My Papers and Presentations

Papers by CA Heidelberger:

1. "Citizens, Not Customers: Transforming E-Government," INFS 614: Intro to Research MEthods, DSU, 2007.12.09. formats: Word | PDF
2. "Citizen-Legislator Discourse System: Toward Neohumanist E-Government," INFS 805: Design Research Methodology, DSU, 2007.11.15. formats: Word | PDF
   

Presentations by CA Heidelberger:

1. "Improving E-Government: Citizens as Participants, Not Consumers," Student Research Initiative Poster Session, State Capitol Rotunda, Pierre, SD, 2008.02.20. formats: Publisher | GIF | JPG
2. "Improving E-Government: Citizens as Participants, Not Consumers" [PowerPoint], INFS 890 Spring Seminar, Dakota State University, Madison, SD, 2008.03.26.
   

References: INFS 890 Seminar

presented 2008.03.26

1. AMCIS 2008 Conference: E-Government mini-track. URL: http://www.business.mcmaster.ca/amcis2008/MT/amcis-pr-069-2008-File001.pdf
2. ACSI (2006). "ACSI Methodology," About ACSI. American Consumer Satisfaction Index. Downloaded 2008.03.21. URL: http://www.theacsi.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=48&Itemid=41
3. Baum, C., and DiMaio, A., "Gartner's Four Phases of E-Government Model," Gartner, Inc., Research Note, Tutorial TU-12-6113, 21 Nov 2000
4. Benkler, Yochai (2006). The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom. New Haven, CT: Yale University.
5. Birdsall, Stephanie (2005). 'The Democratic Divide," First Monday (10:4).
6. Butler, Patrick, and Collins, Neil (2004). "Citizen as Consumer." In Neil Collins and Terry Cradden (Eds.), Political Issues in Ireland Today. Manchester University Press, 135-148.
7. Borland, John (2007). "Online Voting Clicks in Estonia," Wired.com, 2007.03.02. Downloaded 2008.03.19. URL: http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2007/03/72846
8. Fornell, Claes (2007). "Government Satisfaction Scores," ACSI Scores and Commentary, 2007.12.17. Downloaded 2008.03.21. URL: http://www.theacsi.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=176&Itemid=62
9. Gibson, Rachel (2001). "Elections Online: Assessing Internet Voting in Light of the Arizona Primary," Political Science Quarterly (116:4), 561–583.
10. Keating, Michael (1995). "Size, Efficiency, and Democracy: Consolidation, Fragmentation, and Public Choice." In David Judge, Gerry Stoker, and Harold Wolman (Eds.). Theories of Urban Politics . Thousand Oaks, CA:Sage Publications, 117–134.
11. Lourenço, Rui Pedro, and Costa, João Paulo (2007). "Incorporating Citizens' Views in Local Policy Decision Making Processes," Decision Support Systems (43:4), August, 1499–1511.
12. Martinelli, Nicole (2008). "In an Internet First, Americans Abroad Cast E-Votes in Democratic Primary," Wired.com, 2008.02.05. downloaded 2008.03.19. URL: http://www.wired.com/politics/onlinerights/news/2008/02/primary_evote
13. OMB E-Government Task Force, "E-Government Strategy: Simplified Delivery of Services to Citizens," Office of Management and Budget, United States Federal Government, 27 Feb 2002.
14. Osborne, David, and Ted Gaebler. 1992. Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit Is Transforming the Public Sector. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
15. Newman, J., "Issue Brief: Electronic Government," Bureau of Information and Telecommunications, State of South Dakota, Nov 2003.
16. Ryan, Neal (2001). "Reconstructing Citizens as Consumers: Implications for New Modes of Governance," Australian Journal of Public Administration (60:3), 104-109.
17. Rehg, William, McBurney, Peter, and Parsons, Simon. (2005). "Computer Decision-Support Systems for Public Argumentation: Assessing Deliberative Legitimacy," AI & Society (19), 203–229.
18. Turoff, M., Hiltz, S.R., Cho, H.-K., Li, Z., and Wang, Y., "Social Decision Support Systems (SDSS)," Proceedings of the 35th Hawaii international Conference on System Sciences, 2002, pp. 81–90.

ACSI, E-Gov Performance, and Customer Loyalty

Stowers, Genie N.L. (2004). "Measuring the Performance of E-Government," E-Government Series, IBM Center for the Business of Government. March 2004.

ACSI (2006). "ACSI Methodology," About ACSI. American Consumer Satisfaction Index.

A quibble I'm not sure will stick, but interesting: Stowers (2004) points to the American Consumer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) as a good tool for evaluating the effectiveness of e-Government. But check out the ACSI methodology:


See that little bubble at the end: "Customer Loyalty"? ACSI says this about that:

Customer loyalty is a combination of the customer's professed likelihood to repurchase from the same supplier in the future, and the likelihood to purchase a company’s products or services at various price points (price tolerance). Customer loyalty is the critical component of the model as it stands as a proxy for profitability.

"The critical component" -- so how do we apply "customer loyalty" to e-Government? How many customers dissatisfied with their e-Government experience are going to move to another country? How many people dissatisfied with the Department of State website will get their passports from France instead? The ACSI appears to measure consumer satisfaction in the context of a competitive market, a condition that simply doesn't apply for most of what we turn to the government (and e-government) for.

Now Stower (2004) suggests an out (p. 25): in e-govt, "customer loyalty" may simply refer to the user's willingness to use the site again, not move to Canada. Still, there's a difference. There's only one agency I can get my driver's license from. Whether I go online or to the courthouse, my loyalty doesn't have much room to roam. I'm still dealing with the government. That's very different from the private sector situation, where I can stop buying books from Barnes and Noble's website and from their stores and do all my book shopping through Amazon.com.

American Consumer Satisfaction Index -- E-Gov Improves Service

Stowers, Genie N.L. (2004). "Measuring the Performance of E-Government," E-Government Series, IBM Center for the Business of Government. March 2004.

Fornell, Claes (2007). "Government Satisfaction Scores," ACSI Scores and Commentary, 2007.12.17.

Stowers (2004) directs me toward the application of the American Consumer Satisfaction Index to e-Gov. In a way, this tool just feeds the "citizen as consumer" paradigm.

But if we accept the paradigm, we could conclude that e-Government is achieving its goals of improving customer service. Fornell (2007) finds that while the federal government overall scores 67.8 on the 100-pt ACSI, federal e-Gov scores 8% better at 73.4, almost as good as the private sector services rating of 74.0. (Fornell also notes the only private sector services scoring worse than the USFG are newspapers, airlines, and cable/satellite TV.)

New Public Management vs New Public Service

Cornell website points to New Public Service as a response to New Public Management. Note that the discussion takes place under the heading of "Restructuring Local Government."

NPS is a direct reaction to NPM from authors Janet and Robert Denhardt, who "offer a synthesis of the ideas that are opposed to the New Public Management" in their 2002 book The New Public Service (Cornell says 2003; see also 2007 edition)

Seven principles of NPS (quoted from Cornell web):

1. Serve citizens, not customers
2. Seek the public interest
3. Value citizenship over entrepreneurship
4. Think strategically, act democratically (In comparison to Osborne and Gaebler, Denhardt and Denhardt assert that there is a difference between “thinking strategically” and “entrepreneurial government.”)
5. Recognize that accountability is not simple
6. Serve rather than steer (This involves listening to the real needs of the people and the community, not just responding in the manner that a business would to a customer.)
7. Value people, not just productivity

The Denhardts see public administrators as more than managers doing cost-benefit analysis. Administrators are participants, just like citizens:

The public manager’s job is not only, or simply, to make policy choices and implement them. It is also to participate in a system of democratic governance in which public values are continuously rearticulated and recreated (Reich 1988, 123-24, quoted in D&D 96).

Note that NPS sounds less well developed than NPM; shorter bib, at least, on Cornell site.