| Research Abstract |
This research project examines any effects IT could made on governmental agencies. Its objective is twofold. On the one hand, this project tries to develop a conceptual model for electronic government, its vision, components, functions, change of business processes and operations and so forth. It also tries to examine the way electronic government is to be implemented on the other.
We have been engaged in the following activities.
1) We made a survey of literature concerning electronic government and IT strategy of administrative agencies.
2) We conducted field research in various cities in Japan, the United States and Sweden and Finland to develop a comparative prespective. The cities where we made research include City of Tokyo, Mie Prefecture, Gifu Prefecture, Shizuoka Prefecture, Yokosuka City and Kakogawa City in Japan, New York City, Los Angels, Sunnyvale and Sacramento in the States, Stockhold and Kista in Sweden and Helsinki in Finland.
3) We prepared a questionnaire to find out th
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e way Japanese local governments think of electronic government and how they are adapting themselves to it. We sent it to 203 local governments in Japan and 140 of them replied to it. Analysis of the research is still going on; however, we have got major findings so far as follows:
1. The way governmental agencies adapt themselves to IT heavily depends on economic situation, taxation system and institutional framework in which local government works in each country.
2. Seniority system and lifetime employment are still dominant in Japan. It seems that highly flexible labor market and performance-based pay system will be preferable to make the most of the dynamics of IT utilization. For example, CIO of Sacramento County is an independent contractor on a three-year contract, which is quite rare in Japan.
3. American and Nordic govenments, e.g., NYC and Sunnyvale City, *ave a long experience of performance management of administrative agencies and entire government; what is important is that they set out IT strategy in combination with performance management perspective. That is, they developed a vision of BPR and human resource management of government through the utilization of IT, which Japanese governments tends to lack.
4. Governments in Japan are slow in realizing the importance of IT and deploying the Internet and Intranet for their operations and providing services. We have published several articles and books related to this research project already. We are now preparing a book to be published May 2001, in which we discuss the following issues: 1) the model of electronic government, focusing on electronic transaction, filing, archiving and dissemination; 2) institutional framework to implement the model; and 3) obstacles against implementation and the way to cope with such obstacles. Less
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