Information culture in three municipalities and its impact on information management amidst e-government development

This article presents research conducted in three municipalities in Sweden and Belgium. The municipalities were involved in e-Government development. The article focuses on information culture, which constitutes the attitudes and norms embraced by the municipal employees towards public information management and use. E-Government is meant to improve efficiency through the use of information technology and information. This, however, requires effective information management regimes if information is to be leveraged in a manner that will enable the municipalities to attain their ultimate goal of high quality service delivery. Despite investments in information systems this research has proved that the information culture embraced by these will have to change if the ultimate goal of delivering high quality services to the citizens and the effective use and re-use of information is to be achieved. Information culture researchers argue that there is a correlation between business success and information culture. Therefore, the attitudes, norms and how the employees value organizational information, impacts its efficient use and management. This article therefore highlights some of the challenges that are caused by the attitudes of the municipal employees like lack of information management skills, collaboration and insufficient information management systems and satisfactory information management architecture. Even though huge investments are currently being made in the development of e-services, there are soft issues that need to be seriously addressed.