The e-Citizen as talk, as text and as technology

Public service transformation in the UK is being carried out in the name of the citizen and these changes – specifically those labelled as ‘e-Government’ – bring with them the prospect of a significant shift in the nature of the relationship between government and its citizens. Of particular interest is the notion of the e-Citizen, set against a contemporary public management backdrop featuring customer-centric discourses/metaphors, organisational transformation and ICT-intensive ‘private-sector’ business solutions. This paper focuses on a pilot study concerned with exploring the nature and role of socio-technical and discursive factors which may be implicated in the ‘shaping’ of the e-Citizen around the introduction of ‘customer relationship management’ (CRM) systems at a local government level. The research design draws on ‘social shaping of technology’ approaches and emphasises the significance of discursive events in these shaping processes. Preliminary findings suggest that citizen-users of the new face to face access channel within local e-government are being configured primarily as ‘customers’ which we suggest has significant implications for the traditional relationship between individuals and the institutions of government..

[1]  N. Selwyn,et al.  Switching on the learning society? - questioning the role of technology in widening participation in lifelong learning , 1999 .

[2]  Cees J. Hamelink,et al.  The ethics of cyberspace , 2001 .

[3]  C. W. Morris.  Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism , 1995 .

[4]  Yogesh Malhotra,et al.  Organizational controls as enablers and constraints in successful knowledge management systems implementation , 2000, IRMA Conference.

[5]  Valerie Halstead.  Teacher Education in England: Analysing change through scenario thinking , 2003 .

[6]  J. Law.  A Sociology of monsters: Essays on power, technology, and domination , 1991 .

[7]  J. Fountain.  Building the Virtual State: Information Technology and Institutional Change , 2001 .

[8]  Jane E. Fountain,et al.  Paradoxes of Public Sector Customer Service , 2001 .

[9]  Alan D. Smith,et al.  Communication and loyalty among knowledge workers: a resource of the firm theory view , 2002, J. Knowl. Manag..

[10]  Steve Woolgar,et al.  The Machine at Work , 1997 .

[11]  Dan S. Wallach,et al.  Analysis of an electronic voting system , 2004, IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, 2004. Proceedings. 2004.

[12]  A. Erridge,et al.  Partnerships and public procurement: building social capital through supply relations , 2002 .

[13]  D. Langford.  Internet Ethics , 2003 .

[14]  Ignace Snellen,et al.  Electronic Governance: Implications for Citizens, Politicians and Public Servants , 2002 .

[15]  Deborah G. Johnson.  Ethics online , 1997 .

[16]  Lisa J. Servon.  Bridging the Digital Divide , 2002 .

[17]  M. Castells.  The rise of the network society , 1996 .

[18]  Steffen Staab,et al.  Knowledge and Business Processes: Approaching an Integration , 2002 .

[19]  Owen E. Hughes,et al.  Public Management and Administration: An Introduction , 1994 .

[20]  Lisa J. Servon.  Bridging the Digital Divide: Technology, Community, and Public Policy , 2002 .

[21]  D. Osborne,et al.  Reinventing Government: How the En-trepreneurial Spirit is Transforming the Public Sector , 1992 .

[22]  Y. Malhotra.  Knowledge Management in Inquiring Organizations , 1997 .

[23]  Paul H. J. Hendriks,et al.  Many rivers to cross: from ICT to knowledge management systems , 2001, J. Inf. Technol..

[24]  Morten T. Hansen,et al.  What's your strategy for managing knowledge? , 1999, Harvard business review.

[25]  Fytton Rowland,et al.  Knowledge management in a public organization: a study on the relationship between organizational elements and the performance of knowledge transfer , 2004, J. Knowl. Manag..

[26]  Glenn Robert,et al.  Knowledge management and communities of practice in the private sector: lessons for modernizing the National Health Service in England and Wales , 2002 .

[27]  Joe Mohen,et al.  The case for internet voting , 2001, CACM.

[28]  Chris Comber,et al.  School Subject Preferences: Age and gender differences revisited , 2003 .

[29]  G. Redden,et al.  Warblogging as Critical Social Practice , 2003 .

[30]  J. Alford,et al.  Defining the Client in the Public Sector: A Social‐Exchange Perspective , 2002 .

[31]  Deryn W. Watson.  A dichotomy of purpose: the effect on teachers of government initiatives in information technology , 1997 .

[32]  Stephen Williams,et al.  Policy failure in vocational education and training: the introduction of National Vocational Qualifications (1986‐1990) , 1999 .

[33]  Bridget Somekh,et al.  New Technology and Learning: Policy and Practice in the UK, 1980–2010 , 2000, Education and Information Technologies.

[34]  Peter Singer,et al.  A companion to ethics , 1993 .

[35]  Lov K. Grover,et al.  What is a computer? , 2005, Journal of Medical Systems.

[36]  S. Woolgar.  Configuring the User: The Case of Usability Trials , 1990 .

[37]  Hans A. von Spakovsky,et al.  Gauging the risks of internet elections , 2001, CACM.

[38]  Jacek Kitowski,et al.  Model of Experience for Public Organisations with Staff Mobility , 2004, KMGov.

[39]  D. Soberman,et al.  It's a whole new ball-game , 1999 .

[40]  Tom Keenoy,et al.  Discourse and Organization , 1998 .

[41]  Jacek Kitowski,et al.  Knowledge Management for Organisationally Mobile Public Employees , 2003, KMGov.

[42]  William A. Wallace,et al.  Trust in electronic environments , 2003, 36th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2003. Proceedings of the.

[43]  Christopher J. Alberts,et al.  Managing Information Security Risks: The OCTAVE Approach , 2002 .

[44]  N. Fairclough.  Discourse and social change , 1992 .

[45]  David J. Pauleen,et al.  Perceptions of knowledge management: a qualitative analysis , 2003, J. Knowl. Manag..

[46]  Kenneth R. MacCrimmon,et al.  Taking Risks, the Management of Uncertainty , 1987 .

[47]  Peter G. Neumann,et al.  Security by obscurity , 2003, CACM.

[48]  Nicoletta Corrocher,et al.  Measuring the digital divide: a framework for the analysis of cross-country differences , 2002, J. Inf. Technol..

[49]  Roland Klemke.  Context Framework - an Open Approach to Enhance Organisational Memory Systems with Context Modelling Techniques , 2000, PAKM.

[50]  Karl-Erik Sveiby,et al.  Collaborative climate and effectiveness of knowledge work - an empirical study , 2002, J. Knowl. Manag..

[51]  John Weckert,et al.  Computer and Information Ethics , 1997 .

[52]  John F. Bell.  Patterns of Subject Uptake and Examination Entry 1984–1997 , 2001 .

[53]  Alvaro Arenas,et al.  Engineering Knowledge-Intensive Tasks in Public Organisations , 2004 .

[54]  Diana Laurillard,et al.  Towards a Unified E-learning Strategy: Consultation Document , 2003 .

[55]  Donald Hislop,et al.  Mission impossible? Communicating and sharing knowledge via information technology , 2002, J. Inf. Technol..

[56]  M. Castells.  The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture , 1999 .

[57]  P. Foley,et al.  The digital divide in a world city , 2002 .

[58]  J. Lavin,et al.  Business ethics. , 1979, Medical economics.

[59]  Peter Kawalek,et al.  Baseline Environmental Scan and Analysis of Good Practice in Local Authorities , 2003 .

[60]  Thomas Meyer,et al.  Media Democracy: How the Media Colonize Politics , 2002 .

[61]  Stanley Rothman,et al.  Computers and Society , 1972 .

[62]  Lorrie Faith Cranor,et al.  Voting after Florida: no easy answers , 2001, UBIQ.

[63]  John A. Taylor,et al.  Governing in the Information Age , 1998 .

[64]  Kate Lilley,et al.  Days of Our Lives , 1988 .

[65]  N. Selwyn,et al.  The national gridfor learning: a case study of new labour education policy-making , 2001 .

[66]  Lance J. Hoffman.  Internet voting: will it spur or corrupt democracy? , 2000, CFP '00.

[67]  Deborah G. Johnson.  Computer Ethics , 1985 .

[68]  Colin F. Camerer,et al.  Taking Risks: The Management of Uncertainty , 1988 .