e-governance and citizen information - Universitat Oberta de ...

E-governance and Citizen Information 34 Theoretical Framework. The Network Administrationsimply address the reduction of costs generated by the path of conventional transactions toelectronic transactions, the figures offered by some authors are spectacular. For example,Fountain (2001a), talks about 50% savings in simple transactions and even higher percentagesin more complex transactions.Similarly, the electronic provision of services has a clear effect on internal efficiency andthe external efficacy of services. There is an impact on internal efficiency because of thesimplification in procedures and the speeding up of administrative processes (Layne andLee, 2001) and because there is a great reduction in costs (Fountain, 2001) – eliminationof the use of paper, simplification of tasks and savings in different expenses that generateface-to-face attention. There is also an impact on the external efficacy of services becausethere is an improvement in the distribution of services, since they use more channels andgreatly expand the working hours and geographical scope of attention and, as a result,provide a much broader access. In any case, other studies show that the cost-benefit analysesderived from digitisation are minor and even exceptional in these innovation processes (Cohenand Eimicke, 2001). In addition, he mentions that the benefits do not feature as criteria for therunning of the public sector and this hinders the establishment of efficiency measurement criteria(Dreschler, 2005).2.3.4. Networks of ActorsActors and the relationship networks established to implement technological innovationprojects are vital to understand the results of these processes. We are talking about complexnetworks that count not only on the participation of the Administration and technology providers.In turn, there is a wide range of agents that are involved in these projects: from thedifferent departments to the administrative units that deliver the services, politicians, civilservants, actors from the private sector and other social institutions.Conceptually, the framework of e-governance provides elements to understand these networks.Thus, it is seen as a concept to overcome a conception of government that could act with greaterautonomy. The concept of governance encompasses the norms, processes and competencesthat have an impact on the exercise of power from the supranational level and, especially,from the point of view of opening the participation grounds to actors from thepublic and private sectors, the political sphere and civil society.E-Governance reveals the administration's difficulties in the management of change withthe analysis of the different actors' influence on the performance of technological innovationprojects. To consider these elements, we will summarise a) the concept of governance,http://www.uoc.edu/in3/pic