Managing inter-organisational workflows in eGovernment services

Abstract

E-government refers to the use of ICTs to promote more efficient and effective government services, allow greater public access to information and make government more accountable to citizens. Though e-government initiatives are common in most countries, getting the claimed benefits of e-government has not been easy for various technological as well as organisational reasons. In addition to government structures and ICT systems, government processes have played a very significant role in bringing e-government success. Unfortunately most government services involve processes carried out by multiple government agencies and have poor performance due to poor coordination among various agencies. This paper analyses such inter-organisational processes (IOPs) for improving their workflows and develops a framework for workflow management in such processes. Further it describes the concept of 'public process' as an effective workflow management tool, and explains its application through a case study.