The role of future-oriented technology analysis in e-Government: a systematic review

Outline

• Article
• Abstract
• Introduction
• E-Government
• Future-Oriented Technology Analysis
• Methodology
• Findings
• Conclusions
• Footnotes
• Notes
• References
• Copyright Information
• About This Article

Conclusions

The discussion above has only given a flavour of the sorts of result that the sort of systematic literature review presented here can provide. Likewise, space constraints mean that we here give only a brief summary of findings and overview of implications of the study.

Before setting these out we must acknowledge that a major limitation of our analysis if the restriction of our search strategy to works in the English language. As a referee has helpfully pointed out, governmental Foresight activities will generally be primarily oriented to national audiences, and thus reported in local languages. What gets reported in English will be fairly selective, and some work on e-Government may have been missed. Future research should seek to reach beyond the English language, and perhaps be informed by a survey of relevant governmental actors. We can only speculate as to whether our results would be much affected by such efforts.

This literature review found very few studies reporting on the use of FTA by e-Government initiatives in Scopus and in the English language. This finding is unexpected given that FTA studies have been often applied to ICT issues, and sometimes to Public Administration and more general political affairs [105]. Further research could set about identifying the reasons for this situation, and how it could be remedied. Are policymakers assuming that their own ways of working are somehow different from (or above) those of the many other fields where FTA is employed to help guide decisions about the use of technology?.

When it is applied, FTA has been shown to be mainly used in the planning phase of e-Government initiatives. This is encouraging, in that the literature points to inadequacies in strategy as a cause of e-Government failures [7, 9, 10, 26, 27, 28]. But whether the application of FTA really made a difference in these cases remains another question for further research. To the extent that it has, we might learn from the methods used, and make the case for more general application of these approaches. When it has not, there is the matter of whether this reflects inherent limitations of current FTA approaches, or forces it simply result from poorly implementation of FTA?

Whatever is the case, e-Government practitioners need to focus more on the design of long-term visions for their initiatives. FTA is a tool that can support this activity, and it should be of value to examine earlier efforts to apply this approach.

Practitioners will want to know the quality and utility of the outputs generated in these FTA-based e-Government initiatives. To further research this will probably require evidence going beyond the sorts of document studied here. There is scope for research covering documentary sources beyond those captured in Scopus. This might include reports from national foresight programs and e-Government projects (most of them likely to be written in national languages for decision-making purposes), and masters’ dissertations and doctoral theses (which may also be written in a variety of languages). Some of these sources are transitory or grey literature, and some are inadequately archived. Non-English language materials will require translation (or some other common language being used). Such a wider range of documents might simply confirm our main results, above, but might point to other, perhaps different, applications of FTA for supporting e-Government initiatives. Interviews and surveys may be required, however, to fully understand the use and usefulness of FTA in this field, especially for policy-makers who belongs to different levels of government. In this study, the convenience and limitations of FTA in e-Government also emerges as a further research topic, for which it could be useful to design interviews and surveys for FTA experts.

A wide variety of FTA methods were brought to bear in those e-Government initiatives studied here. Of the 37 methods documented, there was a tendency to prefer the family of expert opinion methods. This may reflect this family’s participatory aspects, and the comparatively low costs of many of its methods. Conversely, the modelling family was least preferred – possibly its high costs outweighed its power in the analysis of large volumes of data.

Typically, several FTA methods were used in combination. (The average number of FTA methods per study was remarkably similar to that found in studies of FTA in general [103, 105]). The relationships found between FTA methods in this study raise questions for further analysis, in which could help address a question commonly confronted by FTA practitioners – what combinations of methods will be most suitable in specific circumstances?

Finally, the review found a low level of involvement of citizens and non-governmental organizations in FTA applied to e-Government. This result echoes criticisms of e-Government initiatives more generally. FTA practitioners should examine the causes of this low level of engagement, and explore ways in which more stakeholders can be constructively involved. Policymakers should also be encouraged to take action in order to increase engagement. The aim is not just to confer greater legitimacy on the FTA: it can lead to a better understanding of citizens’ demands (once understood, they can then be better addressed), and help realise the objective of a citizen-centred government.