E-government through the lens of trading zones: A case of e-government implementation in Dubai

The paper explores the implementation of public sector information systems in a relatively atypical context, which is the rapidly developing city of Dubai. The paper specifically addresses the interactions between public and private sector teams in a large public sector organization in Dubai as they collaborate to complete an e-government project within a short timeframe. The paper employs a framework that consists of institutional logics and concepts from the theory of trading zones to examine this exchange of ideas and artifacts between the two teams. Trading zones are conceptualized as embedded within wider institutional arrangements. The paper explores the trading activities between the teams as institutional enactments that come to shape e-government outcomes in terms of roles and norms of the public sector staff. This reveals specific insights into how e-government projects are locally enacted and how these shape the roles of public sector staff as contributors to city development. Overall, the paper argues that these engagements between public sector staff and contracted private sector consultants and vendors lead to the exchange of new knowledge, ideas, and artifacts that reproduce and reframe the sociocultural roles of public sector staff to fit with the new organizational context.