Public E-Service Marketing: Master'S Thesis

MASTER’S THESIS
PUBLIC E-SERVICE
MARKETING
DIEGO BOUZAS CABELLO

RAVULA UDAY KUMAR
SOCIAL SCIENCE AND BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION PROGRAMMES
ELECTRONIC COMMERCE PROGRAMME
Department of Business Administration and Social Sciences

Division of Industrial Marketing
Supervisor: Lennart Persson
Preface
This study was performed as our master’s thesis during the end of 2005 and beginning of
2006. Throughout the process of writing this, we have learned that writing a thesis is neither
overly exciting, nor particularly fun. On the other hand, it has been a very useful and valuable
experience, and we have learned a great deal, not only about the topic at hand, but also how to
manage great workload within a limited timeframe. However, this workload would not have
been manageable if we had not received help and support from a number of people who we
would like to mention.
First of all, we would like to thank Professor Lennart Persson for his help and supervision
during the writing of the thesis. Moreover, we would like to express our gratitude to all
managers who are to allocate their valuable time in order share their professional knowledge
with us during Christmas season. – Thank you all!
On a personal level, Diego would like to thanks all his family for their help and specially to
my friends Jorkmon, Fofo, Rudolf Senior and his girlfriend, Jojo, Tiger, girlfriend of Tiger,
Comegalletas, girlfriend of Comegalletas, child of Comegalletas, Rudolfita, Rudolf Junior,
Fofito, Fofita, Tortuga, Ballenita, Coco, Mendelito, the friend of Mendelito, Papa Rudolf,
Tamalú and Toto and from France, Lucky and Coconat and their friends and all our family.
Furthermore, I would like to show my appreciation and love towards Carine. – I will try to
allocate more time for you now when I am finally done.
Uday would like to give the greatest of thanks to his family for always being there when
needed, and constantly taking so extremely good care of me; sorry all this work has taken so
much of my time from you … Also, thanks to all my friends for being close to me.
Luleå University of Technology, 23 January 2006
Diego Bouzas Cabello Ravula Uday Kumar

Abstract
The aim of this thesis is to gain a better understanding of how public e-services can be
interpreted as a subset of E-commerce in terms of effects, barriers and possibilities toward
citizen. A contrasting multiple case study has been conducted through interview with two
different respondents in Spanish government operating in state subsidizing housing e-service
and foreign workers standardization process e-service respectively. Finally, the overall
perceived.
Table of Contents
1. INTRODUCTION --------------------------------------------------------------------- 1
1.1 BACKGROUND ------------------------------------------------------------------ 1

1.2 PROBLEM DISCUSSION ------------------------------------------------------- 4
1.2.1 Effects of public e-service ------------------------------------------------- 4
1.2.2 Barriers toward adoption of public e-service --------------------------- 5
1.2.3 Possibilities of public e-service toward citizen ------------------------- 5
1.3 PURPOSE -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7
1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS ------------------------------------------------------- 7
1.5 DELIMITATIONS ---------------------------------------------------------------- 7
1.6 SUMMARY OF INTRODUCTION AND THESIS OUTLINE ------------ 7
2. LITERATURE REVIEW & CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK ------------- 9
2.1 EFFECTS OF PUBLIC E-SERVICE ------------------------------------------- 9

2.1.1 Effects of public e-service function implementation ------------------- 9
2.1.2 Effects of public e-service quality ---------------------------------------- 10
2.1.3 Effects of public e-service ICT process ---------------------------------- 11
2.1.4 Effects of public e-service operation ------------------------------------- 11
2.2 BARRIERS TOWARD ADOPTION OF PUBLIC E-SERVICE ----------- 12
2.2.1 Architectural framework barriers of public e-service ------------------ 12
2.2.1.1 Access layer ------------------------------------------------------ 14
2.2.1.2 E-government layer ---------------------------------------------- 14
2.2.1.3 E-Business layer ------------------------------------------------- 14
2.2.1.4 Infrastructure layer ---------------------------------------------- 14
2.2.2 Technology and security barriers of public e-service ------------------ 15
2.2.3 Financial and policy barriers of public e-service ----------------------- 18
2.2.4 Citizen barriers of public e-service --------------------------------------- 19
2.2.5 Strategy barriers of public e-service -------------------------------------- 19
2.2.6 Organizational barriers of public e-service ------------------------------ 19
2.3 POSSIBILITIES OF PUBLIC E-SERVICE TOWARD CITIZEN --------- 22
2.3.1 Possibilities in techno-centric view of public e-service --------------- 22
2.3.2 Possibilities in citizen-centric view of public e-service --------------- 22
2.3.3 Possibilities in application of public e-service -------------------------- 23
2.3.4 Possibilities in engineering of public e-service ------------------------- 23
2.3.5 Possibilities in operations and optimization of public e-service ------ 25
2.3.6 Possibilities in virtual data of public e-service ------------------------- 27
2.4 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK ----------------------------------------------- 29
2.4.1 Conceptualization ----------------------------------------------------------- 29
2.4.1.1 Effects of public e-service -------------------------------------- 29
2.4.1.2 Barriers towards adoption of public e-service --------------- 30
2.4.1.3 Possibilities of public e-service toward citizen -------------- 32
2.4.2 Emerged frame of reference ----------------------------------------------- 33
2.5 SUMMARY OF LITERATURE REVIEW AND ---------------------------- 34
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY --------------------------------------------------- 35
3.1 PURPOSE OF THE RESEARCH ----------------------------------------------- 35

3.2 RESEARCH APPROACH ------------------------------------------------------- 36
3.2.1 Inductive versus deductive approach ------------------------------------- 36
3.2.2 Qualitative versus quantitative approach -------------------------------- 36
3.3 RESEARCH STRATEGY -------------------------------------------------------- 37
3.4 DATA COLLECTION METHOD ---------------------------------------------- 38
3.5 SAMPLE SELECTION ----------------------------------------------------------- 41
3.6 ANALYSIS OF DATA ----------------------------------------------------------- 42
3.7 QUALITY STANDARDS -------------------------------------------------------- 43
3.7.1 Construct validity ----------------------------------------------------------- 44
3.7.2 External validity ------------------------------------------------------------ 44
3.7.3 Reliability -------------------------------------------------------------------- 45
3.8 SUMMARY OF RESEARCH METHODOLOGY --------------------------- 45
4. DATA PRESENTATION ------------------------------------------------------------ 47
4.1 CASE ONE – STATE SUBSIDIZED HOUSING E-SERVICE ------------ 47

4.1.2 Barriers towards adoption of public e-service -------------------------- 50
4.2 CASE TWO – FOREIGN WORKERS STANDARDIZATION ----------- 55
PROCESS E-SERVICE
5. ANALYSIS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 60
5.1 WITHIN CASE STATE SUBSIDIZED HOUSING E-SERVICE --------- 60

5.2 WITHIN CASE FOREIGN WORKERS STANDARDIZATION ---------- 64
PROCESS E-SERVICE
5.3 CROSS CASE ANALYSIS ------------------------------------------------------ 67
5.4 SUMMARY OF ANALYSIS ---------------------------------------------------- 74
6. FINDINGS & CONCLUSIONS ---------------------------------------------------- 76
6.1 HOW CAN THE EFFECTS OF PUBLIC E-SERVICE --------------------- 76

BE DESCRIBED?
6.2 HOW CAN THE BARRIERS TOWARD ADOPTION --------------------- 77

OF PUBLIC E-SERVICE BE EXPLAINED?
6.3 HOW CAN THE POSSIBILITIES OF PUBLIC E-SERVICE -------------- 78

TOWARD CITIZEN BE EXPANDED?
6.4 OVERALL CONCLUSIONS ---------------------------------------------------- 79
6.5 IMPLICATIONS ------------------------------------------------------------------ 80

6.5.1 Implications for management --------------------------------------------- 80
6.5.2 Implications for theory ----------------------------------------------------- 80
6.5.3 Recommendations for further research ---------------------------------- 81
REFERENCES ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 82
APPENDIX A – INTERVIEW GUIDE

List of tables
Table 3.1 Relevant situations for different research strategies ------------------------ 37
Table 3.2 Six sources of evidence: strengths and weaknesses -------------------------- 39
Table 3.3 Case study tactics for four design tests ---------------------------------------- 43
Table 5.1 Effects of public e-service ------------------------------------------------------- 67
Table 5.2 Barriers toward adoption of public e-service -------------------------------- 69
Table 5.3 Possibilities of public e-service toward citizen ------------------------------- 72
List of figures
Figure 1.1 Layers in public administration ----------------------------------------------- 3
Figure 1.2 Thesis outline -------------------------------------------------------------------- 8
Figure 2.1 Framework of e-government architecture ----------------------------------- 13
Figure 2.2 Classification of e-government barriers ------------------------------------- 21
Figure 2.3 Stages in e-governance engineering methodology -------------------------- 25
Figure 2.4 Definition of the determinants ------------------------------------------------- 26
Figure 2.5 Determinants of service, marketing, design and delivery ------------------ 27
Figure 2.6 Emerged frame of reference --------------------------------------------------- 34
Figure 3.1 Summary of research methodology ------------------------------------------- 46
Figure 4.1 State subsidized housing e-service site --------------------------------------- 48
(SSH e-service site)
Figure 4.2 Foreign workers standardization process e-service site ------------------- 55
(FWSP e-service site)
Figure 6.1 Authors’ emerged perception of conducted research ---------------------- 78
BOUZAS & RAVULA INTRODUCTION
1. Introduction
This first chapter is intended to give background information to the area of
research. First a brief background discussion regarding to public marketing as a
concept will be provided followed by an introduction to public management. Then the
problem discussion, leading to the purpose, research questions, and finally,
delimitations for this thesis will be put forth.
1.1 Background
The explanation of E-commerce is very extensive and can be interpreted in
different conduct and depending on whom you ask, electronic commerce has different
definitions mainly with look upon to communications, business process, service and
online requirement. E-commerce can be defined as “buying and selling over digital
media” while buying can be left out if the buying process is electronic, the selling
procedure is electronic as well (Mariga, 2003). E-commerce can be more
unambiguously described as electronic production via public or private networks plus
electronic publishing, electronic banking, and electronic transaction. Through the use of
e-commerce technology impact, businesses can split information by electronic means
and manner services online so consumers can achieve services from the businesses
(Kotzab & Madlberger, 2001).
Online marketing or e-marketing is the adjustment and expansion of marketing

strategies in the Web surroundings as a subset of E-Commerce and includes all factors
that have an effect on a Web site’s competence, like the idea, the content, the structure,
the interface, the implementation, the maintenance, the promotion and the advertising
(Krishnamurthy, 2004). Since supplementary and extra businesses are using the Web to
carry out their activities, issues like boundary usability, simple navigation and
successful supporting services become decisive and influence their triumph noticeably
(Ancarani, 2002). However, single important trouble that arises is that Web users are
confronted with too many options. Currently, Web personalization is the most talented
approach to ease this information overwork. It improves user communication with Web
sites and offers them the skill to set up long-term and loyal dealings (Krishnamurthy,
2004).
A physical service (p-service) can be defined as any action or profit that one
gathering can tender to another that is basically intangible and does not outcome in the
possession of anything (Li & Zhao, 2003). Investigate on e-services is still in its
childhood and no commonly accepted theoretical conceptualization for consumer
evaluations of these forces has yet emerged (Curran & Meuter, 2005). Earlier period
conceptualizations of services were produced to confine the interpersonal character of
the service and may not adequately cover the specific descriptions of customer
communications with SST (Self-Service Technology) like electronic services (Ranerup,
2005).
PUBLIC E-SERVICE MARKETING 1

As a significant part of e-marketing, an e-service can be explained as an

incorporated solution for personalized services that are delivered all the way through the
Internet, enabling the dynamic innovation, composition and delivery of services. The
definition of e-service is the early landing on the home page until the requested service
has been ended or the ultimate product has been delivered and is fit for use. E-services
have been viewed as Internet-based customer service and online financial credit
management services and alternately as a core in the service concept (Kim et al., 2003).
Although, by definition, the spirit of marketing is to generate exchanges that

gratify individual and organizational objectives. But the major idea in public marketing
is that the public sector simply recognises exchanges when customers offer a financial
reciprocation as is the case with covering costs or setting mercantile prices for public
services of financial value (American Marketing Association, 1985). The position of the
state cannot be compared to a company and then, is at last to govern, not to construct or
hand out services. That is why marketing in the public sector has not yet reached the
rank of a full mechanism. Marketing is still, in essence, tangential to the running of
public services. There are two reasons for this: first, the growth of marketing is still at
an early phase; second, marketing has not developed in a mode that is explicit to the
circumstance of government (Buurma, 2001).
The meaning of e-business, and in so doing of e-service, is a multifaceted issue.

In order to define e-service in the context of the public sector is necessary the
understanding of the definition e-government as implementing cost-effective models for
populace, industry, centralized employees, and other stakeholders to perform online
business connections. This notion involves strategy, course of action, administration and
equipment (Madlberger and Kotzab, 2001).
Public e-services provision involves, according to a standard sight, the public

administration performing as service contributor to customers such as citizens and
business. On the other hand it also makes available the contact channels that make
possible the first activity to take place. A vital insight here is the behaviour in which
general, national policies in association with a diversity of issues are used by actors in
existing cases, touching the design of electronic activities (Ranerup, 2005). For an
additional understanding e-government can be identified independently:
- E-service. The e-service encounter is the primary landing on the home page until
the requested provision has been concluded or the final product has been
delivered and is fit for use (Ibid).
- E-government. Provision of government information to citizens, the facilitation

of dynamic contribution and consultation for citizens, e.g. electronic voting
(Ibid).
- E-public service. Delivery of public services to society, commerce partners and

suppliers, and those functioning in the government sector by electronic media
including information, communication, interaction and contracting, and
transaction (Ibid).

However, since we have chosen public e-service as major theme of this thesis,
we identify e-government as a broader access to government services, improved levels
of service, government reform, greater transparency, reduction in corruption and citizen
empowerment (Schware and Deane, 2003 in Lam 2005) but always oriented, directed
and based on online services (e-service) in government. From our point of view, this
means that every time we are naming “e-government” we are exclusively referring to
public e-service to users (citizens). Hence, e-government is the unity between e-service
and public Administration.
Public Administrations are organizations giving services to the citizen and

therefore, the electronic services can be useful to improve the public services. Public
administration is, broadly speaking, the implementation of policy inside a state
structure. The adjective “public” denotes “government” and is different from private
administration. A good operational definition is taking care of the state, the international
organizations and business by civil servants within the executive branch of government,
other than public policy. Public administration is the procedure and revision of policy
performance in the federal state, and local governments. Governments are completed of
all levels of bureaucracies and within these bureaucracies managers use employees to
carry out the policies (Ballester, 1999).
The public sector in a variety of European nationalities has approached to be

familiar with citizens as customers and has started to apply marketing implements and
strategic marketing planning, in order to sell its strategy to the citizenry. From this point
of view, the citizen is the user of the e-service. However, the actors are the responsible
to offer and to inform the physical service. The public exchange is the communication
between actor and citizen each other. Since we talked in a physical way (not online),
this communication fails very often (Buurma, 2001).
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
E-Service
E-Marketing
E-Commerce
Figure 1.1. Layers in public administration

1.2 Problem discussion

1.2.1 Effects of public e-service
Since the beginning of the 90’s, public administration has been confronted by a
series of new demands. Society has been transformed by the influence of new
technologies. Over the past few decades a wide range of reforms and administration
techniques have been created in public administration to develop productivity and
efficiency. This group is described as the new public management which puts the
importance on the monetary devolution, clear principles of measuring performance,
obvious relationship between inputs and outputs, greater than before accountability, the
dominance of private sector supervision practises and styles, the good organization of
competition and contracting out and efficiency of prudence (Chapman, 1998).
In connection with this expansion there is a need to consider whether new

techniques, management information systems, and organizational forms guide to
increase productivity, efficiency and quality. Because of the complexity of public
administration, this may be tricky (March, 2004). Nowadays, there is no doubt that the
actual development in the Occidental modern societies is much more complex than
before. Recently it is possible to use the e-tools of marketing in the daily use of public
Administration (Ballart, 1998).
The arrival of Internet and the World Wide Web has enabled an association to
renovate many of its services from material processes to electronic processes, such as e-
tailing, e-banking, e-procurement, e-shopping and therefore e-services. Thus, an
exciting feature is therefore to get a more effective progress from physical services to
electronic services (Li & Zhao, 2003). The main cause of this revolution in public e-
services is due to a fast development of the society in terms of an opened-mind and a
very advanced technology. This maturity has caused a higher require of functions
connected to e-services (Kotler, 1999).
Basically, e-service excellence in public sector is predicated on the public

service reunion the three key criteria of standardized consumer groups, definable
responsibilities and quantifiable outcomes. However, the problem appears when the e-
service is only based on expressing contents instead of giving the physical service as
well. For instance, someone can download some papers but it is not possible to submit
these documents through Internet and so the physical access to public administration
office will be primary and the online access will be secondary (Li & Zhao, 2003)
The study of e-services allows examining the potential for applying total quality
in the public administration. A correlation will be possible among e-service content
quality, technological difficulty of web sites, and the application of criteria for assessing
efficiency, effectiveness, and transparency by e-service (Ancarani, 2002).

1.2.2 Barriers toward adoption of public e-service
The advance of processor technologies has formed modifications in information

management in many fields. More recently, it has become obvious that the information
and sales functions of e-business need to be executed by electronic customer service.
This challenges many conventional assumptions about how to use the online
atmosphere to move up profits by dropping costs, through mechanization and amplified
competence, and by intensifying revenues, through attractive service and building
lucrative customer relationships (Riel & Liljander & Jurriëns, 2001).
The use of the internet in the private sector is already extensive. However, a
relative delay exists in its use in the public sector in particular in the local public e-
services sector (e-LPS) such as gas, water, electricity and. Such a delay is in part due to
the detail that e-service does not cover the main operations of these services, although it
does make available facilitating and supporting services previously provided through
front offices. These facilitating and supportive services include the provision of
information and certification, receiving and managing complaints (McManis & Ryker &
Cox, 2001). The technological push has been paralleled by a changed legislative
framework, but not in the equivalent intensity. This structure aims primarily to
assurance transparency, efficiency, and effectiveness in the provision of public services
(Ancarani, 2001).
The rising ease of use of information and communication technology (ICT) has
thus provided an occasion for the public sector to make the process easier of applying
the aforesaid criteria, as explicitly required in the eEurope Action Plan. However,
achievement in online services depends on strategic use of ICT in association with a
talent to reorganise back-office and inner processes successfully (Ibid).
The consideration specified to internet application is escalating in the public

sector, mostly due to the greater than ever number of users, the opportunities for charge
reduction, and the need for diversification of actions (Chias, 1995). However, neither
the quality of the e-services provided nor the benefits actually gained by customers are
so high as to stop in this point of the process (Ancarini, 2001). The area of e-service
quality and dimension in the public sector has been less well considered. The opening of
the service quality expression in the public sector is a more recent observable fact that
can be traced to the new public management society (Buckley, 2003).
1.2.3 Possibilities of public e-service toward citizen
The present eagerness of public sector organisations for the potential offered by
the Internet mirrors that in the private sector. But one of the most interesting questions
for answering is whether the Internet can offer public sector opportunities to amplify on
the whole e-service quality (Buckley, 2003). The evaluation of this problem is very
attractive oriented to the potential benefits of e-service, including ease of access to
information, direct access and contact with specific legislative body, superior
accessibility to services, and cost investments and efficiencies in services stipulation
(Dolen & Ruyter, 2002).

Since clients trust on e-services as a opportunity to advance their marks, it is

indispensable to discuss about what the perception of e-services components is. E-
service components are trade modules that characterize basic independent e-business
service processes or functions such as validation, approval, announcement, negotiation,
and development integration. A service component is a generic pattern of a service that
gives the required functionality. Component-based architectures have appeared as a
standard theory in many areas of application development. The goal of component-
based e-service architecture is to offer interoperability of multi-vendor frameworks and
to hurry application expansion (Kim et al., 2003).
Certifying the implementation of an e-service is a significant and decisive

subject for an e-government infrastructure. In fact being able to text that an e-service
was actually carried out, specified the legal value that is often attached to data managed
and exchanged by public administrations, is of the utmost magnitude. This process is
made more multifaceted in cases, like it often happens in the public administration
sector, where e-services are based on legacy systems managed by autonomous and self-
governing organizations (Bañón & Carrillo, 1997).
Meanwhile, citizens, predisposed by private sector experiences, are expecting

public e-services that are not only of high quality, but also incorporated across different
public bodies and agencies (Hazzlet & Hill, 2003). It is vital to investigate what kinds of
factors persuade consumer attitudes and behaviours towards e-service. One of the
central doctrine of e-business, and one that has also been alluded to by central
government, is that the information period should increase the choice of how citizens
and business obtain e-services, not limit it (Dolen & Ruyter, 2002).
While the fertile creation and management of Web sites are becoming crucial
rudiments of public sector management, little is identified about their effectiveness.
Research into the effectiveness of e-government labours tends to give attention to
content investigation or method of usage (Hsu & Chiu & Ju, 2004). These may not be
entirely correct metrics with which to estimate achievement. Aspects of e-service
pertinent in this background contain: consumer perceptions of safety and levels of trust;
response period (bearing in mind that Internet consumers may well be familiar to fast
responses), navigability of the Web site, download time, fulfilment of service promised,
timely updating of information and site helpfulness and functionality (Hazzlet & Hill,
2003).
Furthermore, in order to make certain high quality services upcoming, the only
applicable question for citizens interacting with online agencies is whether “you have
solved the right problem” or “you have helped me to solve it” (Ancarani, 2005). It is,
however, accredited that the very real tensions, which live among technology, cost,
currency and accuracy of information, quality of e-service and the needs of the citizens,
are compound issues with no simple solutions (Hazzlet & Hill, 2003).

1.3 Purpose
With the above problem discussion in mind, the purpose of this thesis becomes:
“a better understanding of how public e-services can be interpreted as a subset

of E-commerce in terms of effects, barriers and possibilities toward citizen”
In order to gain the knowledge necessary for accomplishing the stated purpose,
these research questions have been outlined. These are presented in the section below.
1.4 Research questions

• RQ1. How can the effects of public e-service be described?
• RQ2. How can the barriers toward adoption of public e-service be explained?
• RQ3. How can the possibilities of public e-service toward citizen be expanded?
1.5 Delimitations
Due to limitations in time as well as finances, it would be impossible to cover all
aspects of a public online service. We will not cover the design and the execution of the
e-service. We will not put e-services to the test as well.
1.6 Summary of Introduction and thesis outline

As it can be seen in Figure 1.2 below, this thesis consists of six chapters. By now,
the reader is already familiar with the content of chapter one which consisted of a
background discussion followed by a description of the research problem, the purpose
with research questions and their limitations. In chapter two the reader will be provided
with an overview of previous studies relevant to this thesis´ research purpose. These
studies will then be narrowed down into a conceptual framework at the end of the
chapter. Chapter three will describe how the research was conducted and which
methodological choices that were made, as well as motivations to these choices. This is
followed by chapter four where the collected empirical data will be presented. This data
is then compared with the concepts outlined in the conceptual framework through an
analysis in chapter five. Finally in chapter six the findings and conclusions of the
previous chapter´s analysis will be put on display, the chapter will end with a discussion
regarding implications for management and theory, as well as suggestions for further
research.

INTRODUCTION
LITERATURE REVIEW & CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
DATA PRESENTATION
ANALYSIS
FINDINGS & CONCLUSIONS
Figure 1.2. Thesis outline

BOUZAS & RAVULA LITERATURE REVIEW & CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
2. Literature
This chapter will present previous research, and studies relevant to the purpose
and research questions outlined in the thesis´ first chapter. First of all, studies
regarding the effects of public e-service will be put forth. This is connected to the
second research question concerning the barriers toward adoption of public e-service.
Then, in the subsequent section, the research will discuss about the possibilities of
public e-service toward citizen. An important point to emphasize is that when we are
talking about e-government, we are exclusively referring to public e-service as we have
described in the previous chapter.
2.1 Effects of public e-service

2.1.1 Effects of public e-service function implementation
There are quite a lot of effects in the running of the e-service function. One has
been termed the “service multiplier effect” (Aberdeen Group, 1999), which refers to the
detail that any e-business existence creates a demand for pre and after sales service
actions. Hewlett Packard, for instance, is speedily transforming their after-sales business
into a profit-generating e-service business unit (McCarthy, 1999 in Ruyter & Wetzels &
Kleijnen, 2001).
The implementation of e-services extends the variety of options for clients and
the use of an improved service portfolio may pick up the value of a relationship with a
meticulous company for the customer (Alsop, 1999 in Ruyter & Wetzels & Kleijnen,
2001).
E-service applications may significantly reduce the cost of service and allow for
service differentiation and segmentation in service contracts, i.e. one segment of
customers may be offered self-service only, while another is entitled to self-service as
well as live communication and support (Ruyter & Wetzels & Kleijnen, 2001).
Many companies are adopting Internet-based e-services for conducting business

transactions and sharing business information with their customers and business
partners. More recently, companies have started using e-services as a means of
automating relationships with their customers and allowing customers to form alliances,
by unification with company databases and information management systems (Torre &
Moxon, 2001 in Lu & Zhang, 2003).
Four effects have been recognized for assessing e-service applications from a
provider’ viewpoint. E-service function (F) is concerned with the ability and quality of
the e-services. E-service cost (C) is the expenses incurred in adopting e-services. E-
service benefit (B) is concerned with the remuneration gained through employing e-
services, which growth attribute takes into account the strategies, policies and types of
companies involved when developing e-service (D) applications (Lu & Zhang, 2003).

2.1.2 Effects of public e-service quality
According to Van Riel et al. (2001) in Santos (2003), five mechanisms can be
proposed related to the improvements of quality in public e-services:
1. The centre service (Ibid).

2. Facilitating services (Ibid).
3. Supporting services (Ibid).
4. Complementary services (Ibid).
5. The user interface. Through which the customer accesses the services (Ibid).
According to Yang (2001), the following potential effects of online service quality can
be proposed:
- Reliability. This includes the rightness of order fulfilment, punctual delivery,

and billing precision; this definition clearly excluding an information-only site
(Ibid).
- Responsiveness. This includes prompt responses to customers’ investigation,

calls, or e-mails (or responses to customers within a promised time border),
information retrieval, search speed and search friendliness (Ibid).
- Access. This includes the catalogue of the company’s street and e-mail
addresses, phone and fax numbers, ease of access of service representatives,
availability of chat room, and other message channels (Ibid).
- Ease of use. This is related to an easy-to-remember URL address, well-

organised, well-structured, and easy-to-follow catalogues, site navigability, and
concise and understandable contents, terms and conditions (Ibid).
- Attentiveness. This consists of individualised interest, personal thank-you notes

from online retailers, and availability of a message area for customer questions
or observations (Ibid).
- Credibility. This refers to the business times past of online retailers, special
rewards or discounts, and referral banners on other Web sites (Ibid).
- Security. This includes security of private information and smallest online

purchase risks (Ibid).
For online suppliers, e-service quality can generate distinctiveness, and this is
especially helpful for small companies. A well-designed Web site creates an interest in
the firm and its offerings, and it should also propose the users opportunities to rebuild
the Web site in their minds so that it matches their cognitive processes (Grönroos et al.,
2000 in Santos 2003). E-service quality can not only suggest online commercial
companies competitive advantages in the market place, but also involve customers in
the product-development process, through rapid feedback and superior customer
relationships (Santos, 2003).

2.1.3 Effects of public e-service ICT process
E-government is information and communication technology (ICT) applied to

ordering at least three kinds of processes:
- First, it attends to the relationship (transaction) between the administration and

the citizen (customer) and the related re-engineering of the manners internal to
the administration (Bellamy and Taylor, 1998 in Ciborra, 2005).
- A second level regards the method in which the limitations between the state
and the market are redrawn, by the formation of an electronic, minimal state,
more transparent, agile and responsible (Heeks, 1999 & Stiglitz et al., 2000 in
Ciborra, 2005).
- A third level deals with the idea of assist policies expected at introducing e-
government into developing countries. Better accountability and improved
clearness are the description of high-quality governance (Ciborra, 2005).
In e-service, the customer’s contact or contact with the organisation is through

the ICT itself. This remote service encounter afterwards has developed into a self-
service experience (Dabholkar, 2000 in Surjadjaja & Ghosh & Antony, 2003).
However, self-service experience and e-service experience are rather different. In self-
service operations, a customer has to go to the ICT centre (for example, cash points) to
receive a service whereas, in e-service, a customer can suitably receive the service
through the Internet at home or other spaces. In other words, self-service is less flexible
than e-service due to constraints of location. In self-service, the functionality of ICT is
mostly customised, with little personalisation. In contrast, in e-service, the functionality
of the ICT is customized to offer personalised services (Surjadjaja & Ghosh & Antony,
2003).
2.1.4 Effects of public e-service operation
Specifically, e-democracy or e-government operations absorb (Riley, 2003 in

Saxena, 2005):
- Electronic engagement (e-engagement). Winning the public in the policy

process by the use of electronic networks (Ibid).
- Electronic consultation (e-consultation). Refers to communication between

public servants and the citizenry and interest groups (Ibid).
- Electronic controllership (e-controllership). Consisting of the potential to

manage the cost, performance, and services of an organisation electronically
(Ibid).

The special effects showed in e-government operations are to (Schaware &

Deane, 2003):
- Bring government closer to citizens by providing them with easier entrance to

information through personal computers and telephones (Ibid).
- Modernize public services in which joined-up government institutions be in

touch and work more effectively and efficiently (Ibid).
- Reduce opportunities for trivial fraud at the different point of service delivery
(Ibid).
- Increase and capture profits more efficiently, e.g. taxes, fines, and license fees
(Ibid).
- Increase mechanisms to construct more accountability and transparency in the

public sector (Ibid).
2.2 Barriers toward adoption of public e-service

2.2.1 Architecture framework barriers of public e-service
A recent study reported that 60 per cent of respondents held that government
organisations would be more effective if citizens could use the internet to register their
cars, pay parking tickets, fill out forms and apply for permits. About 50 per cent thought
it would be a excellent idea to permit citizens to vote online and have government
auctions on the internet (James, 2000 in Ebrahim & Irani, 2005).
Accordingly, government leaders and officials are increasingly conscious of the

potential of e-government to get better the performance of government organisations
and provide potential remuneration to their citizens and business partners. However,
adoption of e-government is not straightforward and cannot be done in a limited period
of time, rather it requires an integrative architecture framework come up to place
government information and services online. This is one of the reasons why many
government organisations are still in the infancy stage of e-government acceptance.
Another important reason for this delay is that e-governments have need of significant
changes in organisational infrastructure, which, in turn, can provoke confrontation
(Ebrahim & Irani, 2005).
Although there are major differences in the composition of organisations, there

is a quantity of technologies and systems infrastructure that many organisations need to
adopt in common to provide conveniences for the integration of their systems in a
method that enables them to assemble a raised area for sharing their knowledge
possessions. For example, an e-government portal requires a common and integrated
architecture framework that allows different organisations, provinces, and
municipalities to share and exchange data, independent of formats, devices and
fundamental architecture (Sharma and Gupta, 2002 in Ebrahim & Irani, 2005).
Therefore, organisation must have a comprehensible understating of architecture
frameworks from both the technical and information management level (Ibid).

Since e-government is a somehow new research area, its architecture and

approval strategy have not been broadly discussed in the literature. Therefore, it is
interesting to review and study these concepts from other pertinent areas such as e-
business, e-services, and e-commerce. Notwithstanding, a number of studies have
discussed the architecture or machinery of e-government. However, these studies did
not concentrate on the aspect of business management model and how it is united with
the IT infrastructure. Figure 2.1 shows the barriers in the architecture framework of e-
government which is divided into four layers: access layer, e-government layer, e-
business layer and infrastructure layer (Ibid).
Figure 2.1. Framework of e-government architecture

Source: Ebrahim & Irani (2005, p.593)

2.2.1.1 Access layer
This layer considers of the simplest level of e-government architecture, since it

is controlled and managed by government users. However, it is essential that public
sector organisations provide a common way of finding all government information and
services, preserve channel coordination, generate a common look and feel across
different channels, and meet the terms with the guidelines of technical standards
(Cabinet Office, 2000 in Ebrahim & Irani, 2005).
2.2.1.2 E-government layer
Since governments are very compound organisations with hundreds of agencies,

departments, directorates, commissions, and regulatory bodies, a single government
portal is still in its childhood stage. One of the reasons is that it is difficult to conclude
which features and applications are most suitable for creating a high-functioning e-
government portal. Another reason is technical; providing integrated services can only
be realised if all public authorities are interconnected and their systems are
interoperable. It needs comprehensive technology, systems integration and project
management skills as will be explained in e-business layer (Ebrahim & Irani, 2005).
2.2.1.3 E-business layer
The incorporation of IT applications and components inside and outside

organisational frontier remains costly and time consuming, due to the heterogeneity of
the computing environments concerned in public sector organisations (Chen, 2003 &
Themistocleous, 2002). As well, the legal systems and applications across government
organisations need to be upgraded to a web-enabled point to extend their functionalities
beyond organisational limits and to realize full communication between all the
information systems and their processes (Ebrahim & Irani, 2005).
Traditionally, administration departments have maintained divide databases that

are not connected to other government departments at the same level or even different
level such as the local or central government level. This creates barriers between
organisations systems and processes, in term of data transmission and communication,
and therefore, makes implementation of e-government single portal not easy. Therefore,
the integration of government database systems, processes and applications play a
critical role in this layer since e-government relies to a significant degree on existing
basic government data, existing systems and existing processes. This layer includes
several applications and tools that are emerging to help determine, assess, and achieve
consistent and integrated processes and information systems in public sector
organisation. However, it is difficult to predict which applications and information
systems will be the most useful and adaptable (Ibid).
2.2.1.4 Infrastructure layer
Building an information community by using e-business layer applications in an

efficient manner requires a technology infrastructure that reaches out to all parts of
public sector organisation. However, electronic communication within and between
public sector organisations is costly and incompetent without an effective infrastructure
and agreed standards and protocols between communicating systems (Ibid).

Therefore, this layer focuses on technologies that should be in place before e-

government services can be offered consistently and effectively to the public. The
potential of these technologies is to hold up and integrate the operations of information
systems and applications in e-business layer across organisations by presenting the
necessary standards and protocols through network and communication infrastructure
approaches, e.g. intranet, extranet, and internet. They require the performance of the
applications and procedures that enable not only G2C and G2G communication
worldwide but also, reinforce the communication of information within organisation
(Ibid).
2.2.2 Technology and security barriers of public e-service
Many e-government initiatives are in their strategic phase of execution (infancy),

however, some key trouble and barriers are already launching to appear. There are a
number of barriers knowledgeable in public sector organisations that avoid the
realisation of expected benefits and degrade successful acceptance of e-government
projects. Technology itself would not guarantee success with e-government but, it is
essential that any e-government plan must guarantee that it has sufficient resources,
adequate infrastructure, management support, capable IT staff, and effective IT training
and support (Ibid).
Despite the cost of IT going down, an adequate IT infrastructure still represents

the key barrier for e-government approval. The infrastructure is collected of hardware
and software that will supply secure electronic services to citizens, businesses, and
employees (Ebrahim & Irani, 2005). Bonham et al. (2001) in Ebrahim & Irani (2005)
agree that governments view a lack of technical infrastructure as a significant barrier to
the development of government organisations’ capabilities to make available online
services and transactions. They also agree that unreliable IT infrastructure in public
sector organisations will degrade e-government performance.
A barrier frequently cited is the need to ensure adequate security and privacy in
an e-government strategy (Daniels et al., 2001 in Ebrahim & Irani, 2005). Bonham et al.
(2001) & Gefen et al. (2002) in Ebrahim & Irani (2005) agree that one of the most
significant barriers for implementing e-government applications is computer security,
privacy and confidentiality of the personal data. One of the sophisticated applications of
e-government is e-voting, which uses electronic ballots that allow voters to transmit
their vote to election officials over the internet. This application requires extensive
security approaches to secure the voting process and protect the voter personal data.
In addition, government organisations at all levels use, collect, process, and

disseminate a wide choice of receptive information on personal, financial, and medical
aspects. Hence, IT departments in organisations should be alerted that security and
privacy are not only vital for the availability and delivery of government services but
also to construct citizen self-confidence and trust in the online services and transactions
they grant or will be providing (Ebrahim & Irani, 2005).

There is a critic about the weak point of information systems’ security in public
sector organisations. E-government is measured to only succeed when all its
participants-including government agencies, private businesses and citizens-feel comfy
using electronic means to carry out private and sensitive transactions (McClure, 2000 in
Ebrahim & Irani, 2005). In addition, information management policy strategy and
standards must be reviewed periodically to certify that they are sufficient to the
electronic services delivery world. The procedures require that government web sites
use privacy notices to make certain that citizens will know what personal information
may be collected and how will be used (Ebrahim & Irani, 2005).
Chen et al. (2001) in Ebrahim & Irani (2005) recognize the deficiency of IT
skills as another potential barrier that confronts some challenging challenges about
government’s ability to provide the next generation of e-government services. One of
the reasons for this is that the complexity of attracting and retaining the correct IT
aptitude, particularly taking into account the opposition for these workers, and also
there is a lack of skilled staff in market that are familiar with major IT skills. As
McClure (2000, p. 18) in Ebrahim & Irani (2005) notes: “the increasing need for
qualified IT professionals puts governments in direct competition with the private sector
for scarce resources”. These skills include computer information systems analysis,
systems design, network construction, applications integration, maintain middleware
technologies such as database-oriented, transaction-oriented, and message-oriented,
operational management, web development, project management, and systems
maintenance, which are absent, or cannot be recruited easily by the public sector. These
positions have high complexity and scarcity of qualified applicants. However, some
governments may have IT staff, but most of their training may not equip them to
program industry-strength web-enabled applications. The challenge of new technology
has led to an increased commitment to training by public sector organisations (Ebrahim
& Irani, 2005).
Enhancing the effectiveness of e-government practices, public sector

organisations would need to move towards a higher level of e-government development,
which will require more and highly trained technical staff. Moreover, without fully
developing staff capabilities, agencies stand to miss out on the potential customer
service benefits presented by technology, so employees must have the training and tools
they need to do their jobs (Moon, 2002). The turnover rates of IT staff from public
sector organisations are generally increase because it is felt that payment and conditions
can not compete with those of private sector organisations, which severely affect the
progress of the implementation process of e-government (Irani, 2005).
Adoption of e-government requires a compatible of IT infrastructure and

integrated information systems, as well as advance technologies for preserving security
and integrity. Hence, for a public sector organisation, the cost of sophisticated hardware
and software is still a huge trouble. Another important financial problem is the elevated
operational cost of the existing IT infrastructure. The maintenance cost of such an
infrastructure is high, which presents additional financial barriers. Therefore,
organisations evaluate the cost relative to the benefits before adopting a new technology
(Ebrahim & Irani, 2005). This type of information technology at different level of
government has increased significantly in recent years. State portals are e-government
initiatives that need rational operational change and moderate institutional change (Gil
& García, 2005).

In study the performance sketch or rate of e-government services, the present

study assume that the adoption rate correspond with the number of government websites
formed over time. Some aspects of the transmission of innovations theory are working
to describe the experiential patterns. Power of this approach is that it is easy to conclude
the number of websites and their dates of formation by searching them on the web.
However, including single-handedly will not show the location of the websites and
related services (Kaaya, 2004).
According to Lam (2005), the classification of technology barriers can be

described as we describe below this paragraph:
- Lack of architecture interoperability. Differences in architecture are a major

motive for malfunction in application integration (Garlan et al., 1995)
including the use of diverse technology platforms, use of proprietary
technologies, the closed design of existing applications, absence of interfaces
and differences in development programming frameworks (Lam, 2005).
- Incompatible data standards. A basic requirement in e-government is the

aptitude for government applications to be able to exchange data in a faultless
way. There is a lack of data standards as a key technical barrier to electronic
government integration (e-Envoy, 2001 in Lam, 2005).
- Different security models. Trust and confidence between users and government
is recognized as a critical success factor in e-government adoption (Warkentin
et al., 2002). However, security models were identified as a barrier factor in the
technical integration of e-government systems. Applications that have evolved
independently rather than as part of an overall architecture inevitably end up
having their own security architecture that is often incompatible with that of
other applications (Volchkov, 2001).
- Inflexibility of legal systems. Many government agencies rely on legal

applications built 15-25 years ago to supply their core processing needs. The
intrinsic aim of many legal applications was as unconnected, typically
mainframe-based applications, rather than as network integrated applications
(Brodie and Stonebraker, 1995). Furthermore, a range of technical factors
which make it difficult to mix legal application can be highlighted including
the lack of published APIs, aging file formats, limitations in network
connectivity, deployment of monolithic rather than tiered architecture, and use
of archaic programming languages and a lack of documentation (Robertson,
1997 in Lam, 2005).
- Incompatible technical standards. Differences in the scientific standards

adopted by different government agencies can cause integration issues as the
exercise of different technical platforms and different programming
technologies (Microsoft DCOM versus Java). However, even when different
government agencies adopt the same technical standards, interoperability
across diverse technology versions appears as issue. Differences in
methodologies and modelling standards are another feature of technological
standards (Lam, 2005).

2.2.3 Financial and policy barriers of public e-service
From another standpoint, organisational society also forms barriers to e-

government within the organisation since some departments are unwilling to share their
business data or processes with other departments within the same organisation or with
external partners. They consider that connection or data sharing will weak their power.
For these departments and organisations the ownership and the control of business data
and processes is relate with their authority, which imply that politics also form a barrier
to e-government acceptance (Ebrahim & Irani, 2005).
Another barrier to the adoption of e-government is central government financial

support (Bonham et al., 2001). Traditionally, the main monetary resource for public
sector organisations is coming from central administration, which is hard to control, and
sometimes comes and goes in cycles that make it tricky to plan sustainable IT proposal
such as e-government (Heeks, 1999). Hence, the lack of economic resources from
central government for e-government funds was seen as a major barrier, particularly by
stakeholders from the government area (Ebrahim & Irani, 2005).
Related to financial support issues, first, government agencies can look

difficulties in obtaining the point of funding requested, especially if funding is drawn
from a funding pool that is meant to serve numerous initiatives. Second, issues can arise
in how those funds are managed and released (Lam, 2005).
Concerns over citizen privacy continue to be a prickle in e-government and

citizen privacy is recognized as a barrier. This must be done so in a guarded and
transparent method which protects sensitive information and in some cases, citizen
identity (Tillman, 2003). There is a lack of lucidity in the privacy policies between
specific government agencies as a major barrier. Questions regarding why data is being
collected, how it will be used and secured, and with whom it will be shared requires the
establishment of clear policies with respect to citizen privacy (Lam, 2005)
Besides there is a data ownership so many government agencies perceive

themselves as owners of a particular set of data, and are therefore naturally very
defensive about sharing that data with other agencies. An indisposition to share data
acts as an obstruction to e-government integration. To address this issue, the definition
of access rights to data would appear critical to establishing what constitutes legal and
legitimate access to data (Ibid).
In e-Government policy evolution and apart from e-government policy at a

national level, many government agencies are still in the process of formulating their
own specific policies for e-government. The absence of detailed e-government policy,
or their premature stage of development, had a decelerating effect on e-government
initiatives, particularly those of a more ambitious nature. Until such e-government
policy had been fully conceived, government agencies would be hesitant to speed ahead
with the development of new e-government applications and technology (Zhang &
Dawes & Sarkis, 2005).

2.2.4 Citizen barriers of public e-service
Customer preservation in e-services is mainly significant because of the low

switching costs, little is known about how consumers distinguish and estimate
electronic service release. This is of mainly imperative in the public sector where
government organisations have to carry their services by electronic means without an
tolerant of why citizens would use electronic service delivery channels more than other
traditional service delivery methods, government organisations cannot take the required
strategic behaviour to meet their citizen reception targets for these channels and
decrease costs. Therefore, this attempt to examine usage intent and consider possible
changes (Gilbert & Balestrini, 2004).
2.2.5 Strategy barriers of public e-service
According to Lam (2005), it is clear to classify the strategy barriers in different

lifestyle related to government:
- Lack of shared e-government goals and objectives. Without a ordinary set of

goals and objectives, the joint planning of projects by multiple government
agencies becomes impeded by the lack of clarity, confusion or conflict in the
definition of roles and everyday jobs and defences of rights (Ibid).
- Over-ambitious e-government milestones. Large-scale incorporation projects

often show a high level of difficulty, involving significance redesign of
processes and organizational structures (Themistocleous and Irani, 2001). Poor
estimation is a ordinary cause of overruns on IT projects (Whittaker, 1999).
- Lack of ownership and governance. This barrier appears for a lack of formal
project accountability or the dilution of accountability by having too many
stakeholders (Lam, 2005).
- Absence of implementation guidance. While central government establishes a

vision of e-government, agencies need guidance on how to translate that vision
into more concrete specifications for e-government services (Ibid).
2.2.6 Organisation barriers of public e-service
A further key barrier to e-government adoption tends to be organisational. It has

been established that to make best use of the potential offered by an e-government
initiative, government organisational culture, management strategy and individual
attitudes within the organisation need to be altered (Li & Steveson, 2002).
Organisational barrier relate to structural issues, such as fragmentation and poor
relations and communication between functional departments, and an acceptance by
senior management of the strategic benefits of new initiatives (Aichholzer & Schmutzer,
2000; Fletcher & Wright, 1995). As well, it relates to government business process,
management strategy, and organisational culture (Lenk & Traunmuller, 2000). It too
proposes a range of difficulty for public sector organisations, and advises that any
conversation of e-public service must contain internal and external environment
(Buckley, 2003).

As with e-business, public sector administrations are essential to change and

reengineer their business process to adapt innovative strategies and culture of e-
government. Government staff should be prepared for new ways of dealing with novel
technologies that appear with e-government. For example, they are used to dealing with
physical papers and forms, paper receipts, and traditional physical signatures, while e-
government allows citizens access to the organisation back-office distantly to complete
the transaction processing, which emerged with new technology solutions such as
electronic forms, digital signatures, electronic receipts and certificates (Ibid).
There is a lack of agency readiness and many government agencies are ill-
prepared for undertaking major e-government integration efforts demanded of
challenging e-government initiatives. The fact that e-government is a relatively new
idea suggests that many government agencies are still occupied in a learning process
about what e-government is and how it can be implemented within their own agencies
(Lam, 2005).
Connected to the slow pace of government reorganization, e-government

represents one of the most rigorous programmes of change within the public sector
(Woolridge, 2002 in Lam, 2005). The rapid rate of government transformation is known
as a major organisational barrier. Some government agencies found it difficult to
manage with the rapid velocity of reform. Changes in attitude are needed, not only in
terms of moving to a more technology-driven surroundings, but also to a service-
oriented situation and an e-services concept (Rust & Kannan, 2003 in Lam, 2005).
There is a non-existence of an e-government champion through to a successful

resolution. One type of champion identified is a senior management figure who carried
sufficient influence to make sure sufficient funds, commitment and resources are made
accessible. Another type of barrier identified is more of an architect who is implicated
in the functioning aspects of a project on a day-to-day basis (Lam, 2005).
Legal government processes, recognized over many years, is identified as a

barrier. Confrontation to alter these legal government processes is a reoccurring topic.
Several authors have warned of the danger of replicating manual inefficiencies in an
online situation (Kaylor et al., 2001 in Lam, 2005). In some cases, e-government
requires the meaning of new combined processes between government agencies
(Mecella & Batini, 2001).
Lack of suitable in-house skills within government agencies is of major anxiety,

including both the management skills needed to manage complex and large-scale e-
government integration labours, as well as the technical skills required to architect and
implement integration solutions (Curtis et al., 1988 in Lam, 2005). There is a structured
summary below this paragraph (Figure 2.2) describing the lack in public e-service.

Figure 2.2. Classification of e-government barriers

Source: Ebrahim & Irani (2005, p.602-603)

2.3 Possibilities of public e-service toward citizen
2.3.1 Possibilities in techno-centric view of public e-service
The techno-centric view focuses on scientific capabilities and the competence

derived from them. In this sight even the working of e-government may be considered
in phases which are technically distinct, as given below (Center for Democracy and
Technology, 2002 in Saxena, 2005):
- Phase 1. Publish. Using ICTs to increase access to administration information

(Ibid).
- Phase 2. Interact. Using ICTs for two-way communication between citizens and
government (Ibid).
- Phase 3. Transact. Creating web sites that allow users to manner transactions on-
line (Ibid).
However, e-governance is much more than just the act of mechanization itself. It
implies major socio-economic innovations and politico-administrative changes based on
new ICT applications and developments. Thus, to become a meaningful agent of
modernisation for public service delivery and modern governance, e-governance must
throw away its technological prejudice and focus on socio-cultural transformations
(Leitner, 2003). This is a crucial distinction. While an e-government is an automated
government, the reverse does not inevitably hold true. Introduction of automation into
the public sector will not routinely create better or more open governance unless it is
based on open and democratising philosophy (Saxena, 2005).
Unfortunately, ICTs will not bring about the benefits of e-governance that are so
often touted, such as democratisation, efficiency and the transformation of how
government works. Inappropriately applied, in fact, ICTs can become a weapon for
having a dampening effect on citizenship and democracy. This risk in the techno-centric
view of e-governance is inherent because use of ICTs is merely an essential condition
for providing good governance, not a sufficient one (Madon, 1994 in Saxena, 2005).
2.3.2 Possibilities in citizen-centric view of public e-service
Away from techno-centricity, the other view of e-governance is governance-

centric or citizen-centric. Such a view of e-governance focuses more on the outcome or
impact of e-governance, rather than merely on its outputs. Or, in other words, the
governance-centric view of e-governance focuses more on its effectiveness rather than
its efficiency alone (Saxena, 2005).
A governance-centric or citizen-centric view may assume that quality for

government services is dissimilar because either they are universal (e.g. payment of tax)
or they are provided to specific eligible groups (e.g. the unemployed). Therefore, this
view has to focus on the capacity of government to supply the needs of diverse groups,
including the aged, the disabilities and those with few or inadequate possessions
(Teicher et al., 2002 in Saxena, 2005).

This governance-centric approach is called e-governance excellent compared to

the techno-centric view, which is merely e-governance. The aim of this differentiation is
only to emphasise that the reason of e-governance is to implement good governance and
not merely to make use of technology; to achieve effectiveness and not merely
efficiency; and to realise outcomes as desirable impact and not merely produce outputs
(Saxena, 2005).
2.3.3 Possibilities in applications of public e-service
Bringing an excellence to e-government applications, though very much

desirable, is often difficult as it requires addressing a number of decisive issues, some of
which are given below (Ibid):
- Defining a citizen-centric or governance-centric vision for the e-governance

projects. Often e-governance projects lack a clear image in terms of their
effectiveness focus, and are treated merely as computerisation projects for
service efficiency (Ibid).
- Developing a process-oriented view of government work. Government work is

generally performed through vertical departments (or agencies), that get on with
their jobs without any alliance between them. Such a fragmented view of
government work results in mere computerisation of individual rather than of
integrated work process which is necessary to encourage effectiveness (Ibid).
- Developing a performance management system for efficient and effective

service delivery, which continuously measures and monitors service
performance. Since such a magnitude system also focuses on service
effectiveness, it also ensures that the service outcome is aligned with the
governance-centric vision (Ibid).
- Defining a flexible technology architecture that is secure, provides easy access

to users and is scalable for high-volume operations. Many of the solutions for e-
governance are rigid or poor in one or more of these magnitudes and therefore
not appropriate in the long run. Implementing excellent e-governance is a
reorganization process. Only in this way it will contribute to create information
in which the lives of citizens are empowered (Ibid).
2.3.4 Possibilities in engineering of public e-service
There is an urgent need for a comprehensive methodology for planning,

designing and implementing e-governance services, which should be able to accomplish
the following (Saxena, 2005):
- Ensure excellence by being citizen-centric as a goal (Ibid).
- Facilitate performance measurement planning and design, and help it embed

within the service delivery system (Ibid).

- Ensure that the system supports the broader end-to-end e-governance process
which may involve several departments or agencies (Ibid).
- Help design a technology architecture that matches with the business process
architecture and functionality (Ibid).
- Facilitate planning and design of performance monitoring and concurrent

auditing of the entire governance process (Ibid).
The methodology called e-governance engineering (EGE) is under development.

The methodology achieves the desired integration through the following stages (Figure
2.3), and the activities involved in each of these stages (Saxena, 2005):
1. Planning (Ibid):
- Establish commitment and governance procedures.

- Identify stakeholders (users, citizens, politicians, bureaucrats).
- Define and review current mission and values.
- Identify governance issues (efficiency and effectiveness).
- Determine e-governance process scope and structure needs.
2. Definition (Ibid):
- Define and map e-governance process architecture.

- Define performance indicators for efficiency and effectiveness.
- Collect information about performance in respect of the indicators identified.
- Measure and analyse indicators, and set indicators improvement targets.
- Analyse process performance gaps and prioritise processes for redesign
- Define e-governance business and technology architectures.
3. Implementation (Ibid):
- Develop process improvement/redesign projects plan.

- For each project, model and analyse process, design process for redesign.
- Develop resources for the improved/redesigned process.
- Manage the transition to the changed process.
4. Evaluation and management (Ibid):
- Monitor process performance and report.

- Audit process and performance reports.
- Communicate reports and obtain feedback.
- Establish and embed systems for creating ongoing performance monitoring.

Figure 2.3. Stages in e-governance engineering methodology

Source: Saxena (2005, p.509)
2.3.5 Possibilities in operations and optimisation of public e-service
In most literature, optimisation is defined as a process of selecting a better or the

best solution out of existing alternatives (Ghosh & Surjadjaja & Antony, 2004). As the
customers’ expectation of e-service quality is incessantly increasing (Curtis & Zeithaml,
2002), more and more quality features need to be included to satisfy their e-service
requests. As a consequence, a number of determinants need to be incorporated in e-
service operations to produce a delightful online experience for potential and existing
customers. Several essential determinants of e-service operations are identified
(Surjadjaja et al., 2003 in Ghosh & Surjadjaja & Antony, 2004). These determinants
and their definitions are provided in Figure 2.4.
All of the determinants are imperative to any e-service experience, in which

return process is particularly critical only when a physical product is being purchased.
Consequently, these determinants can be grouped into three main service processes
(Ghosh & Surjadjaja & Antony, 2004):
1. Service marketing. Involves matching market needs and firm’s resources ability
(Meredith, 1992). It mainly focuses on determining the marketing mix of
product (Palmer, 2001).
2. Service design. Refers to the design of facilities, servers, equipment, and other
resources needed to produce services. It includes blueprint of service system,
specifications, procedures and policies (Meredith, 1992).
3. Service delivery. At the front-end operations, the main function of service

delivery is to deliver the core products/services to the customers (Slack et al.,
2001).

Figure 2.4. Definition of the determinants

Source: Adapted from Surjadjaja et al. (2003) in Ghosh & Surjadjaja & Antony (2004, p.618)
By using a Venn diagram and applying set theory, each segment and its
representing determinants are established as follows below this paragraph in figure 2.5.

Figure 2.5. Determinants of service, marketing, design and delivery

Source: Ghosh & Surjadjaja & Antony (2004, p.619)
The e-service provided has to be adapted to the specific needs of target

customers, taking into consideration the competitive pressures, as well as the company
resources and capabilities, in order to maximise the company’s profitability. To achieve
this, the company needs (Gurau, 2003):
- To use a predictive model that integrates customers’ satisfaction, customers’

profitability, the competitive conditions of the market, and company’s
capabilities, in order to identify the optimum level of e-service quality, required
by each market segment (Ibid).
- To build around this conceptual model a CRM system capable to provide the
necessary information, procedures and strategy for designing, implementing and
managing the required level of e-service quality on a long-term basis (Ibid).
As the CRM system is based on customer’s profile and transaction history, the
company needs to collect information about its customers. The implementation of CRM
procedures requires the existence of historical data that is used to identify the main
market segments and create an accurate customer profile (Ibid).
2.3.6 Possibilities in virtual data of public e-service
The implementation of an efficient profiling related to virtual data methodology

has to address the following issues (Thearling & Wundermann, 2001 in Gurau, 2003):
- Robust transaction data properly collected and updated (Ibid).

- Data warehousing capabilities for capturing and storing the databases (Ibid).
- An associated retrieval and data delivery system (Ibid).

- Data mining tools that reflect the unique nature of the business (Ibid).
- Costing information, including the process cost and the physical service (Ibid).
- A meaningful business model that represents clearly the company-customer
interaction and the fluctuation of customers’ and business’ lifecycle (Ibid).
The e-service virtual business strategy can be described in terms of a model,

named after a typology of information, communication, distribution and transaction
services which divides the virtual service data into four corresponding quadrants
(Angehrn, 1997 in Stamoulis & Gouscos et al., 2001):
- Virtual information data. Publication of documents, including news bulletins

and calls (Ibid).
- Virtual communication data. Email communication for citizens and businesses

and income tax assessment info (Stamoulis & Gouscos et al., 2001).
- Virtual distribution data. Direct distribution of tax clearance statements to

requesting agencies, including public authorities, banks and notaries (Ibid).
- Virtual transaction data. Registration procedures, e-filing services for VAT and
income tax forms (Ibid).
Gartner Group (Baum and Di Maio, 2000) proposed a four-stage model

involving web presence, interaction, transaction, and transformation related to
possibilities for improving a virtual e-service. The descriptions of the four stages are
(Siau & Long, 2005):
1. Web presence. In this stage, agencies provide a web site to post basic
information to public (Ibid).
2. Interaction. In this stage, users are able to contact agencies through web sites
(e.g. e-mail) or do self-service (e.g. download document) (Ibid).
3. Transaction. In this stage, users (customers and businesses) can complete entire
transactions (e.g. license application and procurement) online (Ibid).
4. Transformation. In this stage, governments transform the current operational

processes to provide more efficient, integrated and personalized service (Ibid).
Future research directions concern a more extensive evaluation of the system

through diverse real application settings. This input will be further considered towards
improving the functionality of the system and at the same time the availability of the
government systems to manage it, as well as towards the potential integration of
additional features (Karacapilidis & Loukis & Dimopoulos, 2005).

2.4 Conceptual framework
In this part, we will try to clarify how we have conceptualized the theoretical
concepts presented in the literature review, and how these concepts relate to each
research question. The end of this chapter is a visualization of how we perceive the
research questions related to each other, in order to facilitate the understanding of our
perception of the research area for the reader.
2.4.1 Conceptualization
“A conceptual framework can be explained either graphically or in a narrative

way”. The authors also state that it is most easily done after a list of research questions
have been compiled, which has been done in the thesis´ first chapter (Miles &
Huberman, 1994). As we explained in the previous chapter, when we are mentioning to
e-government we are exclusively referring to public e-service.
2.4.1.1 Effects of public e-service
Regarding how the effects of public e-service can be described we will first look
into the basic reasoning views as to how the effects in e-service are appearing. We have
divided into four different parts that it should not be crossed (Yang, 2001). The reason
to why we chose to consider this is that it provides a good foundation and point of
departure to better understanding of the perception in the effects of public e-service.
Furthermore, in order to get a more in depth vision of this, we will in accordance with
Ruyter et al. (2001) and Yang (2001) focus on factors that would speak in favour for
implementation and quality. The reason behind this main focus on Ruyter et al. (2001)
and Yang (2001) proposed variables is that their studies are often referred to by other
researchers, and could be considered as a key article on the topic at hand. Yang (2001)
study is in good way complemented by Santos (2003) who adds supplementary
variables related to quality. Ciborra (2005) and Surjadjaja et al. (2003) have studied the
phenomenon of public e-service in ICT. In addition, some other operational effects are
further supported by Saxena (2005) and Schaware & Deane (2003) and will thus be
included in an eclectic list presented below.
Effects of public e-service function implementation
• Creates a demand for pre and after sales service actions (Ruyter et al., 2001)
• Sharing business information (Ruyter et al., 2001)
• Automating relationships with their citizens (Lu & Zhang, 2003)
Effects of public e-service quality
• Changes in supporting and interface (Santos, 2003)

• Reliability in punctual delivery (Yang, 2001)
• Responsiveness to citizens within a promised time frame (Yang, 2001)
• Ease of access to the representatives of the service (Yang, 2001)

Effects of public e-service ICT process
• E-transaction between administration and citizen (Ciborra, 2005)

• E-service through the Internet at home with ICT itself (Surjadjaja et al., 2003)
• More customized services (Surjadjaja et al., 2003)
Effects of public e-service operation
• Electronic consultation between public servants and the citizenry (Saxena, 2005)
• Bring government closer to citizens (Schaware & Deane, 2003)
• Modernize services and work effectively and efficiently (Schaware & Deane, 2003)
• Reduce opportunities for trivial fraud (Schaware & Deane, 2003)
However, the variables of technological design as specific way of programming

as suggested by Surjadjaja et al. (2003) have been excluded. Since our major topic is e-
government, we think that it is clear to recognize the problems related to electronic
operations and to be away about software troubles. Moreover, four different lines that
we have chosen for dividing the effects from our point of view is the clearest way to
categorize them and that is why other layers, as suggested by Ebrahim & Irani (2005),
will not be included. According to Ruyter et al. (2001), some effects are not included as
segmentation or partners, because we do not think that it is the most relevant in this
study. Other quality effects have been excluded as well related to product-development
process, as suggested Santos (2003). The security private information effects are not
included here because we think that this is more a barrier than an effect, as suggested
Yang (2001). Other pricing effects have been excluded as well because it is not very
clear that government capture profits more efficiently as Schaware & Deane (2003)
said.
2.4.1.2 Barriers toward adoption of public e-service
Considering how the barriers toward adoption of public e-service can be

explained, we have chosen to chiefly focus on four different barrier levels as suggested,
Ebrahim & Irani (2005) and Lam (2005). This since the authors provides the most
extensive list of approaches, while also being the study most referred to with regards to
barriers public e-service. Lam (2005) is supported by other literature in the theoretical
framework, among others: Bonham et al. (2001) and Buckley (2003). The reason to
why we focus on it is that it supplies a good base to know how the barriers of public e-
service are emerging and how the barriers can be described in our data collection.
Architectural framework barriers of public e-service
• Not allowed citizens to do some e-operations as to vote (Ebrahim & Irani, 2005)
• Changes in infrastructure provoke confrontation (Ebrahim & Irani, 2005)
• Problem to reinforce IC within organisation (Ebrahim & Irani, 2005)
• Business & technical knowledge requested at the same time (Ebrahim & Irani, 2005)
• Integrated e-services to connect public zones (Ebrahim & Irani, 2005)
• Divided databases and not connected with other departments (Ibid)
• Costly, incompetent and ineffective infrastructure (Ebrahim & Irani, 2005)

Technological and security barriers of public e-service
• Deficiency of IT skills (Ebrahim & Irani, 2005)

• Need of more and highly trained technical staff (Ebrahim & Irani, 2005)
• Ensure adequate security and privacy in public e-service and e-transaction (Ibid)
• Opposition of workers (Ebrahim & Irani, 2005)
• High cost of sophisticated hardware/software (Ebrahim & Irani, 2005)
• Elevated operational cost of the existing IT infrastructure (Ebrahim & Irani, 2005)
• Inflexibility of legal systems regulated by laws (Lam, 2005)
• Incompatible data standards (Lam, 2005)
Financial and policy barriers of public e-service
• Difficulties in obtaining the funds requested (Lam, 2005)

• Problems about how funds are managed and released (Lam, 2005).
• Very defensive sharing data with other government agencies (Lam, 2005)
• Lack of central government financial support (Bonham et al., 2001)
Organizational barriers of public e-service
• No conversation between internal and external environment (Buckley, 2003)

• Government is not ready for novel technologies (Buckley, 2003)
• Non-existence of a total successful resolution model (Lam, 2005)
• Legal government processes, recognized over many years (Lam, 2005)
However, although Gilbert (2004) mentions the barriers related to citizen, it is

more concerned to the experience of citizen with technology. Hence, the part of Gilbert
(2004) about citizens is not included in the list. As well, the barriers of architectural
framework related to periods of time and the most suitable applications, as suggested by
Ebrahim & Irani (2005) have been excluded. Since our major topic is e-government as
public e-service, we think that it is clear to recognize all companies have these same
problems and not only exists in public e-service sector. As suggested Ebrahim & Irani
(2005), some technology effects are not included as IT infrastructure, technology itself,
electronic devices or good IT aptitude; because we do not think that it is not the most
common problems and depends exclusively on the specific e-service that we are
involved. Other financial and policy effects have been excluded as well related to
economic resources by stakeholders or concerns about citizen privacy, as suggested
Tillman (2003). The strategic barriers of public e-service has totally been deleted too
because we can find these exactly troubles in a private e-service as absence of
implementation guidance as proposed Lam (2005) and Whittaker (1999). In the last
block of organisation barriers, as suggested Buckley (2003) and Lam (2005), has been
excluded some problems related to the fragmentation, poor relations and confrontation
in legal process because this is not the major theme in this thesis.

2.4.1.3 Possibilities of public e-service toward citizen
On the topic of how the possibilities of public e-service toward citizen can be
expanded, we will start from the suggested strategies above and use these as our main
frame of reference. Hence, we have categorized possibilities into four distinct groups
associated with the strategies explained by Saxena (2005) and Ghosh et al. (2004) as
well as the virtual data possibilities by Gurau (2003). The reason to why we trust on this
is we think that the real time possibilities and the real life expectations basing us on a
good methodology and design could be the most interesting aspects for getting one of
the best public e-service. In addition to this, a number of authors brought up in the
literature review have contributed by additional possibilities to the options chosen for
the conceptual framework, these are: Teicher et al. (2002); Karacapilidis et al. (2005);
and Siau (2005). The possibilities followed are presented in the eclectic list below.
Possibilities in governance view of public e-service
• E-service has to carry out in phases: publish, interact and transact (Saxena, 2005)
• Changes have to be based on ICT developments (Saxena, 2005)
• Open governance philosophy (Saxena, 2005)
• ICT is essential for providing good governance, not a sufficient one (Saxena, 2005)
• Supply the needs of diverse groups of citizens (Teicher et al., 2002)
Possibilities in applications and engineering public e-service
• Asking to citizenry opinion about e-projects (Saxena, 2005)

• Developing an efficient and effective service delivery (Saxena, 2005)
• Continuously monitoring e-service performance (Saxena, 2005)
• Secure and flexible access and high-volume operations (Saxena, 2005)
• Ensure that the system supports the end of public e-service process (Saxena, 2005)
• Help with design technology to reach functionality (Saxena, 2005)
• Use of EGE e-governance engineering methodology (Saxena, 2005)
Possibilities in operations and optimization of public e-service
• Include the best quality satisfy e-service individualized requests (Ghosh et al., 2004)
• Incorporation of e-service operations to get a delightful online (Ghosh et al., 2004)
• E-service has to be adapted to the specific needs of citizen target (Gurau, 2003)
• Use of a predictive and tested model (Gurau, 2003)
Possibilities in virtual data of public e-service
• Robust transaction data properly collected and updated (Gurau, 2003)

• Data warehousing capabilities for storing the databases (Gurau, 2003)
• Data mining tools that reflect the unique nature of the business (Gurau, 2003)
• Business model that represents the online service-citizen interaction (Gurau, 2003)
• E-service with web presence, interaction, transaction and transformation (Siau, 2005)
• Wider evaluation in real time systems (Karacapilidis et al., 2005)

However, although Saxena (2005) mentions the possibilities related to citizen-

centric view, from our pint of view is more concerned to the expansion of public e-
service in its effectiveness and so citizen is much more involved. Hence, the part of
Saxena (2005) about a unique government style has not been included. The possibilities
of techno-centric view related to socio-economic and cultural innovations and
transformations, as suggested by Saxena (2005) have been excluded as well. Since our
major topic is e-government as public e-service, we recognize that cultural topic is very
wide and is outside this thesis. Other optimization possibilities have been excluded as
well related to customer relationship management (CRM conceptual models), as
suggested Gurau (2003) because these models are more implicated in the existence of
historical citizen data and hence, we do not think that covers in the best way the
expansion of public e-service.
2.4.2 Emerged frame of reference
The purpose of this study is to gain a deeper understanding of how public e-

services can be interpreted as a subset of E-commerce in terms of effects, barriers and
possibilities toward citizen. A conceptual framework is best done graphically, in order
to make explicit what is already in the researcher’s mind. Next figure on the following
page presents an illustration of how we perceive the research questions to be related to
each other, and how these questions are used as a base to reach our stated purpose.

EFFECTS OF PUBLIC E-SERVICE (RQ1)
Function Quality ICT process Operation
Demand pre and after sales Supporting & interface E-transaction E-consultation
Sharing business information Response time frame ICT itself Closer government
Automating relationships Access to representatives Customized services Modernization service
Reduce fraud
BARRIERS TOWARD ADOPTION OF PUBLIC E-SERVICE (RQ2)
Architectural framework Technology & security Financial & policy Organizational
Not allowed e-vote Deficiency of IT skills Getting funds requested No communication ext/int
Infrastructure confrontation Trained staff Problems in managing funds No ready in novel technology
Problems to reinforce IC Ensure security & privacy No sharing data in agencies Non-total success model
Business & technology joined Opposition of workers Lack of central funds Legal process
Integrated e-services High cost hardware/software
Divided database High cost of IT infrastructure
Costly & ineffective structure Inflexibility legal systems
Incompatible data standards
POSSIBILITIES OF PUBLIC E-SERVICE TOWARD CITIZEN (RQ3)
Governance view Applications & engineering Operations & optimization Virtual data
Publish & interact & transact Opinion of citizen Best quality individualized Robust & updated transaction
Based on ICT developments Efficient service delivery Incorporation of e-operations Data warehousing
Open government philosophy Monitoring performance Adapted to citizen target Data mining tools
ICT essential but not only one High-volume operations Predictive & tested model Interaction business model
Need of diverse groups Support until last process Web presence in e-service
Help with design technology Real time systems
EGE methodology
Figure 2.6. Emerged frame of reference
2.5 Summary of Literature review and conceptual framework

This thesis´ second chapter has provided a review over the previous studies. The
previous research has been narrowed down into a conceptual framework. The factors
outlined in the conceptual framework serve as the base for data collection, since they
represent the main thing to be studied. Finally, the conceptual framework has been
illustrated in a graphical frame of reference. The upcoming chapter will explain how the
particular research work when collecting data for this thesis has been carried out.

BOUZAS & RAVULA RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3. Research methodology
This chapter will discuss and motivate the methodological issues associated with
the conducted study. Firstly, the purpose of the research and the research approach
chosen will be provided. This is followed by the research strategy and the used method
for the data collection. Secondly, the sample selection will describe the cases. Then, the
strategy for analyzing the data and the method problems that can occur in this type of
study will be discussed. Finally, a figure summarizing the chosen methodological path
will be put on display.
3.1 Purpose of the research

All research approaches can be classified into one of three general categories of
research: exploratory, descriptive and causal. These categories differ significantly in
terms of research purpose, research questions, the precision of the hypotheses that are
formed, and the data collection methods that are used (Aaker & Kumar & Day, 1997).
Exploratory research. Exploratory research is used when one is seeking insights

into the general nature of a problem, the possible decision alternatives, and relevant
variables that need to be considered. The research methods are highly flexible,
unstructured and qualitative, for the researcher begins without firm preconceptions as to
what will be found. The absence of structure permits a pursuit of interesting ideas and
clues about the problem situation. This research is also useful for establishing priorities
among research questions and for learning about the practical problems of carrying out
the research (Ibid).
Exploratory Research is helpful to classify marketing research projects on the

basis of the fundamental objectives of the research. This is an very good and fulfil
approach to make hard and classified the fundamentals of this research purposes and
these kind of exploratory studies are to find out new hypothesis and these general types
of research can be sub divided as follows (Boyd & Westfall & Stasch, 1989):
- Search of secondary data.

- Survey of knowledgeable people.
- Case study.
Descriptive research. Descriptive research embraces a large proportion of

marketing research. The purpose is to provide an accurate snapshot of some aspect of
the market environment. In descriptive research, hypotheses will often exist, but they
may be tentative and speculative. In general, the relationships studied will not be causal
in nature. However, they may still have utility in prediction (Aaker & Kumar & Day,
1997).
Causal research. When it is necessary to show that one variable causes or

determines the values of other variables, a causal research approach must be used.
Descriptive research is not sufficient, for all it can show is that two variables are related
or associated (Ibid).

Evidence of a relationship or an association is useful; otherwise, we would have

no basis for even inferring that causality might be present. In this case, because the
requirements for proof of causality are so demanding, the research questions and
relevant hypotheses are very specific (Aaker & Kumar & Day, 1997).
This thesis will explore, describe and possibly start to explain the effects,
barriers and possibilities of public e-service. The research purpose is to some extend
exploratory, since we explore our purpose in order to gain a deeper understanding of
public e-service marketing in the government. However, the study is primarily
descriptive, since we intend to describe public e-service in the exploratory stage.
Moreover, the purpose of this thesis is clearly structured and this further justifies the
descriptive purpose. Finally, our research purpose also contains some explanatory or
causal features as well, since we aim to explain the results gained to answer the three
previous research questions. As this thesis´ exploratory, descriptive and somewhat
causal purpose is now motivated, the research approach will be presented in the
following section.
3.2 Research approach

There are different ways of approaching the matter of academic research. This
section will explain, and give the reasons to how we have chosen the approach of our
study. Firstly, the matter of inductive versus deductive research approach will be
addressed, and secondly, we will look into whether a qualitative or a quantitative will be
applied to this thesis.
3.2.1 Inductive versus deductive approach
Inductive and deductive approaches represent two different research philosophies;

however, valid conclusions can be drawn from both approaches. On the one hand, the
inductive way of drawing conclusions is founded on empirical data on which the
researcher institutes models and theories based on different occurrences in reality. On
the other hand, if the researcher uses already theories and investigates these theories
empirically by using different models, he is using a deductive approach (Baron, 2003
Aaker & Kumar & Day, 1997).
For this thesis, the approach is deductive. We have based the empirical study on
already existing theories and models, which we will later compare with the reality. This
is much related to the deductive research model and the approach corresponds to it.
3.2.2 Qualitative versus quantitative approach
Qualitative research. It is a generic term for investigative methodologies

described as ethnographic, naturalistic, anthropological, field, or participant observer
research. It emphasizes the importance of looking at variables in the natural setting in
which they are found. Interaction between variables is important. To know the deeper
understanding about the marketing research, it should be done in depth in order to
explore the viewpoint (Key, 1997).

Quantitative research. The researchers try to generalize their findings and to

make as good descriptions as possible. This approach may be associated with the
scientific mode of research in many cases, and the results of data can be expressed in
numbers rather than words. This approach does not suit to the research, researchers try
to add one description to previous knowledge and research aims to understanding with
the holistic view. The results of the data analysis can be expressed in the form of words
rather than numbers. Above discussion concludes that qualitative approach is most
suitable for the research proposal (Cormack, 1991).
Based on the above discussion, as well as this study’s purpose and research
questions, the approach chosen for this thesis will be qualitative in its nature. The
reason for this is that we want to get a understanding of how public e-services can be
interpreted as a subset of E-commerce in terms of effects, barriers and possibilities
toward citizen. This implies that we do not intend to make any generalizations, but
instead of studying a small sample we will be able to be deeper and checking several
variables and thus to reach the purpose that we desire. As this thesis is now focused on a
deductive and qualitative research approach, the research strategy will be presented in
the following section.
3.3 Research strategy

There are three different strategies available for a researcher as experiments,
surveys and case studies. But besides of this, we can find two additional research
strategies used in the social sciences. The strategy that we are going to use can be
focused on three different aspects (Yin, 1994):
1. Type of research question posed.

2. The extent of control that a researcher has over actual behavioural events.
3. The degree of focus on contemporary events as opposed to historical events.
Table 3.1 shows how we are going to relate each condition to the five alternative
research strategies (Ibid):
Table 3.1. Relevant situations for different research strategies
Research Form of research Requires control over Focuses on

strategy question behavioural events contemporary events
Experiment How, why Yes Yes
Survey Who, what, where, how No Yes
many, how much
Archival analysis Who, what, where, how No Yes/No
many, how much
History How, why No No
Case study How, why No Yes
Source: Yin (1994)
If we have a look to this table we can check perfectly that it is more or less
applicable to our thesis. This study focuses on public e-service marketing since a long
time ago. Thus, the history is not applicable, because we only want to think about
contemporary events and to be narrowed down on this specific aspect.

According to the experiments, it is not included in our part of the thesis since we
forgot the control of behavioural events.
Surveys will continue to dominate as a method of data collection for marketing

research, at least for the next few decades. Rapid advancement in technology, however,
is changing the very nature of data collection and survey methods (Aaker & Kumar &
Day, 1997).
The telephone interview has gradually become the dominant method for
obtaining information from large samples, as the cost and no response problems of
personal interviews have become more acute. Although, the most obvious limitation or
problem is the inability to employ visual aids or complex tasks (Ibid).
The archival analysis involves gathering secondary data, i.e. data already
collected by someone for another purpose (Yin, 1994).
Nevertheless, we believe that in order to conduct such an accurate research, it is

very essential to collect primary data related to our specific research purpose and
conceptual framework and to have an archival analysis that is from our point of view
out of the context of this thesis.
A case of study is an empirical inquiry investigating a contemporary

phenomenon within its actual context. The single-case study investigates a single entity
more in depth than multiple case studies enable the researcher to make comparisons.
The opinion of the author is close to “the evidence from multiple cases is often
considered more compelling, and the overall study is therefore regarded as being more
robust” (Yin, 1994).
Therefore the selected strategy in our thesis is a multiple case study. From our
point of view, this is the most accurate strategy to go in depth but at the same time to be
able to do comparisons between different cases. We must find the similarities between
the cases discovered. How the information was carried out is presented in the next
section on data collection.
3.4 Data collection method

There three ways of structuring the data collection through documents,
observations, interviews and questionnaires, but it is very important to associate a
number of sources of evidence to rely on the data collection for case studies. The author
says: “a major strength of case study data collection is the opportunity to use many
different sources of evidence”. This is called triangulation. This means that we are
going to get different measures of the same aspect. This aspect will be the base of our
validity as a scientific study (Yin, 1994).
The table 3.2 shows the strengths and weaknesses with each data collection
structured by the author (Yin, 1994).

Table 3.2. Six sources of evidence: strengths and weaknesses
Source of Strengths Weaknesses

evidence
Documentation - Stable: can be reviewed repeatedly - Irretrievable: can be low
- Unobtrusive: not created as a result of the - Biased selectivity: if collection is
case incomplete
- Exact: Contains exact names, references, - Reporting bias: reflects (unknown) bias of
and details of an event author
- Broad coverage: long span of time, many - Access: may be deliberately blocked
events, and many settings
Archival records - (Same as above for documentation) - (Same as above for documentation)
- Precise and quantitative - Accessibility due to privacy reasons
Interviews - Targeted: focuses directly on case study - Bias due to poorly constructed
topic questionnaire
- Insightful: provides perceived causal - Response bias
inferences - Inaccuracies due to poor recall
- Reflexivity: interviewee gives what
interviewer wants to hear
Direct - Reality: covers event in real time - Time consuming
observations - Contextual: covers context of event - Selectivity: unless broad coverage
- Reflexivity: event may proceed differently
because it is being observed
- Cost: hours needed by human observers
Participant - (Same as for direct observations) - (Same as for direct observations)
observations - Insightful into interpersonal behaviour and - Bias due to investigator’s manipulations or
motives events
Physical - Insightful into cultural features - Selectivity
artefacts - Insightful into technical operations - Availability
Source: Yin (1994)
An observation is based on an observer that controls a process or a situation,

without disturbing the process itself. The purpose of this is to find what people do, but
what they actually do. We have to differentiate between direct observation and
participation observation. The direct observation has meetings and the researcher has
the chance of observing all sorts of situations during a specific period of time. But in
participant observation, the researcher is closer to the fact of taking information and is
collaborating in the studied events (Yin, 1994).
The documentary information is likely to be relevant in every case of study. We

have to include among the documents, the letters or the administrative documents.
Archival records are information that a company has to produce quantitative or
qualitative methods. An interview is based on interaction between an interviewer and
the respondent. According to the author the interviews are the most important aspect to
collect data in a research study. Physical artefacts can be interested in overall
conclusions (Ibid).
The data can be divided into two different ways. The primary data is taken for
the research as the basic purpose in the research. But the secondary data is taken for a
different purpose including other people than the investigator (Ibid).
In our project, we cannot include observation, artefacts or archival records

because these aspects are basically the quantitative hard data. This study does not need
cultural features, ant thus the artefacts are excluded.

Consequently, the model that we are going to use is based on interviews and
especially in telephone interviews which are considered as primary data and on
documentation, which is as considered secondary data. The interviews let the researcher
to focus directly on the case of study (Yin, 1994).
One of the most important aspects of telephone interviewing and the key to a
successfully completed interview is the introduction. That is why, the introduction
introduces the topic of study and is brief, because an overly long introduction tends to
decrease cooperation and elicit refusals to participate (Aaker & Kumar & Day, 1997).
A study can be divided into three ways: open-ended, focused or structured. In

the open-ended interview the important respondents are asked for facts and their
opinions in these exactly events. The focused interview is also executed in a way
conversational but now a lot questions will appear according to the case of study. The
structured interview is the base for a good questionnaire (Yin, 1994).
This project uses semi-structured type of interviews due to the excessively

problem of generalize (see appendix A) but at the same time we allow the ability of the
respondent to collaborate with us focused on open questions. We think that this choice
is best according to our research questions and it allows the researcher to get informal
conversations and make it easier.
Our aim is to give the choice to the respondents of answering in a good

perception of the event with total freedom about it. After this step, the interview will
continue with the structured model that we have built for it (see appendix A). The
purpose of all this is to get the solution of the problem that they are giving us in a more
accurate way. The flexibility will be our base in terms of bringing knowledge for us and
thus being able to analyse it properly.
For this research, the interviews will be conducted via telephone due to the
geographical distance to the respondents, the financial and time limitations. Although
this thesis is written in English for avoiding misunderstandings and errors, the
interviews will be followed in Spanish because this is the native language of the
respondents. It is clear to say that everything will be translated to English but sometimes
small problems can appear in the translation due to the Spanish sentences.
The interview model will be sent by e-email to the respondents with a long time
in advanced, around 48 hours before. So they will have enough time for preparing the
interview and to think about it.
Finally, we have used, as secondary data, different websites of e-services in

government and register annual information. Now when it is clear that this study will
use the telephone interviews, documentation for the data collection, the next section will
be based on the sample that we are going to follow in the interviews.

3.5 Sample selection

Due to the limitations on time and money, we have decided to study a sample
selection rather than an entire population. Consequently, it is impossible to get and
analyse data from all the population. However, we will find more useful results with a
sample survey (Yin, 1994).
In order to get a number of benefits associated to the multiple-case sample and

contrasting cases, we have chosen to include two case samples focusing on different
situations related to e-services. We have chosen two different cases of study:
- Sample 1. State subsidized housing e-service. This e-service is very new and is
the responsible of showing which subsidized housing offers are free at the
moment in government market. The URL of the e-service is
http://www.viviendaragon.org
- Sample 2. Foreign workers standardization process e-service. This e-service is

responsible of how to manage all the process related to foreign people,
something very hard for them when they have to accede in the physical place
The URL of the e-service is http://www.mtas.es/migraciones/proceso2005
With all these events in mind, we think about our case studies in an international
way because marketing in e-service is very useful all over the world and especially in
European administrations. Since the thesis´ research questions and conceptual
framework provide a high degree of complexity in each case, we have decided to
choose only two study cases quite representative of our research questions from those
mentioned above. This would provide the chance to really focus the purpose of this
research within the limited time that we have for it. Anyway, the author declares that the
number of cases depends on how complex the within-case sample is (Miles &
Huberman, 1994).
In order to reach this thesis´ purpose we have the feeling that it is of great
importance to reach those people possessing the most accurate experience and
knowledge with operational issues. All the interviews will be carried out with the
respondents by telephone. This section has presented how the sample for the data
collection is going to be conducted. The next section will describe how the selected data
will be analysed from different points of view.

3.6 Analysis of data

Data analysis consists on examining, categorizing, tabulating or recombining the
evidence to address the initial prepositions of a study. Analyzing case study evidence is
especially difficult because the strategies and techniques have not been well defined in
the past. Nevertheless, every investigator should start with a general analytic strategy
(Yin, 1994).
The analysis of case study evidence is one of the least developed and most
difficult aspects of doing case studies. Too often, investigators start case studies without
having the foggiest notion about how the evidence is to be analysed. Because of this
problem, the experienced case study investigator is likely to have great advantages over
the notice at the analytic stage (Ibid).
There are two types of strategies (Yin, 1994):
- Relying on theoretical propositions. The original objectives and design of the

case study were based on such propositions, which in turn reflected a set of
research questions, reviews of literature and new insights (Ibid).
- Developing a case description. A second general analytic strategy is to develop

a descriptive framework for organizing the case study. This strategy is less
preferable than the use of theoretical propositions but serves as an alternative
when theoretical propositions are absent (Ibid).
A qualitative data analysis is based on three concurrent lines of acting (Miles &
Huberman, 1994):
1. Data reduction. The process of selecting, focusing, simplifying, abstracting,

and transforming the data. The aim is to organize that data (Ibid).
2. Data display. Taking the small data and displaying in an organized way (Ibid).
3. Conclusion verification. This is to decide what the things mean (Ibid).
This line is our base for the analysis. We are following the first alternative using
a lot of theoretical propositions. We will start with the data reduction in the next chapter
selecting the most interesting points. In the analysis we will do a contrast related to our
conceptual framework.
This reduce data will be displayed by cross case analysis comparing the cases
studied. In the last part, we will talk about the impressions received about all the
previous stages of analysis and the conclusions of this study. As the data analysis part is
defined, the next section will deal with the quality standards of this thesis.

3.7 Quality standards

When we are taking standards it is very important to judge the quality of
research designs. Four tests have been commonly used to establish the quality of any
empirical social research. Because case studies are one form of such empirical research,
the four tests are also relevant to case study research. Because the four tests are common
to all social science methods, the tests have been summarized in the table 3.3. This table
displays the tactics that can be practical for preparing the four tests when conducting
case study research to increase quality (Yin, 1994).
Table 3.3. Case study tactics for four design tests
Tests Case study Phase of research in

tactic which tactic occurs
Construct validity - Use multiple sources of evidence - Data collection

- Establish chain of evidence - Data collection
- Have key informants review draft - Composition
case study report
Internal validity - Do pattern-matching - Data analysis
- Do explanation-building - Data analysis
- Do time-series analysis - Data analysis
External validity - Use replication logic in multiple- - Research design
case studies
Reliability - Use case study protocol - Data collection
- Develop case study data base - Data collection
Source: Yin (1994)
For case studies, an important revelation is that the several tactics to be used in
dealing with these tests should be applied throughout the subsequent conduct of the case
study, and not just at the beginning. We are going to give a definition of the four tests
(Yin, 1994):
- Construct validity. Establishing correct operational measures for the concepts

being studied (Ibid).
- Internal validity. For explanatory or causal studies only, and not for descriptive
or exploratory studies. Establishing a causal relationship whereby certain
conditions are shown to lead to other conditions, as distinguished from
spurious relationships (Ibid).
- External validity. Establishing the domain to which a study’s findings can be

generalized (Ibid).
- Reliability. Demonstrating the operations of a study with the same results

(Ibid).
Since internal validity is intended for exploratory or causal studies, and our
purpose is exploratory and descriptive in its nature, everything related to internal
validity is irrelevant in this project and will not be discussed in the following sections.

3.7.1 Construct validity
This first test is especially problematic in case study research. People who have
been critical of case studies often point to the fact that a case study investigator fails to
develop a sufficiently operational set of measures and judgments are used to collect the
data (Yin, 1994).
To meet the test of construct validity, an investigator must be sure to cover two
steps (Ibid):
- Select the specific types of changes that are to be studied in relation to the
original objectives of the study (Ibid).
- Demonstrate that the selected measures of these changes do indeed reflect the
specific types of change that have been selected (Ibid).
Our first positive aspect will be that we are going to explain all the concepts to
the respondents all the times that it is necessary. In this way they have the choice not to
make a misunderstanding. The second point is that they will have enough time to think
about the question before answering.
There are some aspects that it could have negative effects in this thesis. First,
one of the aspects is not to take the interviews in English. This can maybe be
questionable but this will enable to use the right terminology. Spanish words exist for
many of the terms included in our conceptual framework. Second, if the topic is very
direct to the respondent, this can suppose an inverse effect, and the respondents will not
talk openly about this specific topic. Anyway, we have also let our supervisor and
everybody to check and review this thesis draft.
3.7.2 External validity
The external validity problem has been a major barrier in doing case studies.
Critics usually state that single case offers a poor basis for generalizing. However, such
critics are implicitly contrasting the situation to survey research, in which a sample
readily generalizes to a larger universe (Yin, 1994).
This analogy to samples and universes is incorrect when dealing with cases
studies. This is because survey research relies on statistical generalization, whereas case
studies rely on analytical generalization and here the investigator is striving to
generalize a particular set of results to some broader theory (Ibid).
The generalization is not automatic. A theory must be tested through replications

of the findings in a second or even a third neighbourhood, where the theory has
specified that the same results should occur (Ibid).
Since this study is only a multiple-case study containing different cases, the
external validity should be quite low. With number of cases is difficult to perform and
to give general generalizations based on this study.

3.7.3 Reliability
The objective is to be sure that, if a later investigator follows exactly the same
procedures as described by an earlier investigator and conducted the same case study all
over again, the later investigator should arrive at the same findings and conclusions
(Yin, 1994).
One prerequisite for allowing this other investigator to repeat an earlier case
study is the need to document the procedures followed in the earlier case. Without such
documentation, you could not even repeat your own work (Ibid).
In this thesis we have explained every procedure and aspect. We are interested in
giving to the readers the chance of getting a better understanding of our thesis in a
logical way. But we have to say that since the respondents have interpreted and
translated the interviews, our values and knowledge can always be modified as well.
3.8 Summary of research methodology

This chapter has dealt with all the aspects of how the data have been obtained for
this thesis, starting with the research purpose, research approach and strategy. Then data
collection methods and sample selection have been described, with the general strategy.
The chapter has finished with a discussion about the quality standards of this thesis.
Figure 3.1 summarizes all the process. The following chapter will present the empirical
data collected.

Purpose of research
Descriptive Exploratory Causal
Research approach
Inductive Deductive Qualitative Quantitative
Research strategy
Survey Experiment Case study Archival analysis History
Data collection method
Archival records Physical Documentation Interviews Participant Direct

artefacts observation observation
Sample selection and data analysis
• Multiple contrasting public e-service cases

• Qualitative analysis
• Data reduction within case analysis
• Conclusion drawing
Figure 3.1. Summary of research methodology

BOUZAS & RAVULA DATA PRESENTATION
4. Data presentation
In this chapter, the empirical data collected in order to enable us to answer the
research questions will be presented. As mentioned, the data collection was carried out
utilizing two telephone interviews, one for each case study. First, the data from case one
will be presented, following the order in the conceptual framework. Therefore the topic
area of the research questions will be used as a basis for the sub headlines. In other
words, first a general presentation of the government and the respondent will be
provided, thereafter the effects of public e-service is displayed, which will be followed
by the barriers toward adoption of public e-service. After, the possibilities of public e-
service toward citizen will also present. Case two will be presented in the same manner
4.1 Case one – State subsidized housing e-service

State subsidized housing e-service (hereafter referred to as SSH e-service) is
new information and management tools, something new and operative nowadays, based
on the soil reserve and in the public soil fraud. This means that there are a lot of frauds
related to soil and in specific cases financed by government. The nationality involved in
this e-service is Spanish, concretely in the zone of Aragón in the north-east of Spain.
SSH e-service is characterized as an electronic service focused on a type of housing
created in 1963 in Spain with the purpose of unifying and ordering the legality of the
housing in this country. The private promoters can extend this sort of housing but they
have a lot of limitations in the price and the selling of the houses. This has been the
major discussion in politics seeing the fallen down housing numbers for the private
constructors because the profits was very scarce.
The funds for SSH e-service are exclusively supported since the community of
Aragón and is not related to the funds in central government in Madrid because each
community or zone manages their own money to invest. This e-service was created in
2004 and is the only service in this line in entire Aragón community. The line of
industry is totally oriented to ministry of works and financial aspects in private
construction company each other related to public soil. In other words, they can say that
the line of industry is public civil engineering. The business mission has been to find
out how to balance the situation between the decrease of the number of built houses as
state subsidized housing and the big sum of money that a lot of construction companies
are getting in strange deals. These deals are illegal.
Since they are talking about government, there are no competitors because
government is in reality which is offering the subsidized housing. But if they think
about the private construction companies, the most important competitors are the own
builders because government paid them money for getting some subsidized houses and
at the same time the builders will reduce the general prices of the houses. So
government will take those best prices for housing. The target audience is exclusively
citizens because citizenry is only one that can get access to these subsidized houses. It is
a requisite to have Spanish nationality and to be subscripted to the social security
register. However everybody can find information in the site about the list of admitted
people in the register or other things related to subsidized housing. The target audience
age is between 25 and 40 and above. In the picture below appears the main web page of
this SSH e-service.

Figure 4.1. State subsidized housing e-service site (SSH e-service site)
Source: http://www.viviendaragon.org
The respondent, Maximino González, is one of the technological area managers

involved in SSH e-service. He is situated at the Aragón Technological Institute
headquarter concretely in Zaragoza. His responsibilities include, among others
management of different online projects as SSH e-service, including several parts:
analysis, design, execution and control. His main activity is the supervision of the
projects and the control of the economical aspect. As well he was the coordinator of this
entire project and the unity point with Government in the zone of Aragón. The Aragón
Technological Institute is a public institution dedicated to develop all sort of e-services
and involved in Government development. This institution is supported and financed by
Aragón Government. The number of people involved in SSH e-service was 5 people:
Aragón Government manager, our respondent in the Technological Institute, one
analyst, and two programmers.
With regards to how the main effects of public e-service can be described, the
technological area manager argues that one of the most important effects with SSH e-
service is to give clearer information to citizenry about subsidized housing. This means
that everybody can have the same opportunities to buy a house and not only depending
on the contacts related to the service. In other words, external influences will not have
any effect when they want to buy house.

However, there is a punctual point in the way of getting a house dependent on

the time that you have started your register process. Because it is a question of time. If
you have registered a long time ago, you will have more options that other people that
are new in this process. People who want to get a house in the last years have started to
think about how they are going to get a house with their non-very high salaries. Hence,
this e-service tries to carry out the labour of giving better and faster information to
citizens. Therefore, one of the most important effects is the capacity of the service to
achieve that everybody knows in which zones of Aragón are offering subsidized
housing.
Other effect as well important that can be mentioned is the accessibility to a

specific house. Since people are interested in getting a subsidized house, it is easier to
locate the zone and to find out which houses are offered there. This situation motives
others to be more specific when they are filling the subscription for the house, because
if you decide to change your house to another location you will lose your time frame
and you will be back as a new user in the register. This possibility in the site allows
seeing which the best option for you is and so you can decide zones watching it in a
map of Aragón. This situation was a problem in the physical service. Because a lot of
people came and said “we could not see other zones when we decided to take this
house” but now with this new system this point is covered.
Overall, the technological area manager declares that this SSH e-service are seen
as a positive addition to the government and specifically to the state subsidized housing.
It helps to stimulate the use of the Internet in e-government and at the same time citizen
is updating very often with the new systems. This would be especially valid for e-
services that it is very common and necessary in the normal like of citizenry as housing.
But sometimes, there is a risk in that introduction of these e-services due to low quality
or low access to public e-service. The effect is quality and high level of population
working each other. This combination gets the best satisfaction for government and
citizen. The manager exemplifies this with other example. They are going to suppose an
e-service in government but an e-service for checking new Spanish laws. Only a small
group of population will check this e-service. In fact, this is one the biggest problems in
Spanish e-government: the lost of money in e-services due to non-usability.
Concerning the questionnaire built about effects of public e-service, the manager
explains that in the functions, the sharing business information is broad because all the
zone of Aragón has to work at the same time (Zaragoza, Huesca y Teruel and other
small villages). When someone is connecting to the online service can choose all places
in Aragón. In terms of creating a demand pre and after sales service actions, when you
get a subsidized house is very common to others how you got it and in this point, the
expansion of the e-service after sales is created. However, respect to the automating
relationships to citizens, this service is not quite useful because in spite of having access
to the register it is not possible to do an e-transaction. This means that you can fill the
papers of the register but you will have to submit by hand in the physical place as well.

About quality, the manager describes that the supporting and interface cover the
service very well and is quite fast. But the response time frame is slow because
everybody has to wait until the process of the sale is ready. Hence, this process is very
long. As well the access to representatives is very bad. To say the truth, you can contact
with an information number and you can ask what you want but if you need to contact
personally with someone involved in the register you will have to go to the physical
place (Aragón Government Institutions).
Related to ICT process, the responsible manager says that ICT itself and
customized services is totally reviewed in this site because users can check in
personalized way if they are admitted in housing process with a code and password but
in terms of E-transactions the site is not clear because you can fill the inscription and
the will send you the papers at home or you can fill in directly in the site but you will
have to submit these papers in the physical office. In other words a double process is
working at the same time, online and offline.
According to operations, all aspects as e-consultation, closer government and

modernization service are more or less enclosed in a medium level because the Internet
is useful for citizens. But they are speaking about reducing frauds (for instance someone
gives a quantity of money in an illegal way) the situation is low and completely
different. The builders have a lot influence in the process of the housing sale so they are
very involved in the aspects. Hence, it can happen that the normal process of the register
can be altered for them. In this case other people will have preferences and better
options in the process and other person will loss his/her turn. There is no solution at the
moment for solving the fraud in illegal quantities of money.
On the issue of how the barriers toward adoption of public e-service can be
described, the technological area manager claims that the main problem is that the
automatic registration is not allowed for Spanish government if you do not submit the
filled papers in the physical store. Hence, there is a bad communication between the
legal process and the technological process. Naturally it is in this point where the
analysts start to work. They did a study based on different government zones, and the
manager explains that the functionality of the system will considerably improve in
terms of database, quality and updates but the legal aspect is appearing again. Since they
are taking about barriers this is the biggest one “legal barrier”. In other words, they do
not change law related to this service they cannot get the best benefits. Nevertheless, the
manager emphasizes that day by day government is trying to make these process easier,
but sometimes the process is not enough fast and it is necessary to wait a long time, he
said “maybe years” for changing Spanish law.
On the topic of introducing information about this service, the manager argues
that in terms of information, the online service does not cover all the physical service.
So if someone wants to know some information about specific aspects as prices,
delivery order and legal aspects, it is necessary to go to the office. However, there is a
phone number in the site which offers all the information that you need to know but this
number is not operative al through the time and you have to loose your time in calling
them and informing you by your own.

The respondent does neither see any benefits with using this strategy as calling
to this number, because this implies a high level of calls and more people answering the
questions. An alternative would be to include information about law and register in the
own site but newly legality aspect is emerging again. Because to show law by the
internet is forbidden. Furthermore, the possibilities to solve these barriers with an open
mind are wide but the bureaucratic problems stop what could be a great e-service.
Finally and related to the register of subsidized housing, the creation of this
service supposes to update in a electronic way all the filled papers in store. This means
to have a lot of people updating the database with old and new users to work at the same
time. And this situation covers time and money. Hence, the situation is more
problematic with the information in store than with the new e-users.
Concerning the strategy in response to these mentioned barriers, the manager

describes that there is no problem in the technological aspect and exists solutions in this
respect but there is no solution when they are talking about law. Because only
magistrate has the power for changing laws and if it is possible, it is a slow course. In
this point, they have to stop and to say that they are trying to change the Spanish
constitution/law, one of the most difficult particularities nowadays. At the moment,
there is no fast and clear strategy to change this sort of government model in terms of
legality and consequently to improve these type of e-services
Considering the questionnaire created about barriers of public e-service, the

manager specifies that in the architectural framework as online activities and business
and technology working at the same time, the problems are very high and government
legal system is the main reason. However, there is no any problem to reinforce IC so
their database is storing all the register access from the site. The database is called SQL
Server and is ready to work by networks. In this point, they can perfectly know who had
access to this SSH e-service. Therefore, there is only one big database in Zaragoza and
it not divided into different smaller one. When someone is living in Huesca or Teruel
cities and is connecting to the register, they are acceding to core central database in
Zaragoza. Thereafter, the problems related to infrastructure confrontation and integrated
e-services are fully covered.
In terms of technology and security, the manager explains that there was and
there is a deficiency of IT skills and not trained staff in Spanish government. These
people passed their respective exams for getting the access to government. After, they
forgot to update their knowledge. This situation produced the opposition of the workers
and consequently the bad working of these services. The problem was more in the way
of thinking than in the event of creating a detailed e-service. However, there was not
incompatibility in data standards in terms of register site access. Hence, if they are
talking about IT infrastructure, the inflexibility of legal systems provokes the advance
of e-service technology. The respondent compared the cost of hardware/software and
the cost of IT infrastructure, and to say the truth the needed prices related to software
were the most expensive as net database and maintenance.

In response to ensure security and privacy, the manager is satisfied in this aspect.
All this information is totally safe because the user can save his data all the times that he
wishes. Thereafter, this information will be sent to the public state works service and
town planning and they will check if the information that they are sending is totally
correct or if they are lying. Depends on your data government can take money from
your account as a way of penalizing your fraud (illegal situation). So the SSH e-service
is safe but they need the physical service as well to check if data are correct. At these
moments, SSH e-service does not have any control over these aspects as general
information about the user to check false data.
According to financial and policy aspects, the responsible argues that the major
funds are coming from Aragon county council government. Here, exists a lack of funds
coming from central government. In other words, central government is not responsible
to manage and to support these sorts of e-services because this SSH e-service is
exclusively in Aragon province. From his point of view, it was quite difficult to
organize all data of different zones and villages at the same time, because people
working there, they were quite unwilling to this update. After a lot of hours lost, they
got to manage all the system and to build a good design about government structure in
Aragon. Not only Zaragoza, Huesca and Teruel are involved in this e-service, there are
other small villages that they had to include in the system. For instance, Calatayud is a
small village that belongs to Zaragoza; therefore they had to include it there. But, the
manager exemplifies that if you belong to Calatayud in the site you will have to access
to Zaragoza community.
Finally, related to organizational aspects, the manager illustrates that the

communication between government and citizens is critically low and sometimes the
communication between government and private companies working for government is
low as well. Therefore this is one of the biggest barriers nowadays in these e-services;
there is no communication at all between workers and citizens, as suggested the
respondent. However, since two or three years ago, government is update their systems
each day so they have capacity and ability to be ready in novel technology as Visual
Studio .NET or new platforms in Java or PHP programming and modern databases as
well.
With regards to how the greatest possibilities of public e-service can be

described, our respondent argues that technology is one important variable when they
are speaking about e-service but it is not the only one. In other words, technology
without a flexible government system does not give good profits. However, if they re-
structure specific laws and rights is possible to improve considerably the actual situation
in terms of flexibility, time, and cost and benefits in general for citizens. Because they
do not have to forget that in this sort of system as Spanish democracy, government is
supported with payments and taxes of all citizens. Summarizing, modification of some
laws in Spanish constitution/democracy is a good beginning before thinking about
technology or ICT.

Concerning about barriers of public e-service, the manager says that connected
to the problem of deficiency of IT skills and not trained staff, government should give
more courses for workers and specific knowledge about e-government. The idea would
be that everybody had to think in the same line, with the same quality and following the
same objectives. And, as explained by the respondent, it is a question of time, money
and interests. This aspect will produce new and improved communications between
government and others as external companies and citizens.
On the issue of how the future of public e-service (e-government) can be

perceived, the coordinator is oriented to culture and social behaviours. They can not
forget the financial aspect but money without a good way of managing is nothing. Since
this point, the manager claims that Spanish people need time to get the quality and the
technology as Scandinavian countries or other countries as Germany, Switzerland and
France. Moreover, they can not forget the number of population in each country.
Spanish government needs more time to give solutions to citizens. It is sure that they
will have to wait for a long time before seeing our Spanish government system working
in an online total working way and it is not clear that if one day will be done as a reality.
Regarding to the governance view, the explanations of the manager were that
excepting that the changes have to be based on ICT developments and this is in a
medium level covered. But the others possibilities can be improved in terms of better
transactions and open government philosophy. Therefore, from the point of view of the
manager, SSH e-service could be improved and probed again and again. Because since
they created this e-service, nobody has done any improvements to the system. So the
update process in SSH e-service is lost in some part of the process.
Related to applications and engineering, the only quite good aspects are the
high-volume operations and monitoring performance as they are supporting the register
until last process and working at the same time e-service and p-service. However, SSH
is not an efficient service delivery since they have to deliver the papers in the physical
office. As well, the opinion of citizen is not organized because you can go in the site in
FAQ´s but nobody is going to answer your specific questions. Anyway, the help with
design technology is totally lost. This means that there is no any engine in the web page
to understand your problems and to give you the best solution as in CAD programs or
Microsoft Office software. The manager describes EGE methodology (Electronic
government engineering) as one of the best methodologies for creating public e-services
but since they lost some parts of the process as control, probes and maintenance the
situation can perfectly be improved as well. The objectives have been covered but these
same objectives did not cover all the aspects of the physical situation so since this point,
they can take with us all the troubles.

In terms of operations and optimization, the respondent answered that the quality
individualized, the incorporation of e-operations and citizen target have been studied
and used in this e-service with a great value. So they are satisfied in these features and
you can check your own register introducing your code and password and to save again
your modifications and consequently the e-operations will be continuously working.
However, the predictive and tested model does not exist and from his point of view is of
the most important things when they are talking about developing specific software
related to e-services because this will allow us next time to improve us in other similar
services. The manager is very severe telling that “this point is not covered at all”.
Finally, concerning the virtual data, from the point of view of the respondent,
these are the most interesting points to extend the SSH e-service in a near future. Robust
and update transaction is safe but nevertheless they are not using any data warehousing
when they are copying data and any data mining tools. It would very interesting to
develop software to improve the speed of the e-service register engine with data mining
tools and software using data warehousing to know the general situation about all the
information that they have in our databases. The situation is, they have a lot of
information about registers but they do not know how they are going to use it
sometimes. Here is where the interaction business model can started to be valid as a
way of artificial intelligence and so related to the stored register data getting
automatically to improve SSH e-service. Anyway, it is a question if time and money as
well as other suggestions that they gave before.
The most interesting behaviour that the manager observes in this e-service in
general, is the non-existence of real time options. A real time system, as suggests our
respondent, is an e-service system that can interact with the user, in this case with
citizen. So it would be something like you do not have to be worried about information
themes because the system, depends on you are asking, will find out everything for you.
The manager explains, before finishing the interview, that this sort of software is very
costly and for a long time. Anyway, if they have the ability to learn about our data and
to know how to analyse it, the wait will be interesting.

4.2 Case two – Foreign workers standardization process e-service

Foreign workers standardization process e-service (hereafter referred to as
FWSP e-service) is a new service oriented to foreign workers and businessmen to give
information referred to how the work contract has to be and which prerequisites the
foreign workers need. FWSP e-service is very new and was created in 2005. This e-
service is totally financed by central Spanish government from Madrid and it is
supported at the same time by Immigration and Emigration State Secretary. The line of
industry is totally oriented to immigration and emigration sector related to various types
of contract. The e-service business mission has been to accelerate the informative
process and to manage the standardization of foreign workers instead of having the
physical government office.
Since they are talking about government, there are no competitors or alternatives
because it is the only immigration e-service all over Spain. So government wants to
cover all the holes that the physical service has. In other words, they want to speed up
the process. However, they do not have to forget that this process in Spain is highly
complex. The target audience is exclusively foreign citizens that want to work in Spain
inside legality and were not born in the country. In the picture below appears the main
web page of this FWSP e-service.
Figure 4.2. Foreign workers standardization process e-service site (FWSP e-service site)
Source: http://www.mtas.es/migraciones/proceso2005/

The respondent, Javier Galicia, is one the responsible involved in FWSP e-

service. He is situated at Madrid government offices concretely in the department of
foreign policy. His responsibilities include, among others to coordinate, to regulate and
supervise this process. His main activity is the control of different projects related to
foreign policy. Foreign policy department is a public institution dedicated to develop
and to control all sort services about immigration and emigration. Actually around 10
people are involved in immigration tasks.
With regards to how the main effects of public e-service can be described, the
coordinator explains that one of the most important effects is to speed up the
standardization process. This means that when someone comes to government office
asking for information about foreign workers contract, he will have the choice of
finding the information by the Internet and as well as to fill the documents in. However,
he/she will have to submit the papers in the physical government office. Basically,
FWSP offers update information and speeds up immigration process.
Related to effects of public e-service functions implementation, the respondent

does not think that these effects are emerging with the use of the electronic service. This
e-service is based on the demand of the physical service and not vice versa. As well the
sharing information business point is low there is no connection with other entities or
zones. However, since they are using the information that the user gives us, this is
sharing business information but existing in physical service as well. At the moment the
automating relationships with citizens is low as well. Hence, each case of foreign
workers is quite different. Nevertheless, the papers are similar to everybody.
To say the truth, the manager is very specific in terms of quality. Nowadays,
there is no possibility to have access directly to the representatives of the FWSP e-
service but it is something that they have in mind as innovations. The manager responds
that supporting and interface has at the moment a medium level because they are giving
information but very static. Personally he does not think that it is the best way of
showing information. For instance, they can talk about laws but at the same time they
can explain what this means. Hence, sometimes find out something is very difficult. The
response to citizens is faster than before the papers are coming to us clearly but here
appears the legal problem saying that it is necessary specific months to finish the
process. The bureaucratic problems are emerging one more time, as suggested the
manager.
Concerning to ICT process, the respondent claims that in terms of ICT self and
customized services, they have got a good results but not related to e-transaction so
Spanish government is not ready yet to organize their systems. However they are doing
some studies about how to execute it and progress in society and culture as well. The
personalized services in FWSP e-service is high because you can check how your
process is going on by the Internet using your code foreigner identification code (FIC)
or record code.

The managers explains related to operations that online service produces a

reduction of fraud (illegal aspect) in terms of better papers for filling and better
explanations about how to fill in. As well and consequently, other operations as e-
consultation, closer government and modernization service are covered in FWSP e-
service, because foreign workers know how to manage the process and they feel a closer
government. However, this e-service can be improved in different pars that they will
explain in the possibilities of public e-service as modernization.
On the issue of how the barriers toward adoption of public e-service can be
described, the respondent claims that the main problem is that there is a lack of reading
in the site and other links related to immigration process. In other words, there is a
deficiency in knowledge about how to use the Internet and how to find the necessary
information. But the situation is not bad only in the workers, the problem is wider.
Hence, there is not a good communication between businessmen and foreign workers.
Nevertheless the manager says that they are trying to be very comprehensive with
people that they have problems with information so it is a progressive but slow process.
The respondent shows that other possible barrier is the totally of a FWSP e-service use.
But, supposing that they were ready to change our structural services, this situation will
be very attractive to those people who know how to use the Internet but very
disappointed for those other that they do not have knowledge. Furthermore this will
produce a non equality situation. The managers describes that government wants to give
technology as online services but they do not want to forget the cultural-social
formation.
Regarding the architectural framework, the respondent says that some activities
online are not allowed as to fill in the papers by the Internet but government is trying to
change laws related to this but it is a question of time. In terms of infrastructure and
cost, integrated e-services or divided databases the manager does not think that it are the
most critical problems. However he explains that when technology is ready but business
model is not, in this case government model, it is starting to emerge a great problem
called “imbalance”.
According to technology and security, the respondent argues that in FWSP e-

service the deficiency of IT skills and trained staff is not a real problem so the problem
of the opposition of the workers is not emerging and it was solved before the execution
of this e-service giving to government workers a lot of courses in fields as culture,
society and Internet. The problem appears in security and privacy, the written
information has to be supervised and checked by government Administration to avoid
frauds and to be checked. Since here, the privacy is null or inexistent. Therefore, the
cost of the FWSP e-service is not high; however, a good IT infrastructure can produce
high prices.
About financial and policy terms, these services and e-services are supported by
the central government. In other words, the manager describes that the central
Administration will finance all e-service systems and not the government zone
institutions. And he does not trust that nowadays it is a big problem.

Finally, according to organizational topics, the manager declares that the

external and internal communication is high so therefore this is not specially a barrier in
this case. The problem here appears because not everybody is ready for novel
technology, but in this situation is not in the government workers, the problem is
arriving from foreign citizens because they do not know hot to use the Internet properly.
Related to the legal process, they follow the same exactly steps than in the physical
service and it is one the most difficult problems to solve when they want to execute this
sort of e-service. Sometimes, the respondent explains that the non-existence of a success
old model is a barrier to improve our possibilities. Hence, they improve when they pass
the barriers.
Concerning to how the greatest possibilities of public e-service can be described,

our respondent argues government try to follow future expectations. First, the manager
explains, a step of publishing, giving information to users. A second step interacting
with this information as downloading some papers. Third and last one a full transaction
to store all data in our databases as a part of the final process. The respondent says that
the future perception in e-service will be according to this methodology: publish,
interact and transact.
Since this point expressed by the respondent, the transaction can be trusted
online. But this possibility is not considered in FWSP e-service. The option would be to
register online and to process all your data in real time. But for this, they need a new IT
structure development, with new databases working by net and at the same time an open
government philosophy in laws and workers. However, the responsible says that the
publisher and interaction of the web is covering the objectives got at the beginning of
the process.
Anyway and thinking about the point of view of the foreign workers, the
respondent suggests that it would be interesting to hear the opinion of foreign workers
and businessmen and to analyse it before the construction of the e-service. These
aspects maybe would provide the enough knowledge to do a good monitoring
performance and a good support until the last process. This is not an e-service for
working with high-volume operations but in case it was necessary, as the responsible
said, “we are ready for managing it”. From his point of view, the EGE methodology is
not very extended at the moment but it would be interesting to have a probed model to
follow it. Other point to explain is related to the efficient service delivery. This is
something that has to pass the legal problem, but after the user submitting the papers by
the Internet, he could get the information requested if he passes the requirements. But
for this they would need to have a lot of information registered and again and again it is
time and a lot of money.

In operations and optimization, they are coming back to the point of

incorporation of e-operations. The manager says that the service is adapted to citizen
target and is individualized, but the non-existence of a predictive model produces
insecurity in government and in users. Concerning to virtual data, the manager explains
that if they are talking about improvements it is supposed that the robust transactions,
data warehousing, data mining and intelligent tools and a best web presence in real time
are the best characteristics to create a dynamic e-service. However, if they are talking
about the general objectives that this service tried to get at the beginning, they have
satisfied our expectations and it is not clear if a bigger investment of money will be
beneficial to citizen and businessmen.
Finally, the respondent finishes the phone meeting commenting that they do not
have to forget that this e-service at the end of the process is supported by the taxes of
citizens and not for foreign people. So since this point, it is difficult to clarify until
which point is good to invest money in this sort of e-services.

BOUZAS & RAVULA ANALYSIS
5. Analysis
The empirical data outlined in the previous chapter will now compared to the
theories presented in the conceptual framework. First the data will be further reduced
through within case analyses, comparing each case to previous studies on the topic.
Then the reduced data will be displayed through the use of cross analysis where the two
cases will be compared to each other. This analysis chapter will eventually lead to a
good base for the drawing of conclusions in the upcoming chapter.
5.1 Within case analysis of State subsidized housing e-service

In this section, the empirical data gathered in case one will be analysed against
the concepts outlines in chapter two. First, the effects of public e-service will be
compared to the previous research, and then the barriers toward adoption of public e-
service and the possibilities of public e-service toward citizen will be compared in same
manner. This is done in order to find out if there is any correspondence between the
empirical data and previous studies within the topic.
Concerning effects of public e-service function implementation and according to

the respondent, the sharing business information is broad because all the zone of
Aragón has to work at the same time (Zaragoza, Huesca y Teruel and other small
villages). When someone is connecting to this site can choose all places in Aragón and
therefore all data are necessary, which is a variable recognized by Ruyter et al. (2001).
In terms of creating a demand pre and after sales service actions, when you get a
subsidized house it is very common to others how you got it and in this point, the
demand after sales is created. This corresponds to Ruyter et al. (2001) reasoning
regarding service multiplier effect as a way of speed transformation. However, respect
to the automating relationships to citizens, this service is not quite useful because in
spite of having access to the register it is not possible to do an e-transaction. This means
that you can fill the papers of the register but you will have to submit by hand in the
physical place as well. It is also applicable to Ruyter et al. (2001) and Lu & Zhang
(2003) as means of automating relationships with their customers to form alliances.
About quality, the manager describes that the supporting and interface cover the
service very well and is quite fast, which is a variable recognized by Santos (2003). But
the response time frame is slow because everybody has to wait until the process of the
sale is ready. Hence, this process is very long. This corresponds to Yang (2001) in
responses to customers within a promised time border. As well the access to
representatives is very bad. To say the truth, you can contact with an information
number and you can ask what you want but if you need to contact personally with
someone involved in the register you will have to go to the physical place (Aragón
Government Institutions). This variable does not reflect the expectations of Yang (2001)
as easy-to-follow catalogues, site navigability, and concise and understandable contents,
terms and conditions

Related to ICT process, the responsible manager says that ICT itself and
customized services is totally reviewed in this site because users can check in
personalized way if they are admitted in housing process with a code and password.
These variables correspond to Surjadjaja et al. (2003) as a development of a self-service
experience as well as the functionality of the ICT as a way to offer personalised
services. In terms of E-transactions the site is not clear because you can fill the
inscription and the will send you the papers at home or you can fill in directly in the site
but you will have to submit these papers in the physical office. The respondent does not
consider the possibility of e-transaction suggested by Ciborra (2005) as one of the most
interesting in this e-service.
According to operations, all aspects as e-consultation, closer government and

modernization service are more or less enclosed in a medium level because the Internet
is useful for citizens in terms of accessibility. This is connected to Saxena (2005)
variables as communication between public servants and citizenry and as well as
suggested Schaware & Deane (2003) as modernized public services in which joined-up
government institutions be in touch and work more effectively and efficiently. The
manager explains that if we are speaking about reducing frauds the situation is low and
completely different. The builders have a lot influence in the process of the housing sale
so they are very involved in the aspects. Hence, it can happen that the normal process of
the register can be altered for them. In this case other people will have preferences and
better options in the process and other person will loss his/her turn. This variable is
covered by Schaware & Deane (2003) as well to reduce opportunities for trivial fraud at
different point of service delivery. It is difficult to believe but at the moment Spanish
government has not found a solution for solving this problem.
Considering the architectural framework as online activities and business and

technology working at the same time as way of interaction between government and
technology devices, the respondent states that the problems are very high and
government legal system is the main reason. This variable is explained by Ebrahim &
Irani (2005) as an excellent idea to permit citizens to vote online and have government
auctions on the internet. The manager claims that there is no any problem to reinforce
IC and the database is storing all the register access from the site and the problems
related to infrastructure confrontation and integrated e-services are fully covered. These
aspects are specified by Ebrahim & Irani (2005) as a common and integrated
architecture framework that allows different organizations, provinces, and
municipalities to share and exchange data, independent of formats, devices and
fundamental architecture.
In terms of technology and security, the manager explains that there was and
there is a deficiency of IT skills and not trained staff on people working in Spanish
government. This variable is described by Ebrahim & Irani (2005) as the complexity of
attracting and retaining the correct IT aptitude, particularly taking into account the
opposition for these workers and also these is a lack of skilled staff in market that are
familiar with major IT skills.

Hence, if we are talking about IT infrastructure, the inflexibility of legal systems

provokes the advance of e-service technology. This point is, according to Lam (2005),
explained as many government agencies rely on legal applications built 15-25 years ago
to supply their core processing needs. The respondent compared the cost of
hardware/software and the cost of IT infrastructure, and to say the truth the needed
software prices were the most expensive, (for instance networks, databases and
maintenance). This variable, as was suggested by Ebrahim & Irani (2005), corresponds
to IT infrastructure and integrated information systems as well as advance technologies
for preserving security and integrity and hence, for a public sector organization, the cost
of sophisticated hardware and software is still a huge problem.
In response to ensure security and privacy, the manager is satisfied in this aspect.
All this information is totally safe because the user can save his data all the times that he
wishes. Security aspects, as was described by Ebrahim & Irani (2005), are explained as
computer security, privacy and confidentiality of the personal data. Applications require
extensive security approaches to secure the online process and protect the personal data.
According to financial and policy aspects, the respondent argues that the major
funds are coming from Aragon county council government. Here, exists a lack of funds
coming from central government. In other words, central government is not responsible
to manage and to support these sorts of e-services because this SSH e-service is
exclusively in Aragon province. This variable is suggested by Ebrahim & Irani (2005)
and Bonham et al. (2001) as barrier to the adoption of e-government because the main
monetary resource for public sector organizations is coming from central administration
and in our case is inexistent.
Finally, related to organizational aspects, the manager illustrates that the

communication between government and citizens is critically low and sometimes the
communication between government and private companies working for government is
low as well. Therefore this is one of the biggest barriers nowadays in these e-services;
there is no communication between government and citizens, as suggested the
respondent. This aspect, as suggested Buckley (2003) can be described as conversation
of public e-service must contain internal and external environment. However, since two
or three years ago, government is updating their systems each day so they have capacity
and ability to be ready in novel technology as Visual Studio .NET or new platforms in
Java or PHP programming and modern databases as well. This is connected, as
explained Buckley (2003), to government staff and they should be prepared for new
ways of dealing with novel technologies that appear with e-government.
Regarding to the governance view, the explanations of the manager were that
excepting that the changes have to be based on ICT developments and this is in a
medium level covered, the others possibilities can be improved from a better
transactions to open government philosophy. Therefore, from the point of view of the
manager, SSH e-service could be improved and probed again and again. These variables
were described by Saxena (2005) and Teicher et al. (2002) as the capacity of
government to supply the needs of diverse groups, including the age and the disabilities.

Related to applications and engineering, the only quite good aspects are the
high-volume operations and monitoring performance as we are supporting the register
until last process and working at the same time both services (electronic service and
physical service). These variables, as suggested Saxena (2005), as monitors service
performance and such a magnitude system also focuses on service effectiveness.
However, SSH is not an efficient service delivery since we have to deliver the papers in
the physical office. As well, the opinion of citizen is not organized because you can go
in the site in FAQ´s but nobody is going to answer your specific questions. Anyway, the
help with design technology is totally lost. These other variables are explained as well
by Saxena (2005) as help design a technology architecture that matches with the
business process architecture and functionality. The manager describes EGE
methodology (Electronic government engineering) as one of the best methodologies for
creating public e-services but since we lost some parts of the process as control, probes
and maintenance the situation can perfectly be improved as well. As a cause of this,
Saxena (2005) claims that the methodology called e-governance engineering (EGE) is
under development. The methodology achieves the desired integration through several
stages and activities involved in each of those stages.
In terms of operations and optimization, the respondent answered that the quality
individualized, the incorporation of e-operations and citizen target have been studied
and used in this e-service with a great value. So they are satisfied in these features and
you can check your own register introducing you code and password and to save again
your modifications and consequently the e-operations will be continuously working.
These variables, as suggested Ghosh et al. (2004), are the base of the quality features
and a number of determinants need to be incorporated in e-service operations to produce
a delightful online experience for potential and existing customers. However, the
predictive and tested model does not exist and from his point of view is of the most
important things when we are talking about developing specific software related to e-
services because this will allow us next time to improve us in other similar services.
This aspect is covered by Gurau (2003), when the author describes the use of a
predictive model that integrates customers’ satisfaction, customers’ profitability, the
competitive conditions of the market, and company’s capabilities, in order to identify
the optimum level of e-service quality, required by each market segment.
Finally, concerning the virtual data, from the point of view of the respondent,
these are the most interesting points to extend the SSH e-service in a near future. Robust
and update transaction is safe but nevertheless we are not using any data warehousing
when we are copying data and any data mining tools. All these features, as suggested
Gurau (2003) are related to the implementation of an efficient profiling in virtual data
methodology and it is necessary to describe it as a typology of information,
communication, distribution and transaction services. The situation is, we have a lot of
information about registers but we do not know how we are going to use it sometimes.
Here is where the interaction business model can started to be valid as a way of artificial
intelligence and so related to the stored register data getting automatically to improve
SSH e-service. The author reflects with theory the importance of a meaningful business
model that represents clearly the company-customer interaction and the fluctuation of
business’ lifecycle that exactly it would be relation between government-citizen.

5.2 Within case analysis of Foreign workers standardization

process e-service
In this section, the data collection for two will be analyzed against the concepts
presented in the conceptual framework in the same way as it has been done above.
Related to effects of public e-service functions implementation, the respondent

does not think that these effects are emerging with the use of the electronic service. This
e-service is based on the demand of the physical service and not vice versa. These
variables were explained by Ruyter et al. (2001) as a way of getting a service multiplier
effect. As well the sharing information business point is low there is no connection with
other entities or zones. However, since we are using the information that the user gives
us, this is sharing business information but existing in physical service as well. At the
moment the automating relationships with citizens is low as well. Hence, each case of
foreign workers is quite different. Nevertheless, the papers are similar to everybody.
Comparing these variables with the answer of the respondent, it is clear that there is
deficiency in all these functions.
The manager responds that supporting and interface has at the moment a
medium level because we are giving information but very static. Personally he does not
think that it is the best way of showing information. The bureaucratic problems are
emerging one more time, as suggested the manager, because it is not possible to show
all the information what they need. These aspects are connected to theory as explained
Santos (2003) and Yang (2001) and it is not covered at all.
Concerning to ICT process, the respondent claims that in terms of ICT self and
customized services, they have got a good results but not related to e-transaction so
Spanish government is not ready yet to organize their systems. These variables were
explained by Ciborra (2005) and Surjadjaja et al. (2003) as way of speeding up the
process in government. Therefore, the personalized services in FWSP e-service is high
because you can check how your process is going on by the Internet using your code
foreigner identification code (FIC) or record code, as suggested Surjadjaja et al. (2003).
The managers explains that related to operations is that the online service
produces a reduction of fraud in terms of better papers for filling and better explanations
about how to fill in, as suggested Schaware & Deane (2003) in reduce opportunities for
trivial fraud. As well and consequently, other operations as e-consultation, closer
government and modernization service are covered in FWSP e-service, because foreign
workers know how to manage the process and they feel a closer government, as
described Saxena (2005) in the electronic consultation between public servants and the
citizenry. This analysis perfectly shows those FWSP e-service characteristics are not
very well-covered at all.

Regarding the architectural framework, the respondent says that some activities
online are not allowed as to fill in the papers by the Internet but government is trying to
change laws related to this but it is a question of time. This variable was explained by
Ebrahim & Irani (2005) and the authors said that is not allowed citizens to do some e-
operations as to vote. In terms of infrastructure and cost, integrated e-services or divided
databases the manager does not think that it are the most critical problems. However he
explains that when technology is ready but not the circumstances of the business model,
in this case government model, it is starting to emerge a great problem called
“imbalance”. These problems are specified by Ebrahim & Irani (2005) as well as a way
to pass the architectural barriers and to extend government systems.
According to technology and security, the responsible argues that in FWSP e-

service the deficiency of IT skills and trained staff is not a real problem so the problem
of the opposition of the workers is not emerging and it was solved before the execution
of this e-service giving to government workers a lot of courses in fields as culture,
society and Internet. These variables were claimed by Ebrahim & Irani (2005) in the
need of more and highly trained technical staff. The problem appears in security and
privacy, the written information has to be supervised and checked by government
Administration to avoid frauds and to be checked. Since here, the privacy is null or
inexistent. These variables were expressed by Ebrahim & Irani (2005) as a way of
ensure adequate security and privacy in public e-service and e-transaction. Therefore,
the cost of the FWSP e-service is not high; however, a good IT infrastructure can
produce high prices, as suggested Ebrahim & Irani (2005) in the elevated operational
cost of the existing IT infrastructure.
About financial and policy terms, these services and e-services are supported by
the central government. In other words, the manager describes that the central
Administration will finance all e-service systems and not the government zone
institutions. And he does not trust that nowadays it is a big problem. This aspect, as
suggested Lam (2005) can produce a lack in central government financial support and
problems about how funds are managed and released.
Finally, according to organizational topics, the manager declares that the

communication external and internal is high so therefore this is not specially a barrier in
our case, as was stated by Buckley (2003) as communication environments. The
problem here appears because not everybody is ready for novel technology, but in this
situation is not in the government workers, the problem is arriving from foreign citizens
because they do not know hot to use the Internet properly. This variable was explained
as well by Buckley (2003) because it is necessary that government is ready for novel
technology. Related to the legal process, we follow the same exactly steps than in the
physical service and it is one the most difficult problems to solve when we want to
execute this sort of e-service. Sometimes, the respondent explains that the non-existence
of a success old model is a barrier to improve our possibilities. These problems were
specified by Lam (2005) and it is a way of passing the reconcilement of legal
government processes over many years.

The respondent suggests that it would be interesting to hear the opinion of

foreign workers and businessmen and to analyse it before the construction of the e-
service. These aspects maybe would provide the enough knowledge to do a good
monitoring performance and a good support until the last process. This variable was
suggested by Saxena (2005) as a way of asking to citizenry opinion about e-projects and
a way for working with high-volume operations. EGE methodology is not very
extended at the moment but it would be interesting to have a probed model to follow it.
This point was reflected by Saxena (2005) as well as a use of EGE e-governance
engineering methodology. Other point to explain is related to the efficient service
delivery. This is something that has to pass the legal problem, but after the user
submitting the papers by the Internet, he could get the information requested if he
passes the requirements. But for this we would need to have a lot of information
registered and again and again it is time and a lot of money. These aspects are
connected to the ideas of Saxena (2005) related to help with design technology to reach
functionality.
In operations and optimization, we are coming back to the point of incorporation

of e-operations. The manager says that the service is adapted to citizen target and is
individualized as suggested Ghosh et al. (2004), but the non-existence of a predictive
model produces insecurity in government and in users as explained Gurau (2003) in the
way of using a predictive and tested model in online government systems.
Concerning to virtual data, the manager explains that if we are talking about
improvements it is supposed that the robust transactions, data warehousing, data mining
and intelligent tools and a best web presence in real time are the best characteristics to
create a dynamic e-service, as suggested Gurau (2003) and Karacapilidis et al. (2005).
However, if we are talking about the general objectives that this service tried to get at
the beginning, we have satisfied our expectations and it is not clear if a bigger
investment of money will be beneficial to citizen and businessmen. The respondent says
that this e-service at the end of the process is supported by the taxes of citizens and not
for foreign people. So since this point, it is difficult to clarify until which point is good
to invest money in this sort of e-services. All these variables and reflections are
connected to Gurau (2003) theory according to robust transactions data properly
collected, data warehousing capabilities and data mining tools that reflect the unique
nature of e-government business.

5.3 Crossed Case Analysis

In this section, the empirical data gathered from the two cases will be analyzed
against each other. This is done graphically by compiling the gathered data in tables,
thereafter in narrative form where the information in the table is analyzed in text. The
crossed case analysis will be structured according to the three research questions.
Table 5.1 bellow illustrates both case e-services studied before in terms of
effects of public e-service. First, the main effects that were considered to have a great
impact in government are presented as main effects. Thereafter, other effects presented
in the conceptual framework are displayed according to their relative perceived
importance (high, medium, or low). These levels are always considering according to
the answers of the interviews with both respondents.
Table 5.1. Effects of public e-service
Effect SSH e-service FWSP e-service
• Clearer information • Way of speeding up processes

Main effects • Same possibilities • Finding information
• Better accessibility
Effect
Demand pre and after sales High Low

Sharing business information High Low
Automating relationships Low Low
Supporting & interface Medium Medium
Response time frame Low High
Access to representatives Low Low
E-transaction Low Low
ICT itself High High
Customized services High High
E-consultation Medium High
Closer government Medium High
Modernization service Medium High
Reduce fraud Low High
Main effects
With regards to the main effects of public e-service, SSH e-service identifies to give
clearer information to citizenry about subsidized housing having the same opportunities
to buy a house. As well FWSP e-service explains this aspect as a choice of finding the
information by the Internet. In terms of having the same possibilities only SSH e-
service explains this situation in capacity of the service to achieve that everybody
knows in which zones of Aragón are offering subsidized housing. As well in terms of
accessibility, SSH e-service specifies that related to people who are interested in getting
a subsidized house, is easier to locate the zone and to find out which houses are offered
there. However, FWSP e-service claims that the most important effect is to speed up
process in terms of law and information.

Creates a demand for pre and after sales service actions

With regards to create a demand for pre and after sales service actions, only one case
identifies it as being of high importance. SSH e-service basically agrees to this in terms
of offering your information to others about how you got a subsidized house. FWSP e-
service detects this point very low and almost inexistent.
Sharing business information

Concerning sharing business information, only one case identifies it as being of high
importance as well. SSH e-service basically agrees to this and it is broad in terms of
working at the same time with different zones in Aragón as Zaragoza, Huesca and
Teruel. FWSP e-service detects this point very low because there is no connection with
other zones.
Automating relationships with their citizens

About automating relationships with their citizens, all cases identify it as being of low
importance. SSH e-service basically agrees to this so it is not possible to have access to
the register or to do a transaction. FWSP e-service detects this point very low and
almost inexistent as well and says that each case of foreign workers is quite different.
Changes in supporting and interface

With regards to changes in supporting and interface, all cases identify it as being of
medium importance. SSH e-service basically covers the service. FWSP e-service detects
this point medium because the information is very static.
Reliability in punctual delivery

Concerning reliability in punctual delivery, all cases identify it as being of low level.
SSH e-service basically does not cover this and FWSP e-service neither.
Responsiveness to citizens within a promised time frame

About responsiveness to citizens within a promised time frame, only one case identifies
it as being of low importance. SSH e-service basically agrees to a low level because so
everybody has to wait until the process of sale is ready. FWSP e-service detects this
point high since the papers are coming clearly to government.
Ease of access to the representatives of the service

With regards to ease of access to the representatives of the service, all cases identify it
as low level. SSH e-service basically agrees to this because you have to go physically to
the place. FWSP e-service detects this point very low as well and there is no possibility
to have access directly to representatives.
E-transaction between administration and citizen

Concerning e-transaction between administration and citizen, all cases identify it as
being of low level. SSH e-service basically is not clear because you have to fill the
papers and to submit in the office. FWSP e-service detects that Spanish government is
not ready to organize their systems.

E-service through the Internet at home with ICT itself & more customized services
About ICT itself and more customized services, all cases identify it as being of high
importance. SSH e-service basically agrees to this because users can check in
personalized way. FWSP e-service detects good results using a code foreigner
identification code (FIC).
Electronic consultation between public servants and the citizenry

SSH e-service thinks that Internet produces in citizens a very good feeling in a good
medium level. FWSP e-service detects that foreign workers feel a closer government in
a high level. In terms of bringing government closer to citizens and modernize services
and work effectively and efficiently, both cases think in the same way as e-consultation.
Reduce opportunities for trivial fraud

With regards to reduce opportunities for trivial fraud, only one case identifies it as high
level. SSH e-service does not agree to this because the builders have a lot influence in
the process. FWSP e-service detects high level of avoiding fraud because someone can
find better explanations about how to manage it.
barriers toward adoption of public e-service. First, the main barriers that were
considered to have a great impact in government are presented as main barriers.
Thereafter, other barriers presented in the conceptual framework are displayed
according to their relative perceived importance (high, medium, or low).
Table 5.2. Barriers toward adoption of public e-service
Barrier SSH e-service FWSP e-service
• Not automatic registration • Lack of reading information

Main barriers • Wrong communications • Deficiency in knowledge
• Legacy barrier • No good communications
• Not covered information • Non equality situation
• No cultural-social experience
Barrier
Not allowed e-vote High High

Infrastructure confrontation Low Low
Problems to reinforce IC Low Low
Business & technology joined High High
Integrated e-services Low Low
Divided database Low Low
Costly & ineffective structure High High
Deficiency of IT skills High Low
Trained staff High Low
Ensure security & privacy Low High
Opposition of workers High Low

High cost hardware/software High Low

High cost of IT infrastructure High High
Inflexibility legal systems High High
Incompatible data standards Low Low
Getting funds requested High Low
Problems in managing funds High Low
No sharing data in agencies High Low
Lack of central funds High Low
No communication external/intern. High Low
No ready in novel technology High High
Non-total success model High High
Legal process High High
Main barriers
On the issue of the main barriers of public e-service, SSH e-service identifies that the
automatic registration is not allowed for Spanish government if you do not submit the
filled papers in the physical store. Both cases explain that other barrier is related to
wrong communication between government and citizens. As well FWSP e-service
specifies in terms of a lack in citizens of reading in the online services because citizens
do not know how to find out where information in web site is. This lack of reading at
the same time produces a lack in knowledge as well. Both cases describe the public e-
services very lack of open mind in terms of legal problems. Anyway, other clear barrier
is that these public e-services do not cover everything of the physical service and due to
legal problem. So it is clear to see that there is a communication among these barriers.
As well FWSP e-service specifies the there are problems in culture and society,
something is difficult to solve.
Not allowed citizens to do some e-operations as to vote

With regards to some e-operations, all cases identify it as being of high barrier. SSH e-
service basically agrees to this in terms of changing law. FWSP e-service detects this
barrier very high as well because some activities online are not allowed.
Changes in infrastructure provoke confrontation

Concerning changes in infrastructure provoke confrontation, all cases identify it as
being of low importance.
Problem to reinforce IC within organisation

With regards to reinforce IC within organisation, all cases identify it as being of low
barrier. SSH e-service basically agrees to this in terms of storing data. FWSP e-service
detects this barrier very low as well almost inexistent.
Business & technical knowledge requested at the same time

Concerning business & technical knowledge requested at the same time, all cases
identify it as being of high barrier. FWSP e-service detects this barrier called as
imbalance in the government model.
Integrated e-services to connect public zones & divided databases

About some integrated e-services to connect public zones & divided databases, all cases
identify it as being of low barrier. SSH e-service basically agrees to this in terms of core
central database in Zaragoza. FWSP e-service detects this barrier very low as well
because it not the most critical problem.

Deficiency of IT skills
With regards to deficiency of IT skills, SSH e-service basically agrees to this as high
level because there is a deficiency of IT skills and not trained staff on people working in
Spanish government. FWSP e-service detects this barrier very low because government
is giving the workers a lot of courses in specific fields.
Ensure adequate security and privacy in public e-service and e-transaction

Concerning ensures adequate security and privacy, SSH e-service basically agrees to
this as low level because the user can save all his data when he wants. FWSP e-service
detects this barrier very high because government has to check all the information
registered.
Opposition of workers
About opposition of workers, SSH e-service basically agrees to this as high level
because there is no a good feeling among workers. FWSP e-service detects this barrier
very low because government is giving the workers a lot of courses in specific fields
and consequently they know how to talk others.
High cost of sophisticated hardware/software

Concerning high cost of sophisticated hardware/software, SSH e-service basically
agrees to this as high barrier because the cost of maintenance is very costly. FWSP e-
service detects this barrier very low because the problem is in the infrastructure and not
in the technology systems as elevated operational cost of the existing IT infrastructure.
Inflexibility of legal systems regulated by laws

Both cases detect the problem in the legacy systems how one of the most difficult
barrier to pass in a very high level.
Incompatible data standards

Both cases do not pay attention in these barriers and it is described as very low level in
these specific cases.
Difficulties in obtaining the funds requested and managing it

Concerning funds, SSH e-service agrees to this as high barrier because there is no
money from central government. FWSP e-service detects this barrier very low because
the funds are coming from central administration and the way of managing as well.
Very defensive sharing data with other government agencies

This point was talked in SSH e-service as a very high problem because people were
quite unwilling to be update but in FWSP e-service is inexistent.
Lack of central government financial support

SSH e-service agrees to this as high barrier because there is no money from central
government but not in FWSP e-service.
No conversation between internal and external environment

High level in SSH e-service because there is no communication each other. But very
low in FWSP e-service because is part of the courses that they are taking.

Government is not ready for novel technologies

Concerning novel technology, SSH e-service is ready for it and FWSP e-service as well
with a lot of innovations, so the level as a barrier is low. The problem is in the workers.
Non-existence of a total successful resolution model

There is lack in both cases of checked model as a big barrier to test government
processes.
Legal government processes, recognized over many years

Both cases detect this as the biggest barrier in government
possibilities of public e-service toward citizen. First, the main possibilities that were
considered to have a great impact in government are presented as main possibilities.
Thereafter, other possibilities presented in the conceptual framework are displayed
according to their relative perceived importance (high, medium, or low).
Table 5.3. Possibilities of public e-service toward citizen
Possibility SSH e-service FWSP e-service
• Technology & flexible government • Publish & interact & transaction

Main possibilities • Re-structure specific laws • Online transaction
• Information to workers • Work in real time
• Work with quality • New database
• Improved communications • Open mind in e-government
Possibility
Publish & interact & transact High High

Based on ICT developments Medium High
Open government philosophy High High
ICT essential but not only one High High
Need of diverse groups High High
Opinion of citizen High High
Efficient service delivery High High
Monitoring performance High High
High-volume operations High High
Support until last process High High
Help with design technology High High
EGE methodology High High
Best quality individualized High High
Incorporation of e-operations High High
Adapted to citizen target High High
Predictive & tested model High High
Robust & updated transaction High High
Data warehousing High High
Data mining tools High High
Interaction business model High High
Web presence in e-service High High
Real time systems High High

Main possibilities
SSH e-service identifies that technology without a flexible government system does not
give good profits. Both cases explain that other possibility the expansion of public e-
services in terms of open mind philosophy and re-structure of law. As well FWSP e-
service specifies related to data warehousing and data mining tools as a way of storing
and managing data and information based on intelligent processes and software. As well
is important the real time systems to control and tested what it is going to happen in
these public e-services. SSH e-service explains that other possibility is to work with a
tested methodology as a way to get the best quality. A requirement for this quality is the
formation and the experience to the workers in this field and it is here where
government is playing an important future.
E-service has to carry out in phases: publish, interact and transact

Concerning phases, SSH e-service agrees to this as high possibility because it is a good
way of following a methodology. FWSP e-service detects this possibility very high as
well because publishing, interacting and transacting steps cover all the objectives in
each e-service.
Changes have to be based on ICT developments

About ICT developments, SSH e-service specifies this in a medium level. FWSP e-
service detects this possibility very high because they need to develop a new IT
structure development.
Open governance philosophy

This is one of the best opportunities of expansion in public e-service for both cases of
study.
ICT is essential for providing good governance, not a sufficient one

Both cases think in the same manner according to this point. Legal system has to be
update and this is seen as high possibility.
Supply the needs of diverse groups of citizens

About supply the needs of diverse groups of citizens, both cases of study detect this
point as very high possibility.
Asking to citizenry opinion about e-projects

Concerning citizenry opinion about e-projects, SSH e-service agrees to this as high
possibility because it is a good way of knowing other point of view. FWSP e-service
detects this possibility very high as well because it would be interesting to know the
opinion of foreign workers and businessmen.
Developing an efficient and effective service delivery

About developing an efficient and effective service delivery, SSH e-service agrees to
this as high possibility because the final access of the product is the aim, although it is
not covered in this e-service. FWSP e-service detects this possibility very high as well
but the legal problem appears so first it should be solved it.

Continuously monitoring e-service performance

Both cases are sure that this aspect would improve the quality of the final product in a
high level.
Secure and flexible access and high-volume operations

About secure and flexible access and high-volume operations, SSH e-service agrees to
this as a high possibility because the system is ready for it. FWSP e-service detects this
possibility very high as well but their systems are not based in high-volume operations.
Use of EGE e-governance engineering methodology

Both cases see this methodology as a high expansion of public e-service since it is a
good beginning to start creating good systems.
Best quality, e-operations, needs of citizen target and tested model

SSH e-service agrees to this as high possibilities because it is easy to forget these
aspects when someone is designing a new system. FWSP e-service detects these
possibilities very high as well but they are more interested on tested models.
Robust transaction, data warehousing, data mining and business model

Attractive options in both cases to broad their respective systems but very expensive
Wider evaluation in real time systems

SSH e-service agrees to this as the highest possibility so it is a way of interaction for
users. FWSP e-service detects high level as well in a dynamic way of creating e-service.
5.4 Summary of Analysis

Since we are describing e-government, it is difficult to differentiate effects,
barriers and possibilities because there is only a soft line among them. As was suggested
by some authors, effects, barriers and possibilities are named related to the same idea.
From our point of view, we think that it is more interesting to explain the diverse
analysis of the research questions in a separated way. That is why we can observe three
different parts below, the effects, barriers and possibilities of public e-service.
Effects
The most important effect is described as information as way of communication

from government to citizens. According to the literature review and the cases of study,
this is identified as the most important effect. This produces the effect of speeding up
processes. Other effects, as quality or ICT process, are important as well but these are
not the major according to the respondents in the interviews.

Barriers
The most specific barrier is the legal aspect of Spanish government. This is an
effect as well. Because the apparition of public e-service is a base of emerging legal
policy. However, legal themes can be seen as a possibility to expand the new online
governments. Other aspect very problematic is that the automatic registration is not
allowed for Spanish government. Due to this difficult situation, a double process
appears. So people will submit the filled papers in the physical office. These public e-
services do not cover everything of the physical service. So it is clear to see that there is
a communication among these barriers.
Possibilities
The possibilities can be defined as a way of solving the problems or barriers.

Hence, there are some many relations among them (barriers and possibilities). The main
possibility is a flexible government as the expansion of public e-services in terms of
open mind philosophy and re-structure of law. As well the aspects related to data
warehousing and data mining tools as a way of storing and managing data and
information based on intelligent processes and updated software, is very important to
create a useful management system in government. This is connected to the possibility
of checking and testing the public e-services in real time systems.
The empirical data brought forth in the previous chapter, have in this chapter
been compared to the conceptual framework outlined in chapter two. The analysis in
this chapter started with data reduction through within case analysis of each case.
Thereafter, the data was displayed using crossed case analysis of the three research
questions. As the data now has been analyzed, findings can be outlined and conclusions
can be drawn. All this will be presented in the following chapter.

BOUZAS & RAVULA FINDINGS & CONCLUSIONS
6. Findings and conclusions

In this chapter, the research questions posed in chapter one will be answered
through our findings; thereby fulfilling the stated purpose with the study. Each of the
three research questions will be answered in separate sections. Moreover, based on the
empirical data, the analysis, and the findings, specific conclusions will be drawn for
every research question. This will be followed by a discussion regarding overall
conclusions and our view of issues that have been improved throughout this thesis.
Finally, implications for managers, theory, and further research will be suggested.
Consequently, because of the study’s qualitative nature, the findings and conclusions
cannot be considered in general. Nevertheless, the conclusions brought forth could later
be transferred into hypotheses that may be quantitatively testes, and then become in
general.
6.1 How can the effects of public e-service be described?

Our research shows that the effects of public e-service can be described as
clearer information and a way of finding information. Since we are describing the public
e-service as improvements in the physical office, government has the obligation of to be
update in terms of online services. In both case of study it is perceived as a positive
effect addition to the physical service.
As mentioned, one of the most important effects in the studied cases is the
option of having a better accessibility to the service in government. We describe this
theme related to the way of showing the information and how to manage it.
Consequently, this is joined to supporting and interface and therefore connected to the
modernization of the service as well. This perception of this modernization of services
sometimes seems to vary dependent on each public e-service.
The two public e-services in government have identified that the best and fast
effect is the capacity of e-services to speed up processes to be highly operative. This
could be an indication that the new administration is in the good way of managing
services. Moreover, the improvement in quality of government services is perceived to
be higher among the respondents of both e-services. This line of reasoning would imply
that e-service would be so competitive that their quality has reached something close to
the highest level. Thus, it can be said that government is giving the same opportunities
to everybody to get access to different services as well as improvements in government
workers.
However, some proposed effects could not be concluded as particularly

important from this investigation’s point of view. This is the suggested effect that
access to representatives has very low level due to the legal aspect of Spanish
government. Consequently, it can be concluded that although trivial today, the
development of new government structure based on a new and modern law system, is
the base for future expectations in public e-services.

In order to summarize how the effects of public e-service can be described, the
main conclusions derived from the investigated public e-services will be presented
below.
• Effects of public e-service will give clearer information.

• Effects of public e-service are perceived to have better accessibility.
• Effects of public e-service will manage better quality.
• The main effect of public e-service is perceived as way of speeding up process.
6.2 How can the barriers toward adoption of public e-service be

explained?
Our research shows that the barriers of public e-service can be described as not
automatic registration and legal barriers. The problem appears when citizens can not fill
the papers by the internet and it is appearing a double process, physical and online. This
is related to legal barriers because there are some laws that forbid it. Since we are
describing the barriers, the law structure is one of the most difficult barriers to solve it.
As mentioned, one of the most important barriers in the studied cases is the lack
of cultural and social experience in government aspects by citizens and workers as well.
A lot of people think that it only is a question of time and money. But from our point of
view, we consider according to the studied cases that it is a problem of culture and
society. Government puts the environment but sometimes we do not know how to use it
or how to manage it.
The two public e-services in government have identified as an important barrier

wrong communications. This could be explained as bad communication between
government and citizens. The problem here appears when the responsible does not have
the ability of managing all processes correctly and when there is no interest by citizens
to get some technical knowledge.
However, some proposed barriers could not be concluded as particularly

important from this investigation’s point of view. Some barriers, as infrastructure
confrontation and problems to reinforce IC can not be included as the most important
barriers as well as the incompatible data standards because concerning our cases of
study these e-services are executed very well.
In order to summarize how the barriers toward adoption of public e-service can
be explained, the main conclusions derived from the investigated public e-services will
be presented below.
• Barriers of public e-service are explained as not automatic registration.

• Barriers of public e-service are based on wrong communications.
• Barriers of public e-service are focused on double processes (physical and online).
• The main barrier of public e-service is perceived as a legal policy.

6.3 How can the possibilities of public e-service toward citizen be

expanded?
Our research shows that the possibilities of public e-service can be described as
flexible government. This means that it is necessary an open mind in e-government and
thus to update processes as base to expand the Spanish culture and society at the same
time than the Spanish government system.
As mentioned, one of the most important possibilities in the studied cases is the
improvement in communication. This includes new structure of government based on
quality systems and some information to workers in specific fields. Government has
started to improve these themes but it is only the beginning. From our point of view, a
good experience and tested model is one of the best possibilities to improve an online
government because this allows to think about mistakes and to create over it.
The two public e-services in government have identified that the best and fast
possibility is related to technology in terms of data warehousing and data mining tools.
First of all, we need the capacity of storing data. After, it is starting to think how to
manage data. Hence appears the point of data warehousing as one of the best
improvements. Some tools based on intelligent software can be interesting to improve
the systems as well.
Designing a data warehouse involves creating, manipulating, and mapping

models. These models are conceptual, logical, and a physical (data) representation of
the business and end-user information needs but this takes time and money. Some
models already exist in source systems and must be reverse engineered and thus it is not
easy to get. Other models, such as those defining the data warehouse, are created from
scratch but other possibility is to start from cero. Creating a data warehouse requires
designers to map data between source and target models, capturing the details of the
transformation in a meta-data repository and after the tested model in e-government
sectors.
However, some proposed possibilities could not be concluded as particularly

important from this investigation’s point of view. For instance, the possibility based on
ICT developments can not be best one. Consequently, technology is essential but it is
not the only one. ICT without business model is almost dead fro our point of view. That
is why so important the internal and external communication in e-government is.
In order to summarize how the possibilities of public e-service toward citizen

can be expanded, the main conclusions derived from the investigated public e-services
will be presented below.
• Possibilities of public e-service can be expanded based on a flexible government.

• Possibilities of public e-service are expended in improved communications
• Possibilities of public e-service designing a data warehouse
• Possibilities of public e-service with data intelligent mining tools.

6.4 Overall conclusions

This section will directly address this thesis’ research purpose and also give an
overview as to how we as researchers view the finding of this study on an overall level.
The purpose of this study was to gain a deeper understanding of how public e-services
can be interpreted as a subset of E-commerce in terms of effects, barriers and
possibilities toward citizen. We are of the opinion that through an extensive
investigation that has managed to yield sufficient information in order to provide
answers to the research questions posed, the deeper understanding sought after in the
purpose has been achieved.
Figure 6.1 below illustrates how our conducted research is overall perceived, and
how we consider the research questions to be interlinked based on the analyses,
findings, and conclusions. This visualization could preferably be compared to the
emerged frame of reference presented in Figure 2.6 (page 34), in order for the reader to
gain a more thorough comprehension as to how this thesis has evolved. The chief
variables identified by all investigated public e-services are presented in the figure
below.
EFFECTS OF PUBLIC E-SERVICE (RQ1)
• Clearer information
• Better accessibility
• Better quality
• Speeding up process
BARRIERS TOWARD ADOPTION OF PUBLIC E-SERVICE (RQ2)
• Non- automatic registration

• Wrong communications
• Double processes (physical and online)
• Legal policy
POSSIBILITIES OF PUBLIC E-SERVICE TOWARD CITIZEN (RQ3)
• Flexible government.
• Improved communications
• Designing a data warehouse
• Data intelligent mining tools
Figure 6.1. Authors’ emerged perception of conducted research

As can be derived from figure 6.1, the effects can be described as information,
accessibility, quality and speeding up processes. The barriers can be explained as
problems in registration, wrong communications, double process and legal policy. The
possibilities can be expanded with flexible government, improved communications, data
warehousing and data intelligent mining tools
6.5 Implications
In this thesis’ final section, we will first provide implications for practitioners
and managers in public e-services. Thereafter, we will provide some implications and
reactions to the theories that have been adopted for the thesis. The thesis will end with
recommendations for researchers who feel that they have not had enough by reading
this thesis and consequently further want to engross themselves and dive deeper into the
current field of research.
6.5.1 Implications for management
First of all, our research indicates that public e-service has become a growing
force in government, mostly in rich countries. Based on our research and the
information received from the investigated cases, we recommend managers whose
governments could be affected for this expansion of public e-service to consider the
behaviour of the worker in government and the opinion of citizens each other. This
should be the fundament on which to build further public e-service strategies as to how
physical service should be approached.
Furthermore, we also think it is very important to have an open mind philosophy

which could serve to develop better public e-services in government as well as a new
modification of laws. On the contrary, government will still be very much dependent on
external factors.
6.5.2 Implications for theory
The purpose of this study has mainly been to describe a phenomenon within a
specific area of research. We have aimed for a deeper understanding of this
phenomenon by answering the research questions connected to effects, barriers and
possibilities of public e-service toward citizen; this has been done with the help from
theories proposed by previous researchers. By answering the research questions and
thus increasing the understanding of this phenomenon, it could be said that we have
made a contribution to the adopted theories by testing them from a new perspective.
Some theories brought up in the conceptual framework have proven to correlate

well with the empirical findings of this thesis, for instance the majority of Ruyter et al.
(2001) proposed effects in response function implementation or the majority of
Surjadjaja et al. (2003) effects in response to ICT process.

In addition, a considerable number of Ebrahim & Irani (2005) (as well as

supporting authors’) barriers have been proven to interlink quite well with the collected
data in response to architectural framework. The majority of Gurau (2003) proposed
possibilities in response to virtual data of public e-service. Therefore, these theories can
be considered as reinforce and hence, to some extent applicable in a new setting. On the
other hand, a number of previous studies presented in the conceptual framework have
also proven to deviate from the predicted pattern as they were tested in this new setting.
The most conspicuous deviations will be accounted for below.
First of all, none of the reviewed theories have described clearly the problem in
law when it is time to change the government structure. As suggested Lam (2005), the
inflexibility of legal systems regulated by laws is emerging. Since this was stated as a
chief barrier and possibility as well by all investigated e-services, we feel that an
addition to the theories on public e-service laws should be contemplated.
Finally, none of the theories are explained in depth how to develop a good
infrastructure in government. As suggested Ebrahim & Irani (2005), this produces
confrontation. Since this was claimed as other main barrier and possibility in public e-
services, we think that it would be relevant to include some deeper theory about this
specific theme.
6.5.3 Recommendations for further research
For those who would like to further indulge themselves in the research area of
public e-service marketing, we present a number of interesting propositions for further
research below.
As seems imperative that e-government is continuously expanding, and since our

thesis at numerous occasions has found that the growth of these public e-services can be
stopped due to emerging law, it would be interesting to do a previous study about laws
and what the relation is between government and law, but in a future setting. This in
order to see if our discovered patterns regarding to effects, barriers and possibilities
would change over time.
Furthermore, the two investigates public e-services in this thesis can both be
classified as relatively medium-involvement ones, in fact there in no a lot of e-services
in government nowadays, which could be an explanation as to why the studied public e-
service has not yet taken particularly strong strategy measures in response to citizens.
Thus, it would be an interesting approach to study other sort of governments in higher-
involvement categories/e-services, as these might pursue different methods when
barriers are emerging.
Finally, this study has been limited to investigating Spanish government in the
fast movement of e-government, and thus no real generalizable conclusions can be
drawn outside that specific setting. Nevertheless, the findings of this thesis could serve
as a base for the construction of hypotheses, which in a later stage could be tested in a
quantitative setting, and by that generate more generalizable results.

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BOUZAS & RAVULA APPENDIX
Appendix A – Interview Guide

General Information
• Government nationality
• Name and position of respondent
• Number of employees related to e-service
• Year of e-service creation
• Line of e-service industry
• Business mission
• Most important alternatives
• Target audience
Part A – Effects of public e-service
How can the main effects of public e-service be described?
Do you possess any other effects than those mentioned?
Please rate the following suggested effects of public e-service according to their relative importance in the section of
your organization
FUNCTION Low Medium High
Demand pre and after sales Please comment
Sharing business information Please comment
Automating relationships Please comment
QUALITY Low Medium High
Supporting & interface Please comment
Response time frame Please comment
Access to representatives Please comment
ICT PROCESS Low Medium High
E-transaction Please comment
ICT itself Please comment
Customized services Please comment
PUBLIC E-SERVICE MARKETING

OPERATION Low Medium High
E-consultation Please comment
Closer government Please comment
Modernization service Please comment
Reduce fraud Please comment
Anything to add regarding effects of public e-service toward citizens …
Part B – Barriers toward adoption of public e-service
How can the main barriers toward adoption of public e-service be described?
Do you possess any other barriers than those mentioned?
Does your organization/section use any strategy in response to these mentioned barriers?
• Why/why not?
• Which?
Please rate the following suggested barriers of public e-service according to their relative importance in this specific
public e-service
ARCHITECTURAL FRAMEWORK Low Medium High
Not allowed e-vote (online activities) Please comment
Infrastructure confrontation Please comment
Problems to reinforce IC Please comment
Business & technology joined Please comment
Integrated e-services Please comment
Divided database Please comment
Costly & ineffective structure Please comment

TECHNOLOGY & SECURITY Low Medium High
Deficiency of IT skills Please comment
Trained staff Please comment
Ensure security & privacy Please comment
Opposition of workers Please comment
High cost hardware/software Please comment
High cost of IT infrastructure Please comment
Inflexibility legal systems Please comment
Incompatible data standards Please comment
FINANCIAL & POLICY Low Medium High
Getting funds requested Please comment
Problems in managing funds Please comment
No sharing data in agencies Please comment
Lack of central funds Please comment
ORGANIZATIONAL Low Medium High
No communication external/internal Please comment
No ready in novel technology Please comment
Non-total success model Please comment
Legal process Please comment
Anything to add with regards to barriers of public e-service in response to citizens …

Part C – Possibilities of public e-service toward citizen
How can the greatest possibilities of public e-service according to your organizational strategy be described?
Please comment the possibilities of public e-service connected to the suggested barriers in part B.
How do you perceive the future for public e-service (e-government)?
Please rate the following suggested possibilities of public e-service according to their relative importance in a future
situation
GOVERNANCE VIEW Low Medium High
Publish & interact & transact Please comment
Based on ICT developments Please comment
Open government philosophy Please comment
ICT essential but not only one Please comment
Need of diverse groups Please comment
APPLICATIONS & ENGINEERING Low Medium High
Opinion of citizen Please comment
Efficient service delivery Please comment
Monitoring performance Please comment
High-volume operations Please comment
Support until last process Please comment
Help with design technology Please comment
EGE methodology Please comment

OPERATIONS & OPTIMIZATION Low Medium High
Best quality individualized Please comment
Incorporation of e-operations Please comment
Adapted to citizen target Please comment
Predictive & tested model Please comment
VIRTUAL DATA Low Medium High
Robust & updated transaction Please comment
Data warehousing Please comment
Data mining tools Please comment
Interaction business model Please comment
Web presence in e-service Please comment
Real time systems Please comment
Anything to add with regards to expansion of public e-service in a future situation …

Public E-Service Marketing: Master'S Thesis

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MASTER’S THESIS

DIEGO BOUZAS CABELLO

SOCIAL SCIENCE AND BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION PROGRAMMES

ELECTRONIC COMMERCE PROGRAMME

Department of Business Administration and Social Sciences

Luleå University of Technology, 23 January 2006

Diego Bouzas Cabello Ravula Uday Kumar

1.1 BACKGROUND ------------------------------------------------------------------ 1

2. LITERATURE REVIEW & CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK ------------- 9

2.1 EFFECTS OF PUBLIC E-SERVICE ------------------------------------------- 9

3.1 PURPOSE OF THE RESEARCH ----------------------------------------------- 35

4. DATA PRESENTATION ------------------------------------------------------------ 47

4.1 CASE ONE – STATE SUBSIDIZED HOUSING E-SERVICE ------------ 47

5.1 WITHIN CASE STATE SUBSIDIZED HOUSING E-SERVICE --------- 60

6.1 HOW CAN THE EFFECTS OF PUBLIC E-SERVICE --------------------- 76

6.2 HOW CAN THE BARRIERS TOWARD ADOPTION --------------------- 77

6.3 HOW CAN THE POSSIBILITIES OF PUBLIC E-SERVICE -------------- 78

6.4 OVERALL CONCLUSIONS ---------------------------------------------------- 79

6.5 IMPLICATIONS ------------------------------------------------------------------ 80

APPENDIX A – INTERVIEW GUIDE

Online marketing or e-marketing is the adjustment and expansion of marketing

PUBLIC E-SERVICE MARKETING 1

As a significant part of e-marketing, an e-service can be explained as an

Although, by definition, the spirit of marketing is to generate exchanges that

The meaning of e-business, and in so doing of e-service, is a multifaceted issue.

Public e-services provision involves, according to a standard sight, the public

- E-government. Provision of government information to citizens, the facilitation

- E-public service. Delivery of public services to society, commerce partners and

PUBLIC E-SERVICE MARKETING 2

Public Administrations are organizations giving services to the citizen and

The public sector in a variety of European nationalities has approached to be

Figure 1.1. Layers in public administration

PUBLIC E-SERVICE MARKETING 3

1.2 Problem discussion

In connection with this expansion there is a need to consider whether new

Basically, e-service excellence in public sector is predicated on the public

PUBLIC E-SERVICE MARKETING 4

1.2.2 Barriers toward adoption of public e-service

The advance of processor technologies has formed modifications in information

The consideration specified to internet application is escalating in the public

1.2.3 Possibilities of public e-service toward citizen

PUBLIC E-SERVICE MARKETING 5

Since clients trust on e-services as a opportunity to advance their marks, it is

Certifying the implementation of an e-service is a significant and decisive

Meanwhile, citizens, predisposed by private sector experiences, are expecting

PUBLIC E-SERVICE MARKETING 6

“a better understanding of how public e-services can be interpreted as a subset

1.4 Research questions

1.6 Summary of Introduction and thesis outline

PUBLIC E-SERVICE MARKETING 7

LITERATURE REVIEW & CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

FINDINGS & CONCLUSIONS

Figure 1.2. Thesis outline

PUBLIC E-SERVICE MARKETING 8

2.1 Effects of public e-service

Many companies are adopting Internet-based e-services for conducting business

PUBLIC E-SERVICE MARKETING 9

2.1.2 Effects of public e-service quality

1. The centre service (Ibid).

- Reliability. This includes the rightness of order fulfilment, punctual delivery,

- Responsiveness. This includes prompt responses to customers’ investigation,

- Ease of use. This is related to an easy-to-remember URL address, well-

- Attentiveness. This consists of individualised interest, personal thank-you notes