A Public Value Based Framework for Evaluating the Performance of e-Government in China

doi:10.4236/ib.2013.53B006

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iBusiness, 2013, 5, 26-29

http: //dx.doi.org/10.4236/ib.201 3.53B006 Published Online September 2013 (http://www.scirp.org/journal/ib)

A Public Value Based Framework for Evaluating the

Performance of e-Government in China

Wenlin Bai1,2

1Key Laboratory of Data Engineering and Knowledge Engineering of the Ministry of Education, Renmin University of China, Bei-

jing, China; 2School of Information Resources Management, Renmin University of China, Beijing, China.

Email: [email protected]

Received May, 2013

ABSTRACT

Much research has been done on evaluating the performance of e-government in China, but comprehensive pictures of

research done on evaluation of performance of e-government can hardly be found in the Chinese literature. Besides,

there are few theories to support the research and practice in evaluation. By analyzin g existed literature, the paper pro-

poses a conceptual framework for evaluating performance of e-government based on public value perspective. Delivery

of public services, effectiveness of public organization and development of trust are identified and selected as three ba-

sic public values for analysis.

Keywords: Evaluation of Performance of e-Government; Public Value; Conceptual Framework; China

1. Introduction

“Electronic Government” (or in short “e-Government”)

essentially refers to ‘The utilization of IT, ICTs, and oth-

er web-based telecommunication technologies to im-

prove and enhance on the efficiency and effectiveness of

service delivery in the public sector.’ (Jeong, 2007)[1].

With the development of information and communica-

tion technologies (or in short ICT), the concept of elec-

tronic government becomes more and more popular all

over the world. In the background of information and

knowledge economy, the construction of E-government

has become a necessity [2-3]. However, with the constant

pressure of investment on e-government, evaluating the

performance of e-government becomes urgent. To the

government, it has provided an effective way to reduce

the operating costs for government and at the same time,

to enhance the administrative ability of government [4].

To the citizens, evaluation of performance of e-govern-

ment has provided an opportunity for citizen to partici-

pate in the e-government services and to increase the

availability of government information and to improve

their public services which will be beneficial to meet the

citizens’ needs [5,6].

Many e-government projects and research have been

done in China, however, e-government performance re-

search in China are either from the perspective of gov-

ernment agencies or from the perspective of citizens, no

convergence of both as an integrated whole and lacks of

theoretical support. This paper recommends adoption of

concept of public value as theoretical support to the

evaluation. In this paper, the concept of public value re-

fers to a holistic approach to evaluate the effectiveness

and efficiency of public services (Moore, 1995)[7].

Firstly, this paper has reviewed representative Chinese

and English literature on “evaluation of performance of

e-government” from CSSCI, ProQuest database, EI, SCI,

SSCI, ISTP, ISSHP citied journals. Representative theo ry,

strategies practices have been selected for study. Then

based on literature review and meta-synthesis, a new

conceptual framework for evaluation of e-government

performance is put up.

2. Literature Review

Literature shows there is little research on evaluation of

performance of e-government under the perspective of

public value in Chinese literature. However, the concept

of public value has been aroused much attention and has

been widely used in the designing of framework for

e-government performance evaluation in English litera-

ture. Figure 1 shows an overview of five representative

papers:

The five representative papers all share same concept

of public value, but each has different advantages and

limitations. The first paper focuses on high quality of

services, outcomes and trust with limitations on trust not

fully discussed. (Keams, 2004)[8].The second paper fo-

cuses on the operating efficiency of government, the

publicity and transparency of public agencies, the public

A Public Value Based Framework for Evaluating the Performance of e-Government in China 27

percep- tion on public service politics and user. It has

limitations on not enough attention to the impact of

e-government on information society (E-GEP, 2006)[9].

The third paper focuses on the public value created by

portals of Russiagovernment, but limitations are that the

portals cannot represent the whole e-government per-

formance (Golubeva, 2007)[10]. The fourth paper fo-

cuses on aspects of service, outcomes and trust, but

“trust” is also not fully discussed, which are similar to

the drawbacks of the first paper Heeks, 2008)[11]. The

fifth paper focuses Nan integrated frame workc onsists of

multiple aspects of public value, including delivery of

public services, achievement of outcomes, development

of trust and effectiveness of public organization as shown

in Figure 2. The framework was justified in Sri Lanka, it

has both practical and theoretical significance for

e-government performance evaluation. Each of the abov e

approach provides different concerns on what consists of

public value. Deng’s view on public values is the most

comprehensive one, but the justification based on Sri

Lanka is limited by the country’s experience, whether it

can be applied t o China need to be verified [12-16].

Taking prons and cons of the five representative per-

spectives into consideration, they have providedfollow-

ing implications to the formulation a conceptual frame-

work for China:

Firstly, evaluation perspective should be comprehen-

sive, from both government agencies and citizens sides,

rom government side, quality of public service and effi-

ciency should be focused on [17]. From the citizens’ side,

satisfaction and the attitude towards e-government should

be clearly defined.

Secondly, evaluation indicators should be comprehen-

sive[18]; various views on what consists of public value

from five representative papers could be a good reference,

particularly Professor Deng’s comprehensive framework.

Thirdly, the framework should be based on Chinese

practice and goals of e-government in China.

3. A Conceptual Framework for China

Taking the above implications into consideration, this

paper proposes an adaption of Hepu Deng’s conceptual

framework for China, as shown in Figure 3:

Figure 1. An overview of the evolution of performance of

e-government under public value perspective.

The proposed framework as shown in Figure 4, in-

cluding (A) delivery of public services (B) effectiveness

of public organization(C) development of trust. Each

public value creation part also consists of several subor-

dinate elements which can con cretely evaluate the public

value, as shown in Table 1. These key subordinate ele-

ments are from the existed frameworks of other scholars,

taking the above implications into consideration for se-

lection.

Figure 2. Conceptual framework for evaluating public

value of e-government (Deng, 2011).

Figure 3. The public value-based framework for evaluating

the performance of e-government.

Figure 4. Indicators associated with the attributes of the

conceptual framework.

A Public Value Based Framework for Evaluating the Performance of e-Government in China

Table 1. Origin indicators for the public value-based frame-

work for evaluating the performance of e-government[19].

The delivery of public services has six attributes: (A1)

service availability (A2) importance (A3) choice (A4)

fairness (A5) cost savings(A6) citizens’ satisfaction.

These attributions are inherited from Kearns (2004) and

Heeks (2008)’s perspectives on public service, at the

same time, adding availability and importance of informa-

tion toavail- ability an d imp orta nce o f pu blic servic e, a s a

result, the wholeness of performance of e-government

would be better viewed. Furthermore, compared to

Deng’s description on “cost saving”, the “cost” in new

framework not only means the cost saving made by pub-

lic, but also include the cost saving made by government

agency.

Effectiveness of public organization has three attrib-

utes, (B1) efficiency (B2) citizens’ perceptions (B3) in-

teractive communication. Firstly, concept of “efficiency”

is adopted from the explanation of Moore（1995）in

which the efficiency of organization was discussed. Sec-

ondly, “interactive communication” is learned from the

explanation of “accountability” in the framework on

economic assessment of e-government of e-GEP（2006）,

which emphasizes the interactive communication be-

tween the public and government. Thirdly, the “citizens’

perception” is from indicators of positive and negative

effects made by government agency to the public, which

focuses on the promotion of organization driven by e-

government from the perspective of the public from

Deng’s paper.

Development of trust has four attributes: (C1) security

and privacy (C2) transparency (C3) trust (C4) participa-

tion. What should be mentioned here is that the attribu-

tion “transparency” is integrated with the thought of

government affairs openness, which will be one of the

direct indicators for assessing the performance of e-gov-

ernment.

In this framework, both government agencies and citi-

zens’ perceptions have been taken into consideration, and

the multiple dimensions and attributes of public value

and their possible use in China have been fully taken into

consideration, adaptable to overall situation of e-gov-

ernment practice in China.

4. Conclusions

Evaluation of performance of e-government is a com-

prehensive adaptive system, which should consist of both

government and citizen actions and their feedbacks for

continual improvement. To overcome the separated and

isolated evaluation studies and practices in China, this

paper recommends a holistic view of public value to

formulate a comprehensive framework for evaluating the

performance of e-government. This paper is limited to

conceptual framework formulation based on literature

review; justification study done by surveys will be dis-

cussed in another paper.

5. Acknowledgements

This work is partly supported by China-US Fulbright

Research Program for Xiaomi An.

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