Att identifiera sig är något vi gör i många olika vardagssituationer; exempelvis när vi ska styrka vår ålder i krogkön, uträtta bankärenden eller bli insläppta av vakten på en bevakad arbetsplats. För att identifiera oss i dessa situationer använder vi oftast någon form av fysisk identitetshandling; ett körkort, pass eller ID-kort. Samtidigt har vi idag ett samhälle där allt fler ärenden går att utföra via nätet, där såväl offentliga som kommersiella aktörer erbjuder elektroniska tjänster (e-tjänster) i ökande omfattning. Vi blir därmed alltmer beroende av informationsteknik (IT) i samhället för att samverka och kommunicera effektivt och enkelt. Vår riskexponering och sårbarhet ökar i takt med att vi utför allt fler ärenden via e-tjänster. Känslig information kan utnyttjas av obehöriga eller missbrukas på olika sätt.

Elektronisk identifiering blir i dessa sammanhang en viktig komponent och förutsättning för att kunna erbjuda och använda effektiva och säkra e-tjänster. När man identifierar sig på nätet och i IT-system kan man göra det på många olika sätt; man kan logga in med användarnamn och lösenord, använda elektroniska ID-lösningar (eID) med dosor och koder, scanna fingeravtryck, använda e-tjänstekort och kortläsare eller RFID-teknik. Man skulle kunna betrakta dessa identifieringslösningar som rent tekniska landvinningar, som bara syftar till att man ska kunna nå den e-tjänst man vill använda. Likt en nyckel som används för att låsa upp dörren så att man kommer in i sitt hus. Vi menar dock att det är en alldeles för snäv syn på elektronisk identifiering – den behöver vara vidare än så för att vara fruktbar och kunna sättas i meningsfulla sammanhang av exempelvis design, utvärdering och vidareutveckling.

Även om det är en teknisk lösning (en artefakt) med en begränsad uppgift vi avser, så kan dess utformning och sättet den införs och används på få stora konsekvenser för hela användningssituationen. Med artefakt menas här konstruerade föremål i form av olika tekniska lösningar och människors meningar kopplade till dessa. Identifieringslösningen påverkar både säkerheten i sig och den bild vi får av den e-tjänst eller det IT-system där vi identifierar oss. Dessutom påverkar den också bilden vi har av det sammanhang där vi använder identifieringslösningen. Om vi använder en e-tjänst som erbjuds av exempelvis den kommun där vi bor, påverkas också vår tilltro till kommunen och samhället av hur vi uppfattar identifieringslösningen och e-tjänsten. Samma resonemang gäller om vi köper en vara av ett privat företag på nätet. Med andra ord påverkas samhällets såväl som företagens legitimitet av hur vi som medborgare eller kunder uppfattar olika IT-lösningar.

Den här boken handlar därför om de möjligheter och utmaningar som elektronisk identifiering kan innebära för individer, organisationer och samhället. Vi talar inte om isolerade tekniska problem i första hand, utan anlägger ett vidare perspektiv på de möjligheter och problem som kommer med e-tjänster och elektronisk identifiering.

Vi har skrivit den här boken för att dela med oss av en del av de tankar och insikter som vi fått under projektet. Syftet med boken är att sätta ljuset på ett antal teman som framstår som centrala för utveckling och användning av elektronisk identifiering. Vi beskriver tre exempel som hämtar inspiration från våra studier inom projektet. Utifrån dessa exempel lyfter vi fram ett antal teman och diskuterar dessa samt sammanfattar utmaningar som vi sett i våra studier. Vår förhoppning är att Du som läser vår bok kan använda våra resonemang för att diskutera frågorna vidare i det praktiska sammanhang som Du befinner Dig i. Oavsett om Du finns på ett kommunkontor, i ett landsting, i en myndighet eller i en privat livssituation. Vi har inte haft ambitionen att skriva en vetenskaplig, teorirelaterad text, men Du som vill läsa forskningsbaserade publikationer från projektet hittar lästips i slutet av boken.

Denna studie belyser införandet av och arbetet med ett elektroniskt vård- och patientadministrat-ionssystem –COSMIC– i Landstinget i Östergötland. Syftet med studien är att analysera och karak-tärisera införandet av och arbetet med COSMIC. Vi belyser särskilt fyra teman i vår analys: (1) Verksamhetsutveckling och IT, (2) Kompetens och arbete, (3) Tillit och säkerhet samt (4) Privat och offentligt. Denna fallstudie är kvalitativ och tolkande och bygger på flera typer av empiriska data. De metoder som använts är intervjuer med vårdpersonal i öppen- och slutenvård, projekt-ledning, projektmedarbetare och patienter, studier av såväl interna som externa dokument samt systemanvändning. Resultatet av vår studie visar att aktörer och aktörsgrupper bär på många olika bilder av införandeprocessen och av det system –COSMIC– som införs. Studien visar också att det finns förväntningar relaterade till COSMIC som berör förändrade och mera effektiva arbetssätt, tillgänglighet till information –exempelvis om patienters vårdhistorik och medicinering– samt en ökad patientsäkerhet. Dessa förväntningar har utmanats av farhågor i vårdverksamheten rö-rande både systeminförandet och systemets funktionalitet. Föreställningarna har sin grund bland annat i den negativa kritik som framfördes mot COSMIC i samband med pilotimplementering och uppgradering av systemet; negativ kritik som även har rapporterats i lokal och regional media. Betydelsen av att systemet utvecklas av en extern leverantör och landstingets relation till denna analyseras också. Den longitudinella studien visar också att COSMIC institutionaliseras i verksam-heten över tid; detta kommer exempelvis till uttryck genom att systemet blir en del av vårdens vardag och stegvis vinner en större acceptans. Beroendet av systemet ökar också över tid. Studien visar även att tillit och säkerhet påverkas av införandet av det nya systemet – samtidigt som nya risker tillkommer reduceras dock tidigare sådana. Vi karaktäriserar den förändring som systemet hittills bidragit till som snarare informationsteknisk, än samlat och samordnat administrativ och organisatorisk. Centralt blir därför att medvetet, utifrån lokala framgångsrika arbetssätt kombi-nerat med samlad erfarenhet på landstingsnivå, arbeta vidare med samordnad verksamhets- och IT-utveckling.

Fragmentation and isolated development are main problems that hinder successful e-government. This paper has an inter-organisational perspective on challenges in one-stop government. We present a conceptual framework that characterises an inter-organisational relationship and its dimensions. The conceptual framework is used for analysing data from an inter-organisational one-stop government project. When applying the framework we focus on some interesting issues and explain some of the challenges that our interviewees identified. By addressing these inter-organisational aspects we reached further understanding of the problems associated with this case, which can provide added value to discussions of e-government challenges, barriers and problems in general.

This paper reports from an action research project where focus groups have been used as an approach for taking citizens’ requirements into account during public e-service development projects. In the paper we use theories from the area of user participation in the information systems (IS) discipline in order to discuss and enhance the specific aspects of citizen participation and involvement in the eGovernment context. The main purpose of this paper is to enrich the eGovernment field in general, and to facilitate the citizen perspective in eGovernment development projects in particular, by using notions from the user participation tradition in the IS discipline. Our empirical findings from performing focus groups are discussed and compared to well-known user participation theories from the IS discipline. This results in an emergent framework for better understanding of citizen participation and involvement in the eGovernment context. The emergent framework consists of a set of questions that can be used in order to put an increased focus on the citizen perspective in future eGovernment development projects.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 11th IFIP WG 8.5 International Conference, EGOV 2012, held in Delft, The Netherlands, in September 2012. The 23 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from more then 80 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on foundations; adoption and diffusion; open government and transformation; infrastructure and technology; evaluation; and citizen perspective, social inclusion, and social media. 

In this paper, we approach the field of critical success factors (CSF) by analyzing a successful case of IT implementation within the public health sector. The purpose of the paper is to gain further understanding of if and how well CSFs can explain a successful case. The main conclusion drawn is that even though the studied organization shows signs of common CSFs, this alone cannot explain the success. An important contribution from this study is thus the focus on contextual factors when trying to understand what makes an implementation project successful.

This study illustrates how students view the role and meaning of learning outcomes. We have conducted a focus group with students who attended the course “Enterprise (ERP) systems and organizing” within an IS bachelor program in Sweden. Our study shows that students, as a course’s main stakeholder group, regard the multi-functionality of learning outcomes. What they still miss is knowledge about the role and meaning of learning outcomes as control instruments for the entire educational process. When teachers formulate learning outcomes in a transparent and clear way, students will be able to use them actively prior to courses, during courses and after courses. In order to better use the potential of learning outcomes in practice, we need to find ways of not just formulating learning outcomes in a standardized manner, but also practicing them in our courses. When this learning outcome model has been accepted and applied in teachers’ course activities, not just their syllabus writing, we have possibilities to use the full potential of learning outcomes.

In this paper a longitudinal case study of an e-government development project is reported. The authors have followed a development project during three years, from its initiation to its end. The purpose of the paper is to identify and analyze important decisions made and external factors that occurred during the project and discuss their consequences. The findings are presented as seven key lessons that other e-government projects can learn from. The contributions are, thus, both a reflective analysis of an empirical e-government development example and normative statements about how to conduct successful e-government projects.

In this paper we analyze a public e-service development project from its initiation to its end and reflect upon the process as well as its results. The purpose of the paper is to develop knowledge about how e-government projects should be managed and performed in order to be successful. We do this by identifying and analyzing important decisions made and external factors that occurred during the project and discussing their consequences. The findings are presented as six key lessons for e-government projects. The novel knowledge contribution is that the lessons combine aspects from established CSFs of IT projects with e-government-focused issues. Together these six lessons can be more useful in e-government projects than previous sets of general CSFs for IT projects.

This paper focuses deficient understanding of citizens’ needs regarding public e-services. In Sweden e-government efforts are motivated by dual goals of citizen benefit and agencies’ internal efficiency. Rhetorical, this is a persuasive ambition, but in practice it seems to be easier to focus agency efficiency and redesign of business processes and information systems than to find out what citizens really want. Citizens, i.e. the future users of the e-service, are in best case represented in the project by citizen organizations. More seldom do individual citizens take part in the project. User needs are, thus, sometimes “guessed” instead of analyzed. We report from an e-government project which started with little understanding of the future users. To overcome this we introduced focus groups as a method to meet and talk to citizens and find out their needs regarding the e-service. The paper discusses how focus groups can be used in e-government projects.

This article reports from an empirical study of young Swedish university students’ attitudes towards electronic identification (eID). Three focus groups were conducted with students, as a main target group, who were asked to use a public e-service at the Swedish Board for Study Support which demanded secure electronic identification. After having conducted the assigned tasks the students’ attitudes were discussed in the focus group. Our findings show that usability and security are two main themes that the respondents found to be important in order to trust eID and e-services. This example of how citizens’ attitudes towards electronic identification can be explored in focus groups is related to the on-going national development process of a new eID solution on a strategic and artifact level. In this process no citizens are participating or involved so far. We conclude the article by discussing what might be the consequences of neglecting citizens’ attitudes in this kind of development and implementation processes.

Smart cities have been studied for many years, but smart homes and the citizens' actual living in these smart homes are less researched. We argue that for digital government research, and for governments to be successful in smart city development in practice, it is necessary not only to understand living on a societal level, but also living aspects in the narrow context of homes. Citizens populate the smart city and are the ones who are supposed to use the services provided by the government. In this article we explore and analyze digital and analogue services in smart homes developed in a new city district. We have conducted observational studies in 53 apartments during an urban living expo which we analyze by applying a set of socio-technical design principles. The research question that guides the analysis is: “What tensions between values in digital and analogue services for a smart living can be revealed by a socio-technical perspective?”. We identify five tensions between: 1) being in control and being controlled, 2) intended and undesirable use of personal data, 3) digital and analogue smartness, 4) smart home visions and practices, and 5) environmental and social sustainability. By revealing these tensions, we contribute to an understanding of the complexity of smart living. We also contribute by highlighting the importance of applying a perspective that captures both technology and citizen and user issues (i.e., social aspects) when developing services in the smart home context.

This paper discusses how several stakeholders in a public e-service development project consider a future e-service and expected changes in administrative processes and working routines. Our findings indicate a much more multifaceted view than the common win-win situation, with increased quality for citizens and increased efficiency for agencies, which is rhetorically put forth as an effect of public e-service implementation. We have studied a development project resulting in an e-service for handling student anonymity when marking written exams in higher education. In this case we have identified five distinct stakeholder groups related to this e-service; students, teachers, course administrators, exam guards, and the university at an agency level. All of them having certain expectations and fears about the new situation. By presenting this diversity in opinions we add further understanding to the notion of e-services as being more or less beneficial for certain stakeholders.

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to investigate if, and in that case, how and what the e-government field can learn from user participation concepts and theories in general IS research. We aim to contribute with further understanding of the importance of citizen participation and involvement within the e-government research body of knowledge and when developing public e-services in practice.

Design/Methodology/Approach – The analysis in the article is made from a comparative, qualitative case study of two e-government projects. Three analysis themes are induced from the literature review; practice of participation, incentives for participation, and organization of participation. These themes are guiding the comparative analysis of our data with a concurrent openness to interpretations from the field.

Findings – The main results in this article are that the e-government field can get inspiration and learn from methods and approaches in traditional IS projects concerning user participation, but in e-government we also need methods to handle the challenges that arise when designing public e-services for large, heterogeneous user groups. Citizen engagement cannot be seen as a separate challenge in e-government, but rather as an integrated part of the process of organizing, managing, and performing e-government projects. Our analysis themes of participation generated from literature; practice, incentives and organization can be used in order to highlight, analyze, and discuss main issues regarding the challenges of citizen participation within e-government. This is an important implication based on our study that contributes both to theory on and practice of e-government.

Practical implications – Lessons to learn from this study concern that many e-government projects have a public e-service as one outcome and an internal e-administration system as another outcome. A dominating internal, agency perspective in such projects might imply that citizens as the user group of the e-service are only seen as passive receivers of the outcome – not as active participants in the development. By applying the analysis themes, proposed in this article, citizens as active participants can be thoroughly discussed when initiating (or evaluating) an e-government project.

Originality/value – This article addresses challenges regarding citizen participation in e-government development projects. User participation is well-researched within the IS discipline, but the e-government setting implies new challenges, that are not explored enough.

The main goals of e-government are to increase agency efficiency and offer benefits to citizens. These goals have often been addressed as two interplaying outcomes of public e-service development, which are possible to achieve in parallel. This article shows that the two frequently applied stakeholders of e-government (agencies and citizens) are much too extensive and heterogeneous in order to be meaningfully addressed in public e-service conceptualization and development. We conduct a stakeholder centered analysis of a public e-service development and implementation process in order to identify stakeholder groups and discuss how they differ in their perceptions and, consequently, also in their feelings of relevance and need related to the e-service. By adopting a multi-faceted perspective on stakeholders, public e-service development can be analyzed and understood in a way that takes several stakeholder groups into account. Our study contributes with deeper insights about a situation where stakeholder salience changes over time, while some stakeholder groups have low salience during the entire process. The result of conducting a stakeholder centered analysis is that we, by visualizing the stakeholder groups' differences, are better prepared to meet and combine different needs related to a planned e-service. Thus, we argue that a stakeholder centered analysis of expectations and opinions concerning the e-service help to develop e-services possible to succeed in offering both external service and internal efficiency.

In this article we discuss in what ways an e-government project can give both expected and unexpected effects for agency employees and their working tasks. The purpose of this article is to illustrate the fact that, besides the aim to increase agency efficiency and citizen benefit, e-government implementation might also change the salience of involved stakeholders. We do this by focusing on one stakeholder group which was reluctant and hesitating in the beginning of the studied project; marginalized, passive, easily convinced, and old-fashioned. After the e-government implementation, this group had turned to satisfied, proud, influential, active, powerful, and modern IT users. The case shows how stakeholder salience might change over time in an e-government project. Stakeholder influence aspects and IT driven change aspects are intertwined. This makes it necessary for any e-government project to address the notion of stakeholder involvement in decision-making during the development and implementation phases, but also to acknowledge e-services force to change how things and people are perceived during these phases.

This paper discusses critical success factors (CSF) and best practice in relation to IT implementation in the health sector. We have studied a University Hospital’s implementation of a health information system (HIS) and particularly one clinic which implementation process was described as very successful compared to other units at this hospital. The purpose of the paper is to gain further understanding of if and how well CSFs and best practice solutions can explain this successful case. We do this in order to explore if CSFs and best practice offer any shortcuts to successful IT implementation. By understanding the reasons behind this case’s success we can identify if CSFs and best practice potentially can explain the success, or if there are other explanations in this case. Based on our findings we discuss and question the sometimes overestimated belief in CSFs and best practice as shortcuts to success performance. An important contribution from this study is that situational and contextual factors are very critical to understand and acknowledge during HIS implementations.

 There are a lot of reasons reported for why organisations start a sourcing decision. This paper discusses this theme based on two questions: Does the need and/or wish to increase e-Government services influence the start of a sourcing decision process aiming at reorganising hosting of software applications and if it does, how does it influence the start of such a decision-making process? The point of departure, besides a literature review, is a sourcing decision-making process in a Swedish municipality. When analysing the sourcing decision, five suggested propositions developed from the factors: control, core competence, capability, cost, and strategy, are used. It is concluded that municipalities in Sweden has to prepare for being more of an e-Government organisation, which means that more of the services the mu-nicipalities- employees has done before citizens will do by themselves. This demands that to be able to offer future e-Government services municipalities need to have control over soft-ware applications. From this study it is suggested that centralisation of hosting can be seen as decentralisation of work tasks from an e-Government perspective.   

E-service development has grown to become a daily practice in most public organizations as a means for realizing digital agendas and e-government initiatives on different levels (local, regional, national and transnational governmental levels). Public e-service development is often an inter-organizational (IO) effort with multiple actors and organizations involved in the multi-faceted dimensions of design, development and delivery decisions. Still, there is a lack of research focusing on IO public e-service development practices in particular. In order to address this lack we elaborate on reported challenges and their implications for IO public e-service development in practice. By returning to two empirical cases of IO public e-service development, the IO dimension is evolved. Our purpose is to highlight challenges in IO public e-service development with implications for research and practice. Findings are presented as eight emerging lessons learned from an inside-out perspective related to phases in IO public e-service development processes.

This paper evaluates how semi-randomly formed project groups, compared to forming groups at free will, affect students’ learning in a project-oriented setting. The findings are based on empirical data. We have analyzed students’ experiences by taking a course in the subject of Information Systems. The identified experiences are considered to be either a strength or a problem. We can conclude that how we form project groups has an effect on learning. We can also conclude that several of the experiences from semi-randomly formed project groups are of both a positive and negative nature. In the concluding chapter, we give some explanations in order to understand the differences in students’ experiences.

When focusing on open government data (OGD) publishing and related barriers, there are several complexities present. Largely, current research is focused on publishing and usage of OGD; and we argue that there are a need to investigate and to systematise OGD barrier research in order to understand and outline an expanded scope of the phenomenon. We expand by clarifying barriers linked to the release decision and the data’s organisational context. To investigate the OGD barriers, we conduct a systematic literature review, identifying 34 articles as a point of departure for our analysis. From these articles we create, present and discuss illustrations on historical development, barrier types, and different research focuses on OGD. When analysing the articles, we identify a focus on technical, organisational, and legal barrier types, while studies on open data usage and systems are less frequent. Our analysis also identifies some possible open data research barriers. In the article we also relate barriers to an expanded OGD process (Suitability, Release, Publish, Use, and Evaluation), identifying 46 barriers with possible linkages. The results is an expanded scope and a conceptual illustration of OGD barriers. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2018.

Previous research on Open Government Data (OGD) struggleswith synthesising a holistic perspective of OGD systems. A perspectivethat has dealt with vast, complex systems is public utility. Publicutilities are, for example, water supply networks and electric power grids.This study explores what we can learn from a public utility perspectivewhen perceiving and organising OGD systems. We used a hermeneuticliterature review combined with a snowballing approach, resulting in aselection of 39 studies. We compare public utilities and OGD systems toderive ve lessons: (1) an OGD system can be perceived from a node- owview, (2) the foundational data ow of an OGD system starts at datacollection and ends at data used by the public in an everyday context, (3)the organisation of OGD systems needs to consider the combinability, interpretability,and boundless reusability of data, (4) OGD systems needgovernance organisations that cover the whole system, and (5) OGD systemscould replace existing data provision systems and be made a publicutility if certain characteristic problems are overcome.

Digitalisation provides both challenges and opportunities for Quality Management (QM). The purpose of this study is to identify various roles QM practitioners play in digitalisation initiatives to uncover the challenges and potential of QM?s digitalisation journey. This issue is addressed through an analytical framework that stresses two dimensions: the exploration and exploitation of digitalised QM processes and value creation, which is performed by the customer or in interactions facilitated by the provider. Through a multiple-case study of four large Swedish organisations, we propose six different challenges and corresponding roles for QM. Further, the study identifies challenges of digitalisation affecting both exploitative and explorative practices throughout an organisation?s value creation process. This research contributes to the existing literature with empirical evidence on the challenges induced by digitalisation, an area often discussed but not as often studied empirically.

In order to deliver services to citizens, public sector agencies of today offer various types of channels for interaction. In this article we aim to develop an understanding of the reciprocal relation between multi‑channel services and work prac tice. By showing how actors at different organizational levels in an agency differ in their interpretation of multi‑channel services we have generated knowledge that is essential in multi‑channel strategy formulation. The study illustrates an example of a n agency that works actively and in a mature way with e‑government and e‑services. This qualitative case study illustrates that the top level management, middle management and the case officers need to confront and discuss their understanding of e‑governm ent and their work practice in order to reach a situation where strategies actually are influencing daily work more explicitly. An important aspect is the decision to adopt an internal or external perspective on multi‑channel service management. The resul t of this decision might be to view multi‑channel service management as a way of reaching either internal agency efficiency or external citizen benefits.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss the consequences of citizens' increased use of public e-services for agency employees' work situation.

Design/methodology/approach – In order to accomplish the purpose of the paper the authors focus on the way in which the increased use of public e-services also implies internal process and routine changes in public administration. The authors analyze work conditions for case officers at a government agency in Sweden by applying occupational ideal types to identify the specific work conditions in the studied case. The case study is based on qualitative data collected with a back office perspective.

Findings – The findings indicate a new hybrid organization where the increased use of e-services challenges earlier demands for competence. The transformation of e-government has implications for job codification, rule observation, job specification, and interaction with the general public.

Originality/value – The paper extends the knowledge on how the increased use of public e-services affects back-office work conditions, with an increased high level of complexity in work content, but with low level of work autonomy. It argues that studying back-office work conditions is an important management issue in public administration research as well as practice.

This reflection note is part of the special section focused on smart cities. The note puts contemporary smart city research into a societal context and elaborates on the role of a Scandinavian perspective in this domain. The authors reflect upon how Information Systems Research can contribute to smart city research and what additional value a Scandinavian perspective can bring. The note is focused on two topics: 1) participation and involvement, and 2) privacy and security.

IT has considerable importance for productivity increase and growth. IT use requires a lot of resources to create value. Few, if any, studies, take the perspective of SMEs' needs for infrastructure concerning use of IT. As resources are more limited in smaller enterprises, and the contexts and conditions for IT use in SMEs are not well known. Formative infrastructure is a way of understanding cognitive and technical arrangements needed for IT adoption and use, depending on IT resources crossing organizational boundaries. The purpose is to study conditions for IT-use in SMEs for a better understanding of how a formative infrastructure contributes to enterprises. The methodological point of departure and approach in this study is qualitative and explorative. More than 60 interviews are performed within a geographical region. Questions concern needs for infrastructure among SMEs, actors roles, and concepts constituting a formative infrastructure for IT adoption and use. Data was analyzed for similarities and patterns into themes and topics. A theoretical framework for formative infrastructure is presented as a multi theory lens for developing the concept of formative infrastructure. A formative IT infrastructure is constituted by the identified needs among SMEs, and it contains three parts; (1) sensemaking, (2) senegiving, and (3) service infrastructures. Formative IT infrastructure in SMEs is not a well known concept, concerning IT use in SME's. The need of for formative infrastructure in sensemaking IT adoption and use in SME's rely on external partners and other actors for sensemaking and sensegiving processes. Further research is needed for better understanding of actors and roles as well as arenas for sensemaking IT in SMEs. The emphasis on infrastructure for IT adoption processes will help SME's to more relevant investments.

Purpose – The purpose is to study conditions for ICT-use in SMEs, actors and roles involved and concepts constituting a formative infrastructure.

Method - The methodological point of departure and approach in this study is qualitative and more than 60 interviews are performed within a geographical region.

Findings – Important findings from the present research is a formative ICT infrastructure can be viewed as constituted by identified needs among SMEs, in (1) sensemaking, (2) sensegiving, and (3) service infrastructures. In SMEs there is less of infrastructure and less of overhead and support services than in larger enterprises. The adoption processes in SMEs differ from the ones in larger enterprises. SMEs rely more on external relations in a public infrastructure.

Research implications – Formative ICT infrastructure in SMEs is not a well known concept, concerning ICT use in SME’s. The need for infrastructure is different in SME’s compared to larger enterprises, and a formative infrastructure has a different meaning for SME’s. Still many questions remain unanswered.

Practical implications - There is a need for better understanding of conditions for design of infrastructure for ICT use and development particularly in SME’s, but also in other enterprises and organizations. The emphasis on infrastructure for ICT adoption processes will help SME’s and municipalities to more relevant investments.

Originality - The study integrates micro- and macro-perspectives and combines theories from different fields to extend the knowledge of formative infrastructure for SME’s adoption and use of ICT. 

This paper investigates the conditions for the assimilation of information systems (IS) and information technology (IT) in organizations and the influence of various actors in the organization and eBusiness context. To do so it draws on the literature on assimilation gap, sociomateriality and infrastructure together with a study of implementation and use of information and communication technology in and among organizations in a Swedish region. There were substantial investments in web infrastructure made on a regional level and the focus of this study is how the investments were transformed and assimilated in practices, relations and communication. Based on the empirical data from the case study, the paper extends the assimilation process into interplay among actors in organizations contexts. It describes organizations' strategies for coping with their needs for information and the actors in these processes. Two categories of actors are identified, sensemaking and sensegiving actors, as most important in assimilation of IS/IT in organizations. A sociomaterial perspective gives guidance and a better understanding of the assimilation process in terms of knowledge and interpretative frames, and how assimilation involves identity construction and negotiations among sensemaking and sensegiving actors. The contribution of this paper is a better understanding of the context of assimilation and adaptation of IT in organizations' business processes, and steps to be taken to improve readiness.

The focus in this paper is on conditions for ICT use in SMEs expressed as formative infrastructure. Questions concern needs for infrastructure among SMEs, actors roles, and concepts constituting a formative infrastructure for ICT-adoption and use. Few – if any – studies, take the perspective of SMEs’ needs for infrastructure concerning use of ICT. A formative ICT infrastructure is constituted by the identified needs among SMEs, and it contains three parts; (1) sensemaking, (2) sensegiving, and (3) service infrastructures. In SMEs there is less of infrastructure and less of overhead services and these are to be found outside the SME. The adoption processes in SMEs differ from the ones in larger enterprises. ICT adoption is the process where the formative infrastructure is maintained as well as changed by actors enacting this context. SMEs rely more on external relations in a public infrastructure. In dividing ICT infrastructure into two major areas – hard and formative infrastructure, the results indicate that, both are important, but formative ICT infrastructure in SMEs is a less known and a less elaborated concept. When analyzing the need for formative ICT infrastructure, three types, emerge – sensemaking infrastructure, sensegiving infrastructure, and service infrastructure, as three cornerstones of a formative ICT-infrastructure.

The intangible and (often) young nature of socio-technical phenomena makes them difficult to understand and communicate. Researchers and practitioners have responded by applying metaphors, prescribing an epistemological structure to these phenomena. While metaphors are frequently applied, researchers have paid limited attention to their applications and limitations. To address this gap, we applied a mixed-method approach, exploring the communities’ applications of metaphors for the conceptual development of socio-technical phenomena, using two communities: Open Government Data and IT Development and Maintenance. We synthesised 21 articles and two books into an emergent analytical framework, Communities’ Applications Of Metaphors (CAOM). We collected empirical material for each community’s academic and practical sides between 2015–2020, resulting in 100 articles and 263 documents. We conducted a word frequency analysis and an in-depth analysis of the empirical material, drawing on CAOM. The contributions are the emergent CAOM framework with the key concepts of metaphors’ usage, expression, and assemblages of metaphors. We conclude that the application of metaphors in communities is influenced by community type and metaphors’ role, while the topic influences metaphor selection. Metaphors are combined to create new ways of reasoning. We recommend that governments draw on action-oriented metaphors when writing policies for socio-technical phenomena, while digital government researchers should include action-oriented elements when they develop metaphors, which can help practitioners put new knowledge into practice.

This paper takes a case study of an engineering company named FlexLink as a point of departure. The company, that produces conceivable applications of conveyors in industrial settings, has no production, no stock and no distribution within the legal boundary of the firm. It has developed as a network organization with organic growth both in the shade of, and ahead of, the global multinational corporation, from which it springs. In order to understand the emergence of this network organization, and the visionary and strong entrepreneur who manoeuvred it to where it stands today, and its rationale, we elaborate on a dialectic model of thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis. We also discuss the rational and rhetoric explanation of the organization's emergence through the examination of critical incidents as well as reactions towards more structural limitations and restrictions, as well as windows of opportunity in the shade of the multinational corporation. This article brings up a case of an extreme outsourcing strategy that has been depicted as an internalized business concept, but in our case study the rationale and the current picture is continuously undergoing change. In the analysis we also show how the emergence of the organization can be understood in the light of theories on Schumpeters concept “creative destruction” as well as in terms of the structuration and the process of change as a duality between actor and structure. In this paper we argue that the emergence of FlexLink can be described as dialectic interplay. The network structure emerged by opposition to the mother company's rigid structure and ideology. In the story of emergence it seems to be the unforeseen consequence of tactics played by one single and dominant actor, navigating in the early days to circumvent obstacles of internal policy. Thus the new organization emerges as an antithesis to the corporate policies and modes of operation. The new business was not produced according to a pre-established strategic plan, but rather evolved from a spirit of contradiction and a more or less explicit revolt and ambition to act differently. One important contribution from this study is that entrepreneurship has many faces and applications and also describes the practice of the entrepreneur as a problem solver and a master of fancy footwork. This is elaborated in the paper together with a discussion based on the risks for stagnation or how new – second order - entrepreneurship can emerge.

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For the last decade e-government research has underlined the importance of an external user perspective in public e-service development and there have been numerous attempts to provide guidance and directions for government agencies in this matter. Individual research studies show little progress in this matter, but a more generalisable picture of the current state of external user inclusion is missing. The aim of this paper is to provide a better and more generalisable understanding of Swedish government agencies’ current practice of external user inclusion in public e-service development. In order to do so, we have interviewed Swedish government agencies regarding their perceptions on external user inclusion. Our findings show mixed results regarding attitudes towards and current practice of external user inclusion. It is clear that organisational size and previous experience of public e-service development matter. At the same time challenges such as a general lack of resurces and a lack of time are seen as general barriers, regardless of agency level and size.

E-services hold the potential to innovate how the public sector operates, and to increase the transparencyof public services. Numerous research initiatives have illustrated the innovation power of eservices;with new technology and new solutions to existing problems. Research on this topic also emphasizesthat in order for public e-services to reach their full potential, they need to be designed in away that users find useful and beneficiary. Interestingly, in practice, only fragments of this claimedinnovation seem to take place. Today, most public e-services launched are merely electronic versionsof existing services with no, or very low, degree of innovation. In this paper, we analyse empirical datafrom local government e-service providers. The aim is to explore the current practices in local governmente-service development with respect to how aspects related to innovative and high quality serviceprovisioning are handled. In doing so, we analyse what basic motivators there are for local governmentsto offer e-services in the first place, and how such motivators influence innovation in localgovernment e-service development. The analysis concludes that local governments are facing a challengingsituation in terms of a general lack of resources regarding time, competence, and skills, aswell as a dispersed user segment where needs and wills often are hard to grasp. Furthermore, localgovernments are facing conflicting interests and agendas. At the end of the day, the heights of innovationare then hard to achieve. We call for further research on the applicability of previous researchfindings in other research areas in order to promote more innovative e-service provisioning.

User participation is seen as an important enabler for successful public e-service development. However, at the same time development of public e-services is still often characterised by an internal government perspective with little consideration for external users’ perspectives. This paper challenges the overly positive attitude that is surrounding user participation in e-government research. The paper aims to illustrate and problematize various aspects that influence why, how, and in whose interest user participation is conducted in public e-service development. First, via a literature review, we identify a set of dimensions for critically exploring how, why, and in whose interest user participation is conducted in public e-service development projects. Second, we use these dimensions in order to characterise and analyse three empirical public e-service development cases in order to test the utility, usefulness, and feasibility of the identified dimensions. Our findings highlight the importance of questioning and elaborating on the motives behind user participation (the why) in public e-service development. We also identify two basic forms of how user participation is addressed in public e-service development projects: 1) veneered participation, and 2) ad-hoc participation. Furthermore, we argue that any decisions made regarding user participation in public e-service development should be based on conscious and informed choices concerning why user participation is needed and what it may bring for different stakeholders and their interests.

This article problematizes a basic assumption that action research should be conducted in terms of acceptance by management. The importance of approval from the responsible stakeholders at the work practice, which is the subject of action research, has traditionally been emphasized in academic literature. External pressure can constrain an organisation to initiate and fulfil different types of needs for change. In this article we address the question of whether it is appropriate to accomplish action research in a way that creates pressure on an organisation to act. If the public risks suffering as a result of an organisation´s inability or unwillingness to identify and rectify serious problems, there are strong arguments to answer “yes” to this question. This answer is particularly relevant when it comes to governmental organisations. The public has a legitimate requirement that tax-financed organisations should be well-functioning. This article illustrates how action research can put pressure on a work practice, and discusses the problems and challenges of this type of research design. An important contribution to action research literature based on this paper is that it shows that the dilemma in action research of balancing practice interests and those of science is not just about dealing with a dual agenda. The interest of the practice interests is multi-faceted. This paper points at the relationship between action research and principles for conducting critical research in information systems. Practical implications that can be drawn based on this paper are for example that it clarifies the challenge of different considerations that may be eligible in action research.

This research in progress paper explores smart meters and demand side management (DSM) challenges and how this is perceived by suppliers of smart grids. It builds on semi-structured interviews and a literature review showing that smart meters are a highly important, relevant, and interesting research topic. We identify a need to include knowledge on how to develop smart meter technology further as well as how to increase both supplier and energy user engagement and involvement in development of smart meters technology. Our research shows that there exist gaps between: policies, goals and expectations on one side and implementation and use of smart meters on the other side. Based on initial results we conclude that there is a need to explore DSM and smart meter technology further and to learn from a social-technical IS perspective to overcome a one-sided perspective, or even deterministic view, on technology.

There are a lot of reasons reported for why organisations start a sourcing decision. This chapter discusses this theme based on two questions: Does the need and/or wish to increase e-Government services influence the start of a sourcing decision process aiming at reorganising hosting of software applications and if it does, how does it influence the start of such a decision-making process? The point of departure, besides a literature review, is a sourcing decision-making process in a Swedish municipality. When analysing the sourcing decision, five suggested propositions developed from the factors, control, core competence, capability, cost, and strategy, are used. It is concluded that municipalities in Sweden has to prepare for being more of an e-Government organisation, which means that more of the services the municipalities' employees has done before citizens will do by themselves. This demands that to be able to offer future e-Government services municipalities need to have control over software applications. From this study it is suggested that centralisation of hosting can be seen as decentralisation of work tasks from an e-Government perspective.