Implementing e-Government in Bosnia and Herzegovina : Practices and Challenges for the State government

Sammanfattning: Context: Electronic Government (sometimes referred to as digital government, online government) is the use of information and communication technologies to: a) enable optimization and innovation of all government internal processes in the back-office and external processes by providing government services to customers through Internet and other electronic means; and b) facilitate achieving goals of all government policies and strategies. Objectives: In this study we are explaining e-Government practices, perceptions and performances of state institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and analyzing obstacles and challenges of current approach to e-Government management, in order to propose immediate and middle-term e-Government actions for BiH state institutions to start delivering integrated and useful e-Government services. Methods: In this, three sources of information are used: a) comprehensive survey of state employees, b) interviews with some of the e-Government practitioners and c) systematic review of a number of relevant article sources. All questions/reviews have been done in order to find out what measures could be taken and what guidelines should be followed by the BiH state institutions so they become more IT savvy in taking advantage of e-Government implementations. Results: Measures for improvements have been proposed in several distinct areas: building human capacities for e-Government development, changing management and leadership practices, building regulatory and organizational framework for e-Government and resolving interpersonal issues in e-Government systems design. Additionally, a Phase plan for e-Government project implementation is proposed to those having a vision and idea on some e-Government project, but maybe lacking the skills and knowledge on how to actually initiate, design and implement it. Conclusions: We conclude that BiH state government should realize that e-Government is not just about implementing some IT projects; it is an overall public administration reform process which has to be adequately supported by regulative and organizational measures. This thesis provided arguments for such strategic e-Government decision-making and necessity for government-wide management and development capacity. We conclude that there is a need for BiH state government to understand the current situation and arguments presented, and take steps in building its capacities in this field.