Académique Documents
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J. Ramon Gil-Garcia
rsandovala@uaemex.mx
joseramon.gil@cide.edu
greater citizen participation. What is now called electronic
government has become a powerful strategy for administrative
reform at all levels of government. However, federal and state
governments are more clearly taking advantage of the potential
benefits of these new technologies. Local governments are also
using ICTs, but there are relatively few studies about local egovernment in developing countries and more knowledge should
be generated.
ABSTRACT
Several scholars and practitioners argue that the most important
interaction between citizens and government happens through
local government agencies. This relationship could become closer
and more frequent with the use of information and communication
technologies (ICTs). However, very few studies have focused on
understanding the use of ICTs in the local governments of
developing countries. The purpose of this study is to provide
evidence about the status of Mexican local governments in terms
of their use of ICTs. It is based on an exploratory online survey
administered to 108 local governments and 59 interviews with
local government chief information officers (CIOs). The study
concludes that there are important limitations related to
infrastructure, use of software, and the development of their
websites. This paper presents the main findings of this exploratory
research and provides some practical recommendations.
General Terms
Keywords
E-Government, Municipalities,
Government, Municipal CIO
Online
Surveys,
Local
e-
1. INTRODUCTION
The use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in
government has increased in the last few decades. Countries
around the world are now adopting strategies for a better use of
these technologies with very different objectives: greater
efficiency, greater transparency, higher service quality, and
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2. LITERATURE REVIEW
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Kunstelj and Decman [10] assess the development of local egovernments in Slovenia. Their study was comprised of a
quantitative and qualitative analysis of Web sites, a questionnaire
to public servants, and a test of local government e-mail
responsiveness. Attour-Oueslati, Dufresne, and Longhi [11]
examines how local public administration has developed in
France and their study is based on evidence from a dedicated
survey of a sample of French communes. Al-Nuaim [12]
examined e-government in the Arab World. His study uses an
evaluation checklist to assess the six Arab capitals with official
websites and found that these websites were not citizen-centered.
Williams [13] examines the level of e-government adoption at the
regional level in Europe across eight different categories. Data
collection was through a survey of 1,021 local governments across
seven European regions and it was conducted in order to assess
the development of e-government.
Once the URLs of the websites were validated, the data collection
took place. The research team visited the websites for about 30-50
minutes and filled out an online survey according to the respective
questionnaires. For the urban local governments (71 cases), the
complete survey of 60 questions was applied. In the case of the
rural local governments (37 cases), a partial section of the survey
(35 questions) was applied. The instrument includes questions
related to website format, content information, security issues, and
technologies in use. For the technology-related questions, data
about hardware and software use was not available from the local
government websites. Phone interviews were used to collect these
data, but the research team was able to perform only 59
interviews, because some local governments do not have a valid
telephone number or the person responsible for the data was never
available. Data collection took place from March to May of 2009.
Both questionnaires - urban and rural - were tested and piloted on
three websites prior to their general application and two
researchers validated the database.
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Variable
Highest
Point
Average
Municipaliti
es
below
Average
Website
92
44
45
Information
88
49
34
Technology
40
14
36
Security
20
31
URBAN
RURAL
Green
240 160
150 100
Yellow
159 80
99 50
Red
79 0
49 0
63
Web site
Highest
Point
48
Information
Technology
Variable
25
Municipalities
below Average
29
60
40
18
16
Average
5. CONCLUSIONS
In this preliminary study, two things are clear at this point. First,
the majority of the municipalities analyzed in the sample have not
implemented service delivery to citizens; the website functions
only as another information channel. For instance, most of these
websites provide information for tax payment, but citizens cannot
pay online. Second, the use of technology is in a very initial stage.
Only 33% of the portals have a search engine; 19 websites (17%)
have a catalogue of services; on 10 (9%) websites citizens are able
to complete online services without the support of a physical
office; and only 11 (10%) of municipal websites are able to accept
online payments.
Findings
Fax: 95%
Information Technologies
Internet: 100%
Mobile: 88%
More than 30: 83%
20-30 computers: 9%
Number of computers
10-20 computers: 5%
1-5 computers: 3%
Win XP: 99%
Win Vista: 72%
Win 98: 15%
Operating System*
Win Me: 5 %
Linux: 17%
Mac OSx: 10%
Power Point, Word and Excel:
Software*
97%
Open Source: 26%
Data Base: 100%
Information Systems
ERP: 13%
CRM: 6%
* Note: They could choose several options; therefore, the total
could be more than 100%
Fourth, in order to develop a good instrument to measure local egovernment features in developing countries, more work is still
needed. The main practical goal of this kind of research is to
provide government officials with enough information for the
development of policies that promote the use of technology in
local governments, especially in governments with greater
economic and social disadvantages. Fifth, mapping the
weaknesses and strengths of the impact of ICTs could help leaders
to make decisions regarding public policies and reduce this gap
among local governments in terms of technology.
The use of ICTs could help mitigate some of these limitations, but
it is also more difficult for local governments to design and
implement these initiatives, mainly due to limited resources and
organizational capabilities. It is necessary to develop a strategic
framework that helps these disadvantaged local governments to
develop and implement e-government projects that have a positive
impact on citizens and society as a whole. This work is a very
modest initial step towards that goal.
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6. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This study was partially supported by a research grant from the
Autonomous University of the State of Mexico. The authors want
to thank Arturo Palma, Karel Alejandra Ramirez Ortega, and
Nancy Karina Saucedo for their valuable assistance in the
development of this work.
7. REFERENCES
[1] Deloitte, R. Public Sector Institute at the Dawn of Egovernment: the citizen as a costumer. 2000.
[2] Gil-Garcia, J. R. and Luna-Reyes, L. F. Integrating
Conceptual Approaches to E-Government. Idea Group Inc.,
City, 2006.
[3] Kaylor, C., Deshazo, R. and Van Eck, D. Gauging egovernment: A report on implementing services among
American cities. Government Information Quarterly, 18, 4
2001), 293-307.
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