IfG.Research - The Institute for eGovernment

The e-Government Emerging Topics minitrack provides a home for incubating new topics and trends in e-Government research. E-Government as an academic field is evolving; new directions of research and practice are emerging while others are becoming accepted as foundational also in different disciplines. However, the foundations of the field still need to be spelled out more explicitly and become embedded into diverse theoretical perspectives. This HICSS Egovernment Emerging Topics minitrack brings together streams of research that contribute to such a foundation, while simultaneously offering a platform for emerging and innovative research in our field. The 2016 offering of the E-Government Emerging Topics minitrack contains papers representing different approaches indicating different emerging paths of e-government research. We are happy to present four theoretical informed papers building on case studies covering our wide practice from a broad range of contexts. In the first paper Understanding Public Sector Collaboration Through Boundary Object Theory: A Case Study of an e-Government Project in Sweden by Karl-Mikael Lonn and Elin Uppstrom, both at Stockholm University, presents a case study based on a collaborative initiative among 22 authorities in Sweden. The case shows that boundary objects support collaboration between communities within the context of the e-government initiative. The authors thus argue that boundary object theory can be established as a feasible theoretical lens for studying complex and mature e-government initiatives. The second paper of this minitrack is authored by Taiane Ritta Coelho, Erico Przeybilovicz, Maria Alexandra Cunha all from the FGV-EAESP, Sao Paulo and Tiago Henrique Souza Echternacht PUCPR, Curitiba. The paper addresses the important issue of conceptualizing e-government in developing contexts under the title Positioning a developing country in international eGov research. Is there a way? Hereby they elaborate on alternatives for positioning a developing country in the international e-government research field. The paper is based on a literature review of both Brazilian and international publications and show how authors, institutions and countries cooperate. Based on the analysis they argue that the findings of the study are not limited to Brazil, other developing countries can also benefit from the results of the study. The third paper A Storytelling Approach for Electronic Government Research is written by AnnSofie Hellberg, Orebro University, Sweden. Hellberg argues that the use of a storytelling approach could make the research more comprehensible and accessible, but so far it has not been used within the e-government research field. In addition to basic interpretive research this approach can include a narrator’s voice, examining myths, and writing stories and hereby play an important role in dealing with the challenges of e-government projects. The final paper of the Emerging Topics minitrack, E-Governance and the Transformation of Professionalism: the Case of the Police by Tino Schuppan and Esther Ruiz Ben shows how egovernance contributes to transform professionalism in police work. The results reveal that police officers experiment and transform professionalism as it is manifested in their competences, discretion and jurisdictional boundaries and it is renegotiate in each case they are confronted to. These papers all contribute to the ambition of the track to improve our understanding of the foundations of e-government as a study area as well as legitimate practice. From diverse theoretical standpoints the papers build and test new computational tools and techniques to inform policy development. The papers also open for reflections on how to analyze the diverse practices of egovernment. We hereby open for continued discussions on emerging issues in our multidisciplinary and multidimensional academic field. 2016 49th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences