The beauty and the beast: IT in government by Helle Zinner Henriksen, Associate profesor, ITM

A brief version of my research is to answer the question: Is IT worth it? The context is the public sector in Denmark with particular focus on IT and its value. A study of value of IT in public sector has tentacles in several academic disciplines. The work on identifying value of IT in public sector can be positioned in a cross field of theories from public and private sector research. Its theoretical foundations could be based on public administration, performance measurement, IS evaluation, value-chain analysis just to mention a few. Instead of pursuing a particular framework to assess value of IT a grounded approach is chosen. Value of IT is examined based on in-depth interviews with stakeholders in public sector, archival data and media coverage on IT in public sector.

Why focus on value of IT in isolation? Why not focus on all investments and study how it is ensured that public spending is efficiently planned and managed? Thus examining what taxpayers’ money actually bought and what the impact of the investments were? The choice of IT investment does not seem logic if viewed from a financial perspective. The context of the study is Denmark and IT investment only counts for a small percentage of the total investments in public sector. None the less the Danish IT investments have received much attention both in the Global context and in the national context during the past decade. Globally for the good position in international rankings on e-government, nationally for a less optimistic picture: scandals and negative media coverage.

The presentation focuses on how I design my study and presents some underlying considerations.