between professionals, supervisors with operational control, managers, and strategic planners [START_REF] Anthony | Planning and control systems; a framework for analysis[END_REF] and chose the managerial level for the pilot, since that level appeared to us high enough for capturing strategic aspects and motives as well as low enough to identify specifics of implementation and outcomes. Individuals were selected on the basis of willingness to participate and on the basis of prior involvement in and experience with e-Commerce or e-Government projects. For both sectors, participants were selected from organizations in the US Pacific Northwest, which has been found highly developed in both e-Commerce (for example, Amazon.com, Boeing, Microsoft, etc.) and e-Government [START_REF] -K | Reinventing local governments and the e-government initiative[END_REF][START_REF] Kaylor | Gauging e-government: A report on implementing services among American cities[END_REF][START_REF] Kaylor | The next wave of e-Government: The challenges of data architecture[END_REF]. We recruited participants from different size and type of organizations and government entities. We did not allow any expert to participate twice, in order to get a better variation of perspectives. We required that the projects, in which the participants had been involved, had been of strategic nature to the orga-nization. Also, the project had to contain a major transactional component. In the first stage of the exploration, six focus groups were conducted: three with participants from private sector, and three for participants from the public sector. In the second stage, when we confronted participants from both sectors with our study findings from the first stage, we conducted one focus group with six participants, three from each sector. Data Collection. In the first-stage letter of invitation to prospective participants from the private sector, we verbally and graphically introduced the concepts of business-to-consumer (B2C), business-to-business (B2B), business-to-government (B2G), business-to-employee (B2E), and IEE. Likewise, we introduced the concepts of G2C, G2B, G2G, and government-to-employee (G2E) as well as IEE in the invitation letters to prospective participants from the public sector. Intentionally, we framed and pre-structured the discussion in that way for systematic comparability. We continue to believe that this framing and pre-structuring would not hamper the expert discussion in any way, on the contrary. For all six groups we introduced the two dimensions of "informational" and "transactional." The six focus groups were conducted in pairs. They were organized as half-day focus group discussions with the selected participants, first with the private sector participants, the next day with the public sector participants. The moderator first introduced the focus group format to the participants; she then re-introduced the e-Commerce and e-Government concepts as already outlined in the invitation letters. She explained to participants that the first session would be dedicated to the "informational" aspects of the five concepts followed by a second session on the "transactional' aspects. The moderator then launched the focus group discussion with an opening question and facilitated the discussion, while three observers took notes and administered the audio recording [START_REF] Krueger | Focus groups : a practical guide for applied research[END_REF]. In the second stage, we invited experts from both sectors who had not participated in the first stage of this study. As attachment to the invitation letter, we shared our publication [START_REF] Scholl | E-Commerce and e-Government: How Do They Compare? What Can They Learn From Each Other?[END_REF], and indicated that we would focus on the three areas of process management, stakeholder relations, and information management. The second-stage session format comprised two 90-minute discussion sections spread over a half day. The propositions were read to participants, one at a time. Participants then engaged in discussing the proposition. Again, notes were taken, and the discussions were audio-recorded [START_REF] Krueger | Focus groups : a practical guide for applied research[END_REF]. The audio tracks were transcribed yielding over 370 pages of transcripts for both stages. Also, over 170 pages of notes were taken.

Data Analysis. In this study we mainly used Strauss and Corbin's coding methodology [START_REF] S T R A U S S A N D | Basics of qualitative research : techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory[END_REF]. In four passes, the transcripts and emerging concepts were analyzed. First, the four researchers independently read the transcripts identifying units of data. Our impression from the collection exercise was confirmed during this phase that we had in fact managed to collect rich and high-quality data in all four sessions. In the second pass, the two researchers read the transcripts again and consolidated the units of data. In an open coding process [START_REF] S T R A U S S A N D | Basics of qualitative research : techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory[END_REF], each unit of data was then assigned to a preliminary category or sub-category whose dimensions and properties were developed from the data. New categories and sub-categories were introduced, in case existing categories did not apply [START_REF] Gorman | Qualitative research for the information professional : a practical handbook[END_REF]. Convergence and assignment of categories, which the two researchers had identified independently, was performed at each step of the data analysis. In the second stage, we conducted a qualitative convergence and gap/difference analysis between the findings from the first and second stage.

Findings

In this section, we present our findings the areas of (1) process management, (2) information management, and (3) stakeholder relations.

Process Management 4.1.1. Process Streamlining and Process Integration

In the first stage of our exploration, we found that e-Commerce information systems (ECIS) and e-Government information systems alike were more effective when processes were streamlined and new workflows were introduced. Also in both sectors, we found a trend in favor of modernizing and overhauling workflows and processes. Early projects in both sectors obviously only mimicked the existing processes leading to manumation (rather than automation) as some scoffers had put it [START_REF] Mohan | EIS : it can work in the public sector[END_REF]. However, after some low-hanging fruits had been harvested in this fashion, in both sectors it was recognized that process redesign and creation of new workflows would improve service quality, speed up service and the processing of transactions. As we found in the second stage of our exploration, the two extremes of mere mimicking and window-dressing of old processes, on the one hand, and radical redesigning, streamlining, and inventing of new processes, on the other hand, rarely, if ever, occurred in practice. For either sector, the two extremes should rather be understood as the two end points of a continuum, in which hybrids of some sort emerged with a tendency to move over time from the end of old processes towards the other end of new and streamlined processes and workflows. Time pressures in active projects, lack of resources including skilled labor, perceived high risks, concerns regarding manageability, and high cost were among the most frequently cited factors that were attributed to the fact that most e-projects initially appeared as redressed old workflows. On the other hand, when scouring for streamlining opportunities, in both sectors it was found that a number of workflows would not even require the utilization of technology.

Integration and alignment (see also 4.1.3) of processes and workflows between organizational units and across organizations also emerged as both a side effect, and in some cases, as a prerequisite for successful redesign and the launch of e-projects. In both sectors, we found cases where the redesign and streamlining of a process or workflow hinged upon another party's willingness to also adjust and streamline her processes. It was further reported from both sectors that during times of economic hardships and pressures, process alignment and integration efforts were more easily introduced and established than in times of ease. Also, in the second stage participants from government confirmed earlier findings that process and workflow alignment was still a challenge due to various factors such as preventive statutes, regulations, and laws, or bureaucratic inertia, turf protection, or unwillingness to collaborate. Some technical obstacles such as media breaks or legal requirements also played a role in this regard. Yet, for successful transaction processing, a certain degree of process alignment and integration as well system interoperability on the basis of backend system integration was seen as indispensable.

Transaction Processing

Electronically processed transactions have become a cost-effective, speedy, and reliable method of conducting the business in both sectors. In government, most electronic transactions are still internal, while external online transactions involving citizens and businesses were believed to be not as sophisticated as in e-Commerce. In the private sector, transaction volumes with customers (B2C transactions) appeared to be much higher than those in the public sector with citizens (G2C transactions). We were not able to compare the actual transaction volumes in the two sectors or even give an informed estimate, since the amount of government-internal transactions (G2G transactions) is unknown at this point in time. In the second stage, participants also discussed in more detail the motivation for increasing the volumes of online transactions such as drastic cost savings, higher profit margins (in the private sector), improved customer/citizen profiling, improved service quality, speedier service provision, improved customer/citizen experience, more accurate and complete data entry, and with more accurate data for analysis.

In terms of a pleasing online service experience on part of the human actor, the private sector still appears to have an edge over the public sector, even though some governments seem to have narrowed the gap. Governments, it was said, cannot easily relinquish certain legacies (information systems as well as statutory and legal frameworks) as easily as private-sector firms can that are able to start a new business from scratch without such heritage.

Participants also remarked that the profiling-based customer-centric perspective, which is capable of singling out individual persons' preferences and dislikes as it has evolved in e-Commerce, might be even undesirable in e-Government. The publicsector equivalent it was said might draw connotations of Orwell's Big Brother ("While you are applying for this-and-that license, we are also finding that you have not yet paid the following traffic citations, which are overdue. Also, your pet license is expiring shortly. We can only service your request after you paid the traffic citations in full.").

However, for example, with reference to e-voting practices, particularly in Europe, or, the introduction of citizen self-services via kiosks, participants attributed to government the capability and successful implementation of innovative concepts. Also, shrinking budgets and citizens' increased service quality expectations seemed to have stimulated EGIS-based innovations in government, much like market competition does based on ECIS in the private sector. In other words, despite different drivers, in both e-Commerce and e-Government strong pressures exist, which force innovation to happen.

Another similarity between the e-Commerce and e-Government was seen in the growing data awareness in both sectors. Data-centric approaches when analyzing, for example, service quality and needs-oriented service offerings have been observed in both sectors. Participants expected that the open government and transparency initiatives, which governments on all levels and around the world began pursuing, would massively add to the data awareness and sophisticated use of data in both sectors.

Alignment and Collaboration

In our first-stage exploration, we found collaboration and alignment in B2B and G2G scenarios to be critical to the success of improved service delivery (see also 4.1.1.). Interestingly, whenever effective intergovernmental collaboration was found it was more effective if voluntary rather than an imposed (hierarchical) collaboration. Also, similar organizational sizes and governance structures appeared to matter a lot. Moreover, the development of formal collaborative governance structures and formal agreements appeared to be essential to success, ideally on the basis of a shared vision and a common strategy. In the private sector, most collaborative endeavors appeared to rest on mutual and shared business interest. Both hierarchical (for example, vendorsupplier) and peer relationships were found in B2B collaboration. However, it could not be determined which type of relationship (hierarchical vs. peer) worked more effectively.

Our second-stage experts fully confirmed the earlier findings and also added important aspects. Independent of organizational sizes and governance structures they maintained data sharing had expanded almost exponentially in recent years in both sectors regardless of any mandates. However, the experts acknowledged the inherent complexity of alignment and collaboration, which permeates both organizational and technology-related levels. Interestingly, when it came to continued electronic collaboration, small businesses appear to be much less ready for system interoperation and electronic information exchanges than government agencies or larger private businesses.

Again we heard that similar organizational sizes and similar governance structures of prospective partners are (at least in government) favorable for collaboration, while dissimilarities in those areas can pose serious obstacles for collaboration. The alignment of strategic priorities was found to become stronger over time the more the collaboration was seen as effective and successful.

Finally, the experts in the second stage presented and discussed a number of examples within and across both sectors where collaboration on a voluntary basis seemed to work more effectively than when coerced like in a quasi-hierarchical relationship. In any case, formal agreements between collaborating parties including memoranda of understanding and service level agreements appear to be an important element of successful long-term collaborative efforts in both sectors. However, even for single projects, we found that a formal agreement defining the scope, timeline, cost, and projected outcome had been negotiated and signed.

Information Management

The subject of information management drew strong attention and discussions from participants. Particularly two main subjects appeared as significant: i) the impact of information quality on the interactions between companies or government agencies and their clients or citizens respectively; and ii) the role content management plays in the organizational/governmental life.

Impact of Information Quality (IQ)

The literature proposes eight major dimensions of information quality that needs to be addressed (1) accuracy, (2) comprehensiveness, (3) currency, (4) cognitive authority, (5) assurance/reliability, (6) relevance/precision/recall, (7) timeliness, and (8) perceived value [START_REF] Klischewski | Information Quality as the Capstone of E-government Integration, Interoperation, and Information Sharing[END_REF]. In this study, we found evidence that indeed all eight criteria were important elements of high IQ. Access to information of high quality along those lines was portrayed as crucial to the success of e-projects in both government and commerce. While both sectors consider IQ as critical, and acknowledged the strong correlation between IQ and effective information management, few differences between the sectors surfaced.

First, maintenance of acceptable levels of information quality appeared to be more challenging in e-Government than in e-Commerce. Not only higher volumes of information appeared as a factor explaining the difference between the sectors, but also the possible error range, the status of the information (mandatory or voluntary) and the impact this information has on people. While in private sector people allow a certain degree of error range to occur (for example -delivery of your product to a different address), in the public sector these errors may have a deep impact on people (for example -a emergency call responder messing up with the location of call). The demand for ever-high IQ levels burdens and challenges the maintenance of the information. Also, in e-Commerce, strategic decisions about record keeping, for example, what types of information should be kept, may change according to strategic decisions of the organization. As opposed to the private sector, information may be required to be kept and archived for a long period of time in the public sector. Regulations may create constraints that enforce government agencies to maintain information in a certain way. Therefore, the mandatory facet of information keeping in government has straight implications on the complexity of maintenance. Finally, information quality had a direct major and critical impact on the life of people. Therefore, maintenance of the information will be similar to the careful record keeping process.

Second, the impact of information quality was raised again in the second-stage discussion when we presented our proposition derived from the literature and the first stage of the study that lower information quality affects e-Commerce more negatively than e-Government. This proposition stimulated a long d e b a t e , a n d p a r t i c i p a n t s thought that the contrary was true, that is, lower information quality more negatively affects e-Government than e-commerce. Participants perceived lower IQ to impact mainly economical and financial aspects companies in e-Commerce, while in e-Government lower IQ was perceived as impacting the life of people in every possible way, for example, the way our identity is represented in public, reward and punishment of society and physical well-being.

The Role of Content Management

Document Life Management, the management of document flows, as well as the proper archiving of electronic records and removed web content along with previous versions of websites were mentioned repeatedly as major challenges in e-Government content management. We found that participants reported in both stages of the study that content management was more challenging in government than in the private sector due to volume of information and complexity of linked content. The complexity of the content management in the public sector as opposed to the private sector was related to two main aspects: i) the time aspect of keeping the data and its retrieval afterwards. The scope of government record keeping was very long on average. Moreover, in many cases it was not due for deletion. Content management it was said became more challenging due to the changing notions of public/private interests or contexts between the time of archiving and the time of retrieval. ii) the sensitive balance between freedom of information and privacy -in recent years there appeared to be a growing trend towards open government and more transparency. It sharpened the debate of what was considered private and what should be regarded public, and more specifically, which publicly held information would still need to be kept secret in order to balance other rights. Government agencies obviously seemingly tried to strike a balance between citizens' need for information and the extent of government services to provide that information electronically. This juggle made it difficult to strategize about content management, especially when the goal changed frequently and the public/private distinction had become so dynamic.

Stakeholders Relations

The subject of stakeholder relations appeared in both stages of the study in different variations. Participants agreed that governance of stakeholders was a critical component in the success or failure of projects and that the structure of governance influences ECIS and EGIS designs and deliverables both in e-Commerce and in e-Government. Disagreements appeared as to the effect the structure of this governance has. Moreover, we hypothesized that the process of convincing top-leadership to support and EGIS project is harder than in private sector. Participants from the public sector agreed that this was crucial in EGIS projects and very hard due to diverse needs, different weight and influence of stakeholders, and, in public sector, the difficulty to show a clear return on investments. Nevertheless, there was no consent about whether it was harder to win support from top-leadership for e-projects in either the public or the private sector.

In order to establish lasting governance structures in the public sector, the relationships among different types of stakeholders, elected and appointed officials, political and professional staff, and federal, state, and local stakeholders needed to be balanced according to the experts. This was harder to accomplish when the boundaries of the system were rigidly fixed for a long period, most of the professional staff was retained, the needs were vast and the interests were incongruent, or even pulling into different directions [START_REF] Flak | Stakeholders, Contradictions and Salience: An Empirical Study of a Norwegian G2G Effort[END_REF][START_REF] Scholl | Applying stakeholder theory to e-government: benefits and limits[END_REF]. For example, participants reported the fear to partner with "too big a city", and to create a dependency on that City's resources and governance structure. An important issue that surfaced in the second stage of the study was that although there were diverse stakeholders with whom agencies needed to deal, still the collaboration was more effective between institutions of similar size and similar governance structure. Finally, while diversity appeared as a critical issue also for the e-Commerce sector, we were not able to assess its exact impact.

Discussion and Summary

We set out to investigate, identify, and characterize the similarities and differences between e-Commerce and e-Government since we believed that the findings from such a study would benefit academic knowledge and e-Commerce and e-Government practice alike. In the following we discuss and summarize our observations and insights.

Similarities between e-Commerce and e-Government (research question #1)

According to our findings both ECIS and EGIS benefit their respective organizations significantly more when the underlying workflows and processes are not only electronic re-embodiments of their paper-based antecedents but rather streamlined, simplified, or completely discarded and replaced by different workflows and processes, which take full advantage of the technology. This seems to be increasingly understood in both commerce and government. We also found completely new workflows in both sectors, which would not have been possible without ECIS and EGIS.

A great incentive for streamlining and redesigning workflows and processes we found in the increased degree of collaboration within and between the sectors, which has become possible in an instantaneous fashion through ECIS and EGIS.

We further found that collaboration between partners within and across sectors works better when it unfolds on the basis of formal agreements. In government, it was noted that imposed collaboration works poorly as opposed to collaborative engagements based on freedom of choice.

Interestingly, cross-sector collaboration based on ECIS/EGIS reduces cost and speeds up the process on both ends even if the private-sector partner provides systems, infrastructure, and maintenance.

Along with transactional collaboration and integration we found increasing collaboration within and across sectors also in the area of information sharing. If collaboration thrives, we saw even the partial alignment of strategic objectives as a result. Information quality played a critical role in this context. A positive feedback between perceived IQ, information sharing, and the strength of the relationship seemed to exist.

We found in both sectors that similar governance structures of organizations influenced how collaborative ECIS and EGIS were designed. Remarkably, in both sectors the perceived needs of citizens (and customers, respectively) strongly influenced the designs of respective systems. In e-Commerce, organizations were interested in providing a social environment, which was conducive to a positive experience as a customer.

These findings suggest that ECIS/EGIS-related phenomena have important characteristics in common, which go beyond the mere technical resemblance of systems and methods. Process redesign practices might be a worthwhile subject of further study. Likewise, practices and principles of organizational and technical collaboration appear to provide valuable experiences to be shared.

Differences between e-Commerce and e-Government (research question #2)

However, we also found formidable differences in practices, principles, and drivers between e-Commerce and e-Government. Transaction processing was found more sophisticated and of far higher volume in commerce than in government. On the other hand, information processing and management, including the archiving of electronic records we found much more developed in the public sector than with private firms. The drivers of innovation were different in e-Commerce and in e-Government; however, the pressures for organizational change, service innovation, and transformation towards more citizen-/customer centric way of conducting business were similarly strong. As a result, the overall sophistication of EGIS did not appear to lag behind ECIS by orders of magnitude. Both sectors also made increasingly elaborate use of historical data and data from transaction processing in order to optimize desired organizational outcomes. Lower information quality was found to lead to immediate and economically negative effects in both sectors. However, while low information quality directly impacts the bottom line of commercial organizations, in the public sector low IQ could have even more dramatic consequences for citizens and businesses alike. In other words, the impacts of low IQ might be even more devastating in the public sector than in the private sector. Still, governments struggled more than commercial organizations to maintain acceptable levels of information quality leading to far greater challenges, for example, in content management.

Interestingly, leadership in government appeared to be more supportive of (in particular, collaborative) e-projects than their commercial counterparts. It also appeared that collaborative structures in the public sector were markedly stronger than those in the private sector.

Overall, what we found different between e-Commerce and e-Government suggests that the two phenomena follow different trajectories despite many similarities and technical commonalities. One obvious explanation lies in the sector-specific differences, which produce different drivers also in this area. It will be interesting to analyze to what extent Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, which are increasingly introduced in government, may help align the trajectories between e-Commerce and e-Government to a higher degree than we found in this study.

Limitations and future research

In our samples of participants from the two sectors and after the focus groups were conducted we found that e-Government experts on average were from higher levels in the organizational hierarchy than e-Commerce practitioners who were more technically versed. Our results, hence, may be skewed that they represent more strategic perspectives in e-Government and more operational/tactical perspectives in e-Commerce.

We also recognize that what we present here is the result of an exploratory study based on a limited number of participants. Our study attempts to lay theoretical foundations for more quantitatively oriented research on the subject, which we hope will lead us to more generalizable results. Furthermore in this paper we present results from three major (of eight) areas of analysis.


Marlen Jurisch
email: marlen.jurisch@in.tum.de

Petra Wolf
email: petra.wolf@in.tum.de

Helmut Krcmar
email: krcmar@in.tum.de

Toward a Formal Approach to Process Bundling in Public Administrations

Keywords: process bundling, business-to-government, process identification

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Introduction & context

Municipalities are confronted with constant cost and performance pressures. More so, citizens and businesses demand increased customer orientation and an integration of their needs. This entails a change in how public administrations deliver their services and processes, e.g.: availability of services (e-services), quality of services, timeliness of service delivery, etc [START_REF] Scheer | Business Process Reengineering in der Verwaltung[END_REF]. Nowadays, process changes triggered by cost and performance pressures are often driven by technology. Nonetheless, quality and service goals will not be achieved by the mere introduction of technology [START_REF] Brüggemeier | Open Choice": Improving Public Sector Performance with Process Reorganization Methodology in Electronic Government[END_REF]. The uninterrupted execution of public services coupled with the simultaneous increase in customer orientation, requires an automation of the underpinning public service processes. The optimization of public service processes demands an identification of suitable bundling candidates. For the bundling of processes the identification and selection of appropriate processes is particularly crucial. Yet, this identification of suitable process bundling candidates has proved to be rather complex in practice [START_REF] Wolf | Machbarkeitsstudie Prozessketten Umwelt[END_REF]. Even though most of the existing literature addresses the reorganization, optimization or the reengineering of business processes, very little work has been dedicated to the actual identification of suitable process bundles. This state of affairs led us to the following research question: What are the criteria for the identification of suitable process bundling candidates?

The question of "how" to model processes and technical procedures for implementing business process improvements in organizations has been addressed in the literature [START_REF] Seethamraju | Role of process knowledge in business process improvement methodology: a case study[END_REF] [START_REF] Becker | Organizational Engineering in Public Administrations -A Method for process-oriented eGovernment projects[END_REF]. Further, several methods, techniques, and tools have been developed and implemented to support process oriented reorganizations within companies [START_REF] Scheer | Business Process Reengineering in der Verwaltung[END_REF] [START_REF] Becker | A procedure model for process oriented e-government projects[END_REF]. In recent years, process improvement efforts were also undertaken in the area of public administration. Within the context of public institutions, the discussion of public process improvement is often limited to the provision of online services and public administrations' internet portals [START_REF] Lenk | Notwendige Revisionen des Geschäftsprozessdenkens[END_REF]. In the business domain, an abundance of different business process improvement methodologies exist but only a selected few of these focus specifically on process optimization in public institutions [START_REF] Scheer | Business Process Reengineering in der Verwaltung[END_REF] [START_REF] Becker | A procedure model for process oriented e-government projects[END_REF]. The theoretical and practical knowledge acquired within the private sector on process improvement has been insufficiently translated and applied into the public sector. Further, the urgent practical challenges faced in the public sector with regards to process improvement have, so far, not been adequately addressed by the relevant academic disciplines. In order to identify a holistic set of criteria for the identification of public service process bundles it is necessary to review common business process improvement methodologies.

We begin this paper by delineating the term process bundling and the undergirding reasons for bundling processes in public administrations. This is followed by a presentation of the method we used for reviewing the relevant literature. We then analyze this literature and synthesize the results into a methodological intermediary step. Finally, we discuss our findings, outline avenues for future research, and suggest implications for practice.

Process bundles in public administrations

What is process bundling?

Bureaucracies are characterized by intense flows of information. Over 90% of all administrative processes are information-processing in nature [START_REF] Wimmer | Zahlen und Fakten zum Bürokratieabbau[END_REF]. Due to their large and often redundant number of functions and functional departments, public institutions are likely to be affected by excessive information and data exchanges across functional departments and with companies. This situation is caused by the fundamental principles of traditional public administrations: bureaucracy, hierarchical organization, bureaucratic delivery, politics/administration dichotomy, etc. [START_REF] Hughes | Public Management and Administration[END_REF]. Common business concepts such as value creation, competitive edge, or profit maximization [START_REF] Porter | Competitive Strategy[END_REF] are typically not the foci of public administrations. Rather, public administrations are concerned with the process and delivery of public services to citizens, businesses, and to other governmental institutions. As a result, processes in public institutions need to be understood as reporting duties on the basis of legal requirements [START_REF] Wolf | Machbarkeitsstudie Prozessketten Umwelt[END_REF]. Thus, public service processes are concerned with monitoring compliance to legal regulations and the execution of public services. Public service processes involve a large number of recurrent activities [START_REF] Scheer | Business Process Reengineering in der Verwaltung[END_REF] [START_REF] Wolf | Fachtagung Verwaltungsinformatik (FTVI)[END_REF], extensive integration of customers, and numerous points of interaction [START_REF] Becker | Organizational Engineering in Public Administrations -A Method for process-oriented eGovernment projects[END_REF]. The excessive information and data exchanges in the public sphere create a fertile ground for the bundling of processes.

From a customer perspective, process bundles are created whenever crossorganizational processes are combined or interlinked either organizationally or technically with the objective to create a coherent data base. Hence, a process bundle, within the remit of public administrations, constitutes the purposeful alignment of separate activities, and accordingly processes, along a well-defined value chain [START_REF] Bmi | Abschlussbericht -Status und Ausblick[END_REF]. Let us take the example of a real-estate loan award. Throughout this award process the bank needs to maintain contacts with numerous public institutions which do not necessarily have a technically supported infrastructure and are often dependent on manual labor (i.e., fiscal authorities, notary, land registry, bankruptcy court, etc.) [13] [14]. The bundling of these activities through technical interlinking would result in the uninterrupted and efficient execution of the loan award process. According to this understanding, process bundling is concerned with changing or redirecting the flow of information between activities without changing the actual content of the information.

Reasons for bundling

The concept of bundling processes or services is neither new nor revolutionary. Particularly in the service domain, bundling has been on the research agenda for over a decade. Streamlining public service processes also implies streamlining their output, which are in fact, the delivered services. To support our arguments presented in this paper, we would like to draw on some of the knowledge of the service domain on bundling.

Our review of the literature on the service domain disclosed that the rationale behind bundling varies in complexity. Nevertheless, two reasons prevail -increasing profits and saving costs. Due to their nature and tasks, municipalities are non-profit oriented. Hence, increasing profits does not provide an adequate reason to support process bundling in public administrations. Saving costs, on the other hand, is a persistent issue and fundamental aspect of the operation of public institutions. The omnipresent financial restrictions forces municipalities to operate cost-efficiently and customer-oriented. The German government, for instance, anticipates cutting the costs of bureaucracy by over 15% through the implementation of process bundling [START_REF] Bmi | Government 2.0 -Das Programm des Bundes[END_REF] and the streamlining of processes is expected to result in faster through-put times of administrative procedures. It has been proposed that cost savings can occur through a joined transaction of the bundle components and their joined distribution [START_REF] Geng | Handbook of Economics and Information Systems[END_REF].

Another reason for process bundling is to ease the interaction of public authorities with businesses through the synchronization and integration of processes and IT-applications. To accomplish this, legal regulations and public service processes need to be revised critically and, if necessary, adjusted [START_REF] Bmi | Government 2.0 -Das Programm des Bundes[END_REF]. If employed successfully, process bundling yields the electronic and uninterrupted processing of public service processes. Therefore, existing bureaucratic structures need to be reassessed with the aim of creating more effective and flexible organizations via process bundling.

Methodology used for the literature review

The literature review comprised two phases: identification and analysis. In the identification phase we identified and selected research studies which discussed process identification criteria. We assembled a comprehensive collection of publications representing the main body of knowledge in this area. The analysis entailed a careful scrutiny of publications to unveil patterns of commonly addressed research themes.

Identification of relevant literature

Most process reorganization or optimization approaches include a phase for tackling the identification of processes [1] [17-21]. The identification of the right bundling candidates is crucial to the success of process-optimizations and reorganizations [17] [18]. The bundling of inadequate processes could have extensive implications on the organization's operating capabilities. Frequently, process reorganization or optimization projects are burdened by a plethora of information which makes it difficult to identify suitable process bundling candidates. The potential measures are not only numerous (see table 1), but some of them are difficult to operationalize in public administrations. Consequently, purposeful bundling requires a set of welldefined identification criteria.

The identification phase commenced with an initial search for publications relevant to process identification and several sources were consulted for this search. The most important sources were academic books, journals and conference proceedings. The search mechanism included identification of keywords such as process identification, integration, selection, and modeling. As a result, we identified an initial set of 36 relevant publications. We then screened this initial set of publications to select the most significant ones. The screening was conducted on the basis of the quality of the research studies, their relevance to process identification, and their citation frequency. The screening cycle yielded a final set of 15 key research studies which represent the basis of the literature review.

Structuring the review

Criteria for the identification of process integration candidates are both abundant and diverse (see table 1). As suggested in the literature [START_REF] Webster | Analyzing the past to prepare for the future: writing a literature review[END_REF], we implemented a conceptcentric literature review. Based on this review, we conceptualize that the majority of relevant process identification criteria can be categorized according to the following three identification principles: (1) performance, (2) process integration, and (3) complexity (see table 1). These three categories are not mutually exclusive.

Principle

Analysis -identification of process bundling candidates

A plethora of diverse approaches for improving processes exists in various disciplines. Information systems, industrial engineering, operations research, and management accounting are among the disciplines represented [START_REF] Davenport | Process Innovation: Reengineering work through information technology[END_REF]. In the following, we present the results of the literature analysis structured according to these three categories.

Performance indicators

Parameters assessing the process' performance and efficiency were among the most frequently listed. Nearly all process reorganization and optimization approaches depict criteria influencing the performance of a process. Gaitanides [START_REF] Gaitanides | Prozessmanagement. Konzepte, Umsetzungen und Erfahrungen des Reengineering[END_REF] asserts that optimization potentials can be identified through the analysis of simple data parameters such as through-put time, costs, and quality. Through-put time analyzes the processing time, the transfer time, and the holding time of a process. The primary goal is, of course, the frictionless organization of processes. Therefore, holding times need to be reduced, and unproductive times need to be detected and eliminated. The identification of cost intensive and "non-value" adding processes is the key objective of the cost assessment [START_REF] Gaitanides | Prozessmanagement. Konzepte, Umsetzungen und Erfahrungen des Reengineering[END_REF]. Higher costs are often caused by redundancies and inefficient workflow between activities. However, obtaining accurate data on costs is often a troublesome and enormous effort [START_REF] Harrington | Business process improvement: the breakthrough strategy for total quality, productivity, and competitiveness[END_REF]. Various authors have discussed the importance of assessing the costs and time consumed by the execution of a process [START_REF] Scheer | Business Process Reengineering in der Verwaltung[END_REF] [18] [START_REF] Hammer | Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution[END_REF] [22] [START_REF] Berente | Information flows and business process integration[END_REF]. According to Wolf et al. [START_REF] Wolf | Fachtagung Verwaltungsinformatik (FTVI)[END_REF] the identification of processes in public administrations should focus on those processes which produce the highest costs. The Federal Statistical Office, for instance, assesses the expenses for the processing of businesses-to-government (B2G) contacts on the basis of the standard cost model [START_REF]Einführung des Standardkosten-Modells Methodenhandbuch der Bundesregierung[END_REF]. The corresponding data can be extracted from a public database.

Various studies have assessed the costs of bureaucracy for specific industries (e.g., chemical industry [START_REF] Schulze | Bürokratie-und Regulierungskosten in der chemischen Industrie -Potenziale zu ihrer Reduktion[END_REF]). Quality, as discussed by Gaitanides [START_REF] Gaitanides | Prozessmanagement. Konzepte, Umsetzungen und Erfahrungen des Reengineering[END_REF], measures the error rate of products or services. Quality in this understanding is a measurement for the performance of process outputs, which are either products or services [START_REF] Davenport | Managing information about processes[END_REF]. For tangible process outputs such as products the error rate is rather easy to assess. Gaitanides [START_REF] Gaitanides | Prozessmanagement. Konzepte, Umsetzungen und Erfahrungen des Reengineering[END_REF] fails to explain how the error rate should be measured in regard to services. Some researchers have attempted to define specific measures of service quality, i.e.: reliability, responsiveness, empathy, assurance, and tangibles [START_REF] Zeithaml | The Behavioral Consequences of Service Quality[END_REF]. Customer satisfaction is often clearly correlated with process quality. Therefore, customer satisfaction constitutes another key indicator for process performance [START_REF] Davenport | Managing information about processes[END_REF].

Within the context of customer satisfaction Gaitanides [START_REF] Gaitanides | Prozessmanagement. Konzepte, Umsetzungen und Erfahrungen des Reengineering[END_REF] introduces the concept of value orientation. Value orientation focuses on the affiliation of processes to value chains from the customer's perspective [20] [21]. This approach assesses the individual value proposition of each activity to the entire value chain. Thus, all activities of a process must provide value to the production and/or delivery of the product to the customer. Activities that do not support a value chain are either redundant, inefficient, not purposeful, or not profitable [START_REF] Gaitanides | Prozessmanagement. Konzepte, Umsetzungen und Erfahrungen des Reengineering[END_REF]. The value proposition should be defined from the customer's perspective.

Process integration indicators

As organizations look to improve business processes, an important initial step is to understand the flow of information associated with the processes. Most public service processes stretch across different functional departments. Therefore, they often split across individuals and across time [START_REF] Berente | Information flows and business process integration[END_REF]. The flow of information is interrupted whenever information and data are not available at the required time in a sufficiently detailed manner. Consequently, information integration focuses on facilitating the seamless flow of information. The degree of information integration investigates how informational resources transfer across technical and organizational borders [START_REF] Becker | Organizational Engineering in Public Administrations -A Method for process-oriented eGovernment projects[END_REF] [START_REF] Klischewski | Information Integration or Process Integration? How to Achieve Interoperability in Administration[END_REF]. Even though information integration constitutes the basis for integrated processes, it is not the only supposition for "fully integrated business processes" [START_REF] Berente | Information flows and business process integration[END_REF]. Other factors, such as the structure or non-ambiguity of data, can be equally influential.

The notion of timeliness in regard to information transfer becomes evident whenever one understands that process integration necessitates information integration. Timeliness assesses if the information is up to date [START_REF] Aubert | Towards the Measurement of Process Integration[END_REF] and available at the beginning of an activity. This understanding of timeliness assumes that information is accessible. Accessibility, in turn, implies that data need to be accessible from any point within the process [START_REF] Aubert | Towards the Measurement of Process Integration[END_REF]. The access to information needs to be dependable, convenient, and easily manipulated [START_REF] Strong | Data quality in context[END_REF]. Additionally, information needs to be available at the right level of granularity. All information exchanged within the process has to be provided at the right level of detail [START_REF] Berente | Information flows and business process integration[END_REF] [START_REF] Aubert | Towards the Measurement of Process Integration[END_REF]. Appropriate granularity enables the elimination of extraneous activities that would be required to decompose or summarize the information. The last element concerns the transparency of information. The concept of transparency refers to the ease by which information is passed from one activity to another one [START_REF] Berente | Information flows and business process integration[END_REF] and implies a shared understanding of models and structure. According to Aubert et al. [START_REF] Aubert | Towards the Measurement of Process Integration[END_REF], there are two ways to achieve transparency; first, through translation among several "languages" or, second, through standardization. Hence, in regard to the transparency of a process, the level of standardization should be analyzed as well.

Complexity indicators

At their initiation most processes are usually quite simple [START_REF] Hammer | Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution[END_REF] but often grow considerably more complex over time. The more cases, variants, or actors that are involved, the more complex the process grows. Complexity indicators commonly disclose processes that can be simplified through integration.

Organizational complexity is generally examined from two perspectives: the company's side or the customer's side [START_REF] Becker | Referenzmodellierung: Grundlagen, Techniken und domänenbezogene Anwendung[END_REF]. The latter plays a more prominent role in public reorganizations and optimizations since public service processes are characterized by a high degree of customer integration. The number of cases also increases complexity; for every service delivered on the municipality side there is a user on the citizen side [START_REF] Becker | Referenzmodellierung: Grundlagen, Techniken und domänenbezogene Anwendung[END_REF]. A high number of user groups yield higher variants within and between the cases. In other words, complexity can be analyzed by the number of steps required to perform a process [START_REF] Shostack | Service positioning through structural change[END_REF]. When integrating B2G processes, it appears critical to identify processes which affect the same group of users. The identification of users on the business side needs to be based on the type of business affected by the public service process and the role of the users' needs to be identified. Process bundling is generally desirable in areas distinguished by high case volumes and the same group of users. The reorganization or optimization of processes exhibiting a small number of cases, and therefore little complexity, is not desirable [START_REF] Becker | Referenzmodellierung: Grundlagen, Techniken und domänenbezogene Anwendung[END_REF].

Discussion of findings

The analysis of the literature review disclosed that there are at least three major principles (e.g., performance, process integration, and complexity) which support the elicitation of process bundling candidates. As mentioned, these three categories are not mutually exclusive. For instance, if a company embarks on a process reorganization project, performance indicators might be just as important for the identification of integration candidates as complexity or process integration indicators. However, none of the process reorganization and optimization concepts discussed above provide insights on how to prioritize the various criteria. Within this study we identified approximately 16 different criteria for the elicitation of bundling candidates. The analysis of all 16 indicators will not be feasible and purposeful in practice and more criteria might exist that we did not cover in our literature review. Therefore, it is extremely important to provide practitioners with guidelines on how to purposefully identify bundling candidates.

Our literature analysis also showed that the identification of adequate candidates for purposeful process bundling is not as straightforward as it may sound. Particularly within the complex setting of public institutions the existing set of identification criteria can be rather misleading. Current approaches to process identification promote a bottom-up identification of potential bundling candidates. These approaches start the identification process by choosing one or a selected number of processes that exhibit the greatest malfunctions. Accordingly, the improvement process always has one specific process as a starting point without providing a holistic picture of the process landscape. Process bundling is essentially concerned with changing or redirecting the flow of information between activities without changing the actual content of the information. In order to identify inefficiencies between processes one needs to study the corresponding information flow [START_REF] Klischewski | Information Integration or Process Integration? How to Achieve Interoperability in Administration[END_REF]. But none of the previously mentioned identification criteria support the comprehensive screening of several hundred public service processes. Based on the existing approaches, screening all public processes would be extremely time consuming and cost intensive. A top-down identification approach is needed within the public sphere in order to investigate the complex information flow between functional departments and companies and to identify relevant bundling candidates. Despite the abundance of existing identification criteria, we posit that the current set of criteria does not suffice and a top-down identification approach is necessary.

Synthesis -introducing a methodological intermediary step

Within this section, we synthesize the analysis of the identified literature into a proposal for a methodological intermediary step in process bundling. This intermediary step addresses primarily the identification of B2G contacts. B2G contacts are commonly characterized by a higher degree of frequency and repetitions than citizen-to-government (C2G) contacts. The processing of B2G contacts requires a considerable amount of time and resource capacities in companies which in return leads to higher costs of bureaucracy. By optimizing B2G processes, monetary and efficiency benefits can be achieved for both sides: companies and public administrations.

We propose that the identification and analysis of public service processes needs to encounter a top-down perspective. Tailoring the identification of processes to a superordinate principle (e.g., content, context, or business event) would yield a more anchored approach and account for the top-down perspective. We therefore propose a methodological intermediary step that promotes first a focus on primary process bundling principles and then on the commonly known identification criteria. In this view, primary principles are to be considered before secondary ones (see figure 1). Primary bundling principles assess the similarity or complementariness of the future process bundles in regard to their content, context, or a specific business event. It is crucial to understand that only one primary principle at a time can be pursued [START_REF] Wolf | Fachtagung Verwaltungsinformatik (FTVI)[END_REF]. For instance, either the shared content or the shared context of processes can serve as the basis for further analysis. Processes with a similar or complementary content, even across departments, can then be analyzed in regard to their performance, efficiency, and complexity. The content and context based bundling principles stem from the feasibility studies [START_REF] Wolf | Machbarkeitsstudie Prozessketten Umwelt[END_REF]

Context based bundling

Various value adding and support processes exist within companies that have multiple interfaces with public administrations. For instance, the award of a property credit exhibits contacts to the local tax office, the notary, the land registry office, and the bankruptcy court [START_REF] Fröschle | Machbarkeitsstudie Entwicklung von Prozessketten zwischen Wirtschaft und Verwaltung: Finanzdienstleistungen[END_REF]. The context based bundling principle aims at guarantying the seamless flow of business processes and B2G contacts are bundled along the process flow. The key integration criterion for context based bundling is the affiliation of B2G contacts to business processes or process clusters. Subsequently, the identification of processes depends on their value adding context. There are various examples on how to identify bundling candidates based on their context affiliation. For instance, [START_REF] Fröschle | Machbarkeitsstudie Entwicklung von Prozessketten zwischen Wirtschaft und Verwaltung: Finanzdienstleistungen[END_REF] examine B2G contacts of financial service providers on the basis of an industry specific process landscape. The affiliation of B2G contacts to the same process cluster within the process landscape is used as an initial identification criterion. This context based affiliation helps the researcher in the identification and selection of process bundling candidates. In short, the context based bundling aims at identifying B2G contacts on the basis of their affiliation to a business process or cluster. Hence, this bundling principle necessitates the mapping of B2G to affiliated processes.

Content-based bundling

Currently, the contacts of German companies with public administrations are characterized by a plethora of similar reporting and notification duties. The contentbased bundling principle assumes that these similar reports and notifications can be bundled based on their compatible content [START_REF] Wolf | Machbarkeitsstudie Prozessketten Umwelt[END_REF]. The content-based bundling principle aims at reducing the efforts needed to produce these reports and notifications while simultaneously guaranteeing and potentially increasing their quality. Content-based bundling focuses on exposing data and content redundancies between B2G processes. In this view, content and structural similarities of B2G processes are crucial for the purposeful identification of bundling candidates [START_REF] Wolf | Machbarkeitsstudie Prozessketten Umwelt[END_REF]. In order to efficiently bundle B2G contacts according to the content principle, the following conditions have to be fulfilled: (1) the contents of the processes exhibit a certain degree of similarity or redundancy, (2) the same user group, or companies respectively, have to be affected by the B2G contacts, (3) the direction of the information flow has to be congruent (e.g., in all cases from businesses to public administrations) [START_REF] Wolf | Machbarkeitsstudie Prozessketten Umwelt[END_REF]. These three conditions assure that synergies are used purposefully.

Content Context Event

Analyzing Criteria (Performance, Process Integration, and Complexity)

Primary Process Bundling Principles Secondary Process Bundling Principles

Event-based bundling

The event-based bundling principle assumes that certain business events recur in the life cycle of a company. These specific business events determine when companies need to get in touch with public administrations [START_REF] Von Lucke | Hochleistungsportale für die öffentliche Verwaltung[END_REF]. Examples of such events in the life cycle of a company are the registration of a business or the merger with another company. Both events force the company to get in touch with multiple functional departments in the public administration. The idea is to streamline these event-based B2G contacts in order to reduce processing errors and efforts on the side of the company. The bundling of business event contacts could potentially result in one government point of contact for the company. Event-based bundling is also discussed within the service domain where components are bundled based on their affiliation to a specific event. The event-based bundling principle has its theoretical foundations in the concept of one-stop government. One-stop government also assumes that information can and should be structured according to certain life events (Lebenslage).

Conclusion

From our research we have determined that the combination of primary and secondary process bundling principles posits a collectively exhaustive lens for the purposeful identification of B2G processes. We employed a rigorous procedure that generated the identification and analysis of 36 scholarly articles and books. These literature sources provided evidence that secondary identification principles are commonly comprised of performance, process integration, and complexity indicators. The mere employment of secondary identification criteria does not yield purposeful bundles of public service processes. The proposed methodological intermediary step which introduces content, context, and events as primary process bundling criteria fills this gap in current process identification research.

As practitioners look to improve public service processes, our research suggests that they should first focus on primary process bundling principles (e.g., content, context, and event). These principles would enable them to identify what processes can be bundled together while simultaneously providing insight on potential areas for improvement. Secondary process bundling principles support the elicitation of concrete weaknesses and discontinuities within and between processes. The introduction of public service process bundling is expected to reduce the amount of recurrent activities within public administrations. We suspect that the bundling of service processes will lead to fewer points of contact between businesses and public administrations which would in turn lead to cost reductions for both involved parties.

Multiple directions for further research exist. First, the purposeful identification of process bundling candidates remains ill-defined and should be exposed to more structured scrutiny. Second, the newly developed primary bundling principles need to be analyzed and further validated. Third, the transferability of bundling principles for the analysis of C2G contacts needs to be investigated.

  [START_REF] Fröschle | Machbarkeitsstudie Entwicklung von Prozessketten zwischen Wirtschaft und Verwaltung: Finanzdienstleistungen[END_REF] funded by the German Federal Ministry of the Interior in 2009.

Fig. 1 .

 1 Fig. 1. Primary and secondary process bundling principles

Table 1 .

 1 Principles of process identification

		Criteria	Source
		Through-put time, costs (of bureaucracy),	[1] [5] [11] [18]
	Performance	quality, customer satisfaction, value	[20] [21] [22] [23]
		proposition	[24]
	Process integration	Information flow, degree of information integration, timeliness, access, granularity, transparency	[5] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28]
	Complexity	Number of cases, exceptions, special cases classification of actors	[20] [21] [27] [29]

Acknowledgments. We would like to thank the German Federal Ministry of the Interior for their support and funding of the research project.