The approach of senior public officials to information technology-related reform: lessons from India
✍ Scribed by Richard Heeks
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2000
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 69 KB
- Volume
- 20
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0271-2075
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
A review of global experience suggests that information technology "IT# has great potential to contribute to public sector reform[ However\ the Indian reality*like that for many countries*has been more problematic\ with many failures of IT!related reform^failures that can be described as total\ partial or failures of sustainability and replication[ Many factors help explain such failure\ but a key component is the approach to IT and reform adopted by senior public o.cials[ A {four Is| model of approaches is described] the non!IT approach of {ignore| and the IT!related approaches of {isolate|\ {idolize| and {integrate|[ Analysis of Indian cases suggests it is the last approach that is most likely to deliver reform objectives^yet it remains the least commonly adopted[ Changes are therefore required in current strategies for public administration training and in the planning and management of change[ Copyright Þ 1999 John Wiley + Sons\ Ltd[ INTRODUCTION] THE POTENTIAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY TO SUPPORT REFORM Government has been\ and still remains\ the single largest collector\ user\ holder and producer of infor! mation[ 0 Information is a central resource for all sta} levels and for all activities] {In pursuing the democratic:political processes\ in managing resources\ executing functions\ measuring performance and in service delivery\ information is the basic ingredient| "Isaac!Henry\ 0886\ p[ 021#[ The work of the public sector is thus very information!intensive\ and four main types of formal information are identi_able] , Information to support internal manaement[ This includes information about sta} for personnel manage! ment\ and information about budgets and accounts for \_nancial management[ Like the other types of information described here\ it can be used for everything from day!to!day operational implementation up to long!term policy analysis and planning[ , Information to support public administration and reulation[ This includes information that records details of the main {entities| in a country] people\ business enterprises\ buildings\ land plots\ imports:exports\ etc[ It is used for a variety of purposes such as legal\ commercial and _scal[ , Information to support public services[ Examples include education "e[g[ school sta} records#\ health "e[g[ patient records#\ transport "e[g[ passenger reservation information# and public utilities "e[g[ customer billing information#[ Correspondence to] Dr R[ Heeks\ IDPM\ University of Manchester\ Crawford House\ Precinct Centre\ Oxford Road\ Manchester M02 8GH\ UK[ E!mail] richard[heeksÝman[ac[uk 0
Information may be de_ned as {data that has been processed to make it useful to its recipient|[ It is thus di}erentiated from data "{raw\ unprocessed information|# and knowledge "{information that has been assimilated into a coherent framework of understanding] usually the human mind|# "Heeks\ 0887#[ Government has often been better at handling data than at handling information[ For the sake of consistency\ however\ the term {information| will be used throughout this article[ R[ HEEKS