Understanding the Government to e-Government Transition Using a Soft Systems Approach: What is e-Government Supposed to do?

Governments around the world are implementing or launching plans for developing electronic government projects. However, the deployment of e-government projects has faced various obstacles and in many cases has failed to satisfy the expectations both of the government and its citizens in delivering government services. Previous efforts of understanding and analysing government to e-government transition have mainly focused on business models used for analysing transition to e-business or have used e-government maturity models for describing the different development stages and processes involved in the deployment of e-government. However, the concept of electronic government is complex, multi-disciplinary and influenced by a variety of perceptions from different stakeholders. Such a complex, multi-disciplinary real-world problematic situation is not amenable to traditional business analysis approaches, and instead needs a holistic approach. Thus, we have used systems thinking methodologies, and in particular Soft Systems Methodology (SSM), to understand the concept of government and explore the activities involved in order to understand the purpose of government, prior to considering where e-government may be appropriate. In this paper, we consider e-government as a service system to serve and support the activities of government. Our aim is to explore and understand the system served (government) from different perspectives in order to understand the service system (e-government). Our holistic approach uses the Enterprise Model Assembly method in SSM to develop a conceptual model relevant to government that illustrates the tasks that should be carried out by governments. We identify the necessary subsystems involved in thinking of the government as a system and the interdependencies between these subsystems. Using the model as a reference, we illustrate how government activities can be considered in an e-government context and how it can help in deciding on what e-government is supposed to do while including diverse perspectives about the purpose of government. In addition, the model can be used as a framework for exploring various issues and obstacles facing e-government projects.