Electronic Public Service (EPS) and Its Implementation in Chinese Local Governments－IJEG 2008,...

118 Int. J. Electronic Governance, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2008

Copyright © 2008 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Electronic Public Service (EPS) and its implementation in Chinese local governments

Guangwei Hu* Department of Information Management, Nanjing University, No. 22, Hankou Road, Nanjing 210093, China E-mail: [email protected] *Corresponding author

Weijun Zhong and Shue Mei School of Economics and Management, Southeast University, No. 9, Chengxian Road, Nanjing 210096, China E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract: With the flourish of public sector Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), there has been a growing need for research on the adoption of Electronic Public Service (EPS). To fill the existing knowledge gap in this area, this paper examines what EPS is and what is its implementation within Chinese local governments. This paper develops an analysis framework to discuss what types of e-services should be offered through applying EPS, and further reports the implementation of EPS in Mainland China. Several recommendations are made based on the research findings and China’s actual situations.

Keywords: public service; e-Government; e-Gov; e-Services; Electronic Public Service; EPS.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Hu, G., Zhong, W. and Mei, S. (2008) ‘Electronic Public Service (EPS) and its implementation in Chinese local governments’, Int. J. Electronic Governance, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp.118–138.

Biographical notes: Guangwei Hu is a Instructor of MIS in the Department of Information Management at Nanjing University of China. He spent eight years as a practicing IT professional, including serving as CIO at Anyuan Co. Ltd. He received his PhD in the School of Economics and Management at Southeast University of China. His research has focused on issues of MIS, e-Gov and Strategic Management. He has published in the Journal of the China Society for Scientific and Technical Information, China Soft Science and Journal of Southeast University.

Weijun Zhong is Professor of MIS in the School of Economics and Management at Southeast University of China. His research has focused on issues of MIS, e-Gov and e-Business. He received his PhD in the School of Economics and Management at Southeast University of China. He has published in the Journal of Management Science in China, Journal of Southeast University, etc.

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Shue Mei is a Professor of MIS in the School of Economics and Management at Southeast University of China. Her research has focused on issues of MIS, e-Gov and e-Business. She received her PhD in the School of Economics and Management at Southeast University of China. She has published in the Journal of Management Science in China, Journal of Systems Science and Systems Engineering, etc.

1 Introduction

With the development of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and electronic Government (e-Gov), governments and other public sectors are going online and using the internet as an effective tool to provide public services to their citizens and organisations (Layne and Lee, 2001; OMB, 2002; Steyeart, 2004; UNDESA, 2005). For better providing public services, the government also tries to design new processes and applications by applying information system integration technique, Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) technique and grid-computing technique, etc. For example, the eGovernment Interoperability Framework (e-GIF) in European Commission (IDABC, 2004; Guijarro, 2007), the AIDA project in Tuscany (Italy) (Chirchietti et al., 2006), the establishment of eGovernment Interoperability Centre (Benamou, 2006) and the Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework (FEAF) in the USA are good practices to get this aim. Those processes and applications described as ‘EPS’ are the latest applications of ‘e-Gov’ (Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, 2002; Hu and Zhong, 2005). The aim of EPS is intended to maximise users’ convenience and satisfaction through automatically providing integrated governmental services. As an important application of ICTs, EPS systems have the potential to transform the processes and structures of governments to create a new public administration paradigm less hierarchical, and serve citizens better. EPS systems also empower individual citizens with an alternative channel for accessing information and interacting with governments (Steyeart, 2004; Ma et al., 2005).

Although it can effectively improve capabilities in providing public services, the application of EPS is still stand at the stage of very beginning. Scholar, such as Fountain, protests that these technologies could restructure the relationship between government and citizens to be simpler, more interactive, and more efficient (Fountain, 2001). Ma et al. (2005) argue that EPS can strengthen the state’s capabilities to provide more and better services to citizens. Gouscos et al. also emphasise EPS

“has emerged worldwide as a trend to offer electronically administrative service packages that meet the needs of citizens' life events and business transactions, with a promise to enhance service accessibility and alleviate service delivery delays and costs.” (Gouscos et al., 2007)

In 2005, The UN Global e-Government Readiness Report 2005 provides the latest global EPS ranking, and the report indicates that

“the majority of the UN Member States have embraced electronic service delivery. Of the 191 Member States, 179 were online in some form or another in 2005.” (UNDESA, 2005)

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About the economic impact of e-Gov, research from EC shows that the impact on public sector productivity, the direct impact on total GDP and private sector productivity can be estimated to assess it (EC, 2005).

In China, the leaders expect to foster administrative reforms by transforming government functions, streamlining procedures, and enhancing administrative transparency through applying ICTs. The State Council and almost all the local governments are involved in the ICTs applications (Ma et al., 2005). By applying the ICTs, Chinese leaders, such as President Hu Jintao, believe that online public service could help the government to establish a more transparent system and an honest government and a harmonious community. Especially, providing public services through the internet has accelerated the process of ‘reform and openness’ of China and raised the public satisfaction significantly (Ma et al., 2005).

From 2002 to 2004, we conducted a consecutive annual survey on Chinese government websites throughout the country. The statistics suggested more than 90% official websites providing online services (Hu and Zhong, 2004). In 2005, the top three of the well-designed local government websites are Shanghai municipal government online (http://www.shanghai.gov.cn, ‘Shanghai China’), Beijing municipal government online (http://www.beijing.gov.cn, ‘Beijing China’) and Jilin Province online (http://www.jilin.gov.cn, ‘Jilin China’) (Mofcom, 2006). According to Professor West, in 2005 all of Chinese government sites have publications and databases available to visitors and a number are available in English. A majority of the Chinese government websites offer e-services and maintain security and privacy policies, which create a safe environment and encourage citizens to utilise services available online.

Among the studies, the emphases on EPS can be divided into three aspects. First, most of the studies focus on the impact of ICTs on governments leveraging these advanced technologies with economic development or administrative control (Layne and Lee, 2001; OMB, 2002; Evans and Yen, 2005; Ma et al., 2005). Second, some argue how to develop and apply e-government by making long-term strategy or better technology protocol (Wimmer, 2002a, 2002b; OMB, 2002; UNDESA, 2005; Anderson and Henriksen, 2006; Guijarro, 2007). Third, several articles research the delivery mechanism of EPS and a few examine the changes of the relationship between government and citizens by the application of EPS (Akman et al., 2005; Evans and Yen, 2006; Jaeger, 2005; Anthopoulos et al., 2007; Vassilakis et al., 2007). However, few of these studies argue what e-services governmental agencies should provide. This paper will also address these aspects and the contributions are threefold. First, it increases our understanding of the backgrounds and definition of EPS. Second, it provides an analysis framework of EPS in a new IT context: what types of e-services could be offered through EPS. Third, it describes the implementation of EPS in China in order to examine the analysis framework and improves the awareness of Chinese government IT application. Apart from the academic value, recommendations based on empirical research may be very helpful to governmental policy-makers, governmental agencies, and system designers.

The rest of the paper is organised as follows. After this brief introduction, several related conceptions are argued and EPS is defined in Section 2. In Section 3, the analysis framework of EPS including a theoretical framework and its implementation approach is built up. In Section 4, the research methodology is developed and then the implementation of EPS in China is reported. Finally, some brief conclusions are drawn in Section 5.


2 EPS: an overview

The conceptions of Public Service (PS), e-Gov, and the relationship between them are significantly related to interpret the historical perspective and context of EPS. So, in this section, the culture of PS and e-Gov are reviewed first, and then the definition of EPS is outlined.

2.1 Public Service (PS)

According to the NPM theory, public service is a conception contrary to private services and originates in the study on public goods in the domain of traditional public administration (Hughes, 2004). Simply speaking, public service means offering public goods and their by-products (e.g., services) by governments or non-profit organisations. However, with the development of the NPS theory, the views of the ‘economic actor’, ‘enterprise-based government’ and ‘customer-oriented administrative’ in the NPM theory are questioned wildly (Terry, 1993; Fox, 1996). The NPS theory holds that the government functions are ‘serving rather than steering’; serving citizen rather than customer; paying attention to people’s need, but not only to productivity; and in particularly supporting citizens to participate in public policy formulation and decision-making (Robert and Janet, 1999).

Across the whole world, the past 25 years have seen profound changes in the delivery of public services with the transition of the paradigm of PS (Cullen and Houghton, 2000; Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, 2002; Gregory, 2003; Moreno-Jimenez and Polasek, 2003; Akman et al., 2005). Especially with the development of democracy, common citizens require the government to provide public services more timely and with cost-effective manner. Obviously, the traditional approaches providing public services cannot archive this goal because of lacking funds support or human resources or other reasons. While at the current stage, the revolution in ICTs is changing the characteristics of the interaction between the governments and citizens (Akman et al., 2005). Especially, as the successful applications of e-Business, which construct the new serving model between corporations and public, citizens would expect the same from their government.

2.2 e-Gov

e-Gov is a new extension of the adoption of internet or world wide web in the field of public administration. Almost all of the scholars and practicers consider e-Gov better ways to provide public services. Tambouris (2001) considers e-Gov as the use of technology, particularly the internet, as a means to deliver services to citizens, businesses, and other entities. The USA Online Network in Public Administration and Finance defines e-Gov as, “… utilising the Internet and the World Wide Web for delivering government information and services to citizens” (UNDPEPA, 2002). According to Jaeger, e-Gov activities can be described in terms of the interactions between sectors of government, businesses, and citizens (Jaeger, 2003). On OECD’s opinion ‘e-Gov’ means using IT as a strategic tool to modernise the structures, processes and overall culture of public administrations (OECD, 2003). Additionally, based on the definition from World Bank, e-Gov refers to the use by government agencies of information technologies to serve a variety of different ends: better delivery of government services to citizens, improved interactions with business and industry, citizen empowerment through access to

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information, or more efficient government management (World Bank, 2003). In conclusion, providing e-services may be the prime aim of all e-Gov practices.

However, what e-services governmental agencies should provide have not yet discussed systematically so far. As a consequence, when planning IT strategy, policy-makers do not know what the final aim of EPS is and IS designers have no clear view about what kind of the EPS systems functions should be developed. That is the reason why this paper focuses on EPS.

2.3 EPS

Electronic Public Service (EPS) briefly means government or other non-profit organisation providing public services to businesses, general public via internet or web-enabled presence. Initially, this conception was proposed in European Commission’s report the “Web-based Survey on EPSs” (Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, 2002). In the report, the ‘EPSs’ was a part of the eEUROPE program, which aimed to bring the benefits of the information society to all Europeans. The transform from a conception to a practical application is initiated in Hong Kong. It is the website ‘ESDlife (Shenghuo Yi)’ (http://www.esdlife.com/gov_dept_index/eng/default.asp), which provides online integrated public services including leisure, wedding, household, health, wealth, personnel growth, travel, business, and citizenship from Hong Kong’s government (Hutchison Whampoa, 2006). Currently in China, EPS platforms have been built up increasingly throughout the country at the levels of state, provinces, cities, counties, districts, townships, and even some villages. However, sufficient theoretical discussions hardly have been made related to the conception theoretically.

Based on the research on e-Gov, we consider that EPS may be a new business model to provide public services via internet or world wide web, by which internal and external networks and shared databases would be established among government authorities, commercial organisations and social entities, through transforming government functions and reengineering government processes and reorganising government structures. Generally, the goals of EPS are as follows:

• increase the ease of access to public services for citizens and other entities

• improve the efficiency/effectiveness of government in public serving

• reinforce the public satisfaction levels to government services

• strengthen government responsiveness to citizens

• widen the public involvement in governance issues

• cultivate government’s capabilities in handling social affairs and making decision.

Through comparing EPS with e-Gov on theory foundation and application, there are four major differences between them. First, they are different in the theory foundation. The conceptual framework of e-Gov is on the NPM theory, which is focusing on cost saving, efficiency/effectiveness, and customer-oriented service (Fountain, 2001; Hughes, 2004), while EPS bases on the NPS theory founded by Robert and Janet, which emphasises equality, participation, and citizen-oriented serving (Robert and Janet, 1999). As it was stated, to obtain higher equity level for all citizens in offering e-public services may be at the cost of money and efficiency. In a sense, it is a progress of democracy


but not productivity. Second, e-Gov means the adoption of ICTs in government administration, social governance, providing public services and market monitoring (Jiao, 2004), while EPS focuses on providing public services. Obviously, the subdivision is helpful in developing technology planning and selecting technology schema in practice. Third, they are different in functions. e-Gov includes not only the capabilities of providing public services, but also the capability of inner-government management, social governance and market monitoring (Ma et al., 2005). Finally, EPS is the way not only governments but also non-profit organisations used to both provide public services to businesses and citizens. However, in this paper we mainly focus on the applications of EPS that government agencies develop to provide public services.

3 The analysis framework: What e-services EPS should provide?

As EPS is increasingly becoming commonplace and important, the analysis framework: what e-services EPS should provide needs to be closely discussed. Based on the framework, governmental agencies would know what e-service policies should be made and IS designers would know what kind of functions EPS systems should be developed. So, this section develops an analysis framework of EPS first, and subsequently, the subitems of EPS in this framework are argued in detail.

3.1 The analysis framework

Nowadays, research on EPS must be moved away from focusing entirely on its conception, to examining what service items the government should provide to businesses, citizens and other government entities by implementing EPS.

According to EC, what services government should provide are the end results descent from the institution mission assigned to them (EC, 2006). It is to say, government’s function is the foundation of what kind of services to provide because government’s functions are set up mainly based on their mission. Layne and Lee addressed that the development of e-government could be divided into four stages and different services could be provided in different stages:

“Toward the end of Catalog Stage, mostly pushed by citizens’ demands, governments begin to establish index pages or a localised portal site …”

“After on-line transaction services become prevalent and mature, citizens’ expectations will increase.”

“… citizens’ demands and changes in society will push governments to go further as the critical benefits of implementing e-government are actually derived from the integration of underlying processes …” (Layne and Lee, 2001)

So, ‘Users’ demands’ means the need of users to EPS, which maybe include information services, transaction services (such as interaction and two-way interaction), and participation services (such as participating in policies amending and decision-making), is another power pushing the development of EPS.

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Additionally, they considered that the more complex the IT is, the more services can be provided. And they also made great efforts to argue the effect of technological and organisational complexity on e-Gov capability (Layne and Lee, 2001). Wimmer (2002a, 2002b) considered that, to provide EPSs efficiently and entirely, integrated modelling of online public services, a one-stop platform, should be built up. With an example of the life event ‘marriage’, she demonstrates the need for, and value-added of, integrated service modelling. So, vertical integration and horizontal integration should be completed among government entities and government sectors (Layne and Lee, 2001; Andersen and Henriksen, 2006). In conclusion, on providing public services, three aspects are focused in those studies:

• providing information services (Stowers, 2002; West, 2005; EC, 2006)

• providing transaction services (Cullen and Houghton, 2000; Kaylor et al., 2001; EC, 2006)

• providing participation services to the public (UNDPEPA, 2001; Ake Gronlund, 2003; IOS Press, 2005; Evans and Yen, 2005, 2006; EC, 2006).

And, the technological and organisational complexity is greatly related to what e-services can be provided.

Overall, based on the studies above, we propose an analysis framework of EPS (see Figure 1). According to the framework, EPS is divided into three layers and six aspects. On the one hand, it is subdivided into PIS, PTS and PPS according to government functions (including providing information to public, transacting with public and providing participation service to public), users’ demands (Robert and Janet, 1999; Layne and Lee, 2001; Fountain, 2001; Wimmer, 2002b; Torres, et al., 2005), and technology complexity (Layne and Lee, 2001; Wimmer, 2002b; Andersen and Henriksen, 2006). On the other hand, each layer is divided into two aspects based on whether one service is involved with other public sectors’ functions when it is provided, such as vertical integration (the integration of functions of similar agencies across different levels of governments) and horizontal integration (the integration of functions among different agencies with different functionality) (see Layne and Lee, 2001).

Figure 1 The analysis framework of EPS

In this paper, PIS, which refers to government provision public information to businesses and citizens via internet. By this approach, governance transparency, databases sharing and other aspects would be improved significantly. PTS means services accomplishing transactions among governments, businesses and citizens via internet


to increase efficiency of handling public affairs. PPS stands for government presenting e-participation service for businesses and citizens to participate in public policies amending and decisions-making. By this way, democracy level and government decision effectiveness will be enhanced. And, ‘technology complexity’ means the complexity levels of IT technology are different in providing different services. For example, to provide PIS only requires simple IT and does not involve extensive expertise, but to provide PTS requests more sophisticated complex IT and needs more IT expertise.

3.2 Public Information Service (PIS)

The PIS is an elemental content of EPS system. It is designed to deliver public information to businesses and general public and as to improve governance transparency and databases sharing in a widely opened window (West, 2001, 2005; IOS Press, 2005). There are not any interactions between governments and users in this approach. Specifically speaking, governments promulgate governance information on their websites and users select and obtain the information via the internet without any physical interactions between them.

For better designing governmental websites, it is necessary to subdivide the information services based on their sources, such as from inner one government sector or from other sectors. On the one hand, if the information is sourced from one single government sector, it is called ‘PIS of single-sector’. On the other hand, if the information is provided jointly by multiple sectors, it is defined as ‘PIS of multi-sectors’. In some sense, the approach is useful for the IS analysers to design an efficient EPS system, according to our survey on 109 government sectors at the level of city and county in Jiangsu province, China.

In relation to websites, PIS can be classified into two categories:

• static information

• dynamic information.

Static information is the basic information of one government, including job information, government introduction, and address information. Dynamic information is about the daily information, which happen everyday, such as bulletin, news, bids information, and e-meeting schedule. Dynamic information service is available for public to learn governance processes so as to monitor government actions. To deliver PIS to the public, numerous ways are reported including information linkage, web navigator, and searching engine (Stowers, 2002; Baker, 2004).

3.3 Public Transaction Service (PTS)

Different from PIS, PTS is a kind of service that is delivered by more complex ITCs. By PTS applications, governments can accomplish G2B and G2C transactions. Specifically, PTS includes services that are provided by single-sector and multi-sectors, accordingly called ‘PTS of single-sector’ and ‘PTS of multi-sectors’. PTS of single-sector is the service approach that is used to provide PTSs through inner IS of one government sector. PTS of multi-sector is the service approach that delivers PTS by cooperation among multiple government sectors. Multiple sectors construct optical backbone or other network to cooperate for providing entire transaction service from ‘one-stop window’

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(‘Yizhanshi Chuangkou’). A successful example is Nanhai Government Office Information System (Ma et al., 2005).

On one website, PTS can be divided into two species:

• transaction services to organisation

• transaction services to individual.

The former provides PTS for private organisations and non-profit organisations, such as company registration, business license processing, tax amending, firm annual inspection, foreign trade, environment protecting, etc. And the latter just provides services to individual citizens, such as online education, marriage registration, legal consulting, complaints taker online and so on. To provide these services, numerous web-based functions are required to be set up, such as transaction guide, transaction listing, result feedback, etc. It is to say, a perfect PTS should include three parts of services: transaction guiding, transaction processing and result feedback. It is a full lifecycle of one transaction program.

3.4 Public Participation Service (PPS)

From the viewpoint of IS implementation, PPS requests higher security level in IT initiatives, cooperating between provider and user, and managerial capability of the EPS system. PPS is more than an online service delivery system. It would need to ensure that people have equal opportunities to benefit from EPS to have a greater participation and voice in civic and political issues (Hung et al., 2006). Specifically speaking, PPS means that the government presents e-participation service for businesses, citizens to participate into policies amending and decision-making. Through this process, democracy level and government decision quality will be enhanced. In the past three years, a lot of studies on e-participation issues were reported. Scholars, such as Ake Gronlund (2003), Moreno-Jimenez and Polasek (2003), Jaeger and Thompson (2004) and Jaeger (2005), believe that e-participation will be a necessary approach to govern the society in future. A prominent feature of PPS is the Just-In-Time (JIT) interaction between government servants and citizens. Such as, both government servants and citizens are online at the same time to talk directly through online forum, public hearing and so on.

For better realising these functions on networks, we spitted PPS items into two species according to necessity of providing service needs collaborating with other government entities or not. If cooperation with other government entities occurs, it is called ‘PPS of single-sector’, or it is classified as ‘PPS of multi-sectors’. The first term means introducing citizens’ participation into the decision-making and policy-making process through inner IS of one government sector, and the latter means that through cooperating among multiple government entities. The instruments to provide PPS include online voting, online forum, online surveying, and forum registration (Jaeger and Thompson, 2004; Jaeger, 2005).

4 The implementation of EPS in China

Since 2002 (the ‘Year of Chinese e-Gov’), Chinese governments at all levels have made huge investments in EPS to link government networks and deploy a variety of e-service


infrastructures to provide extensive and proactive services facing public. However, how about the effectiveness is under so huge investments in EPS applications? Otherwise, obvious gab of capabilities in providing e-public services occurs among provinces, cities, counties and townships. That is recognised as an endemic problem for governmental managers, because government services should be equally accessible by all citizens. In this section, the paper examines the implementation of Chinese EPS from user side through an empirical study.

4.1 Research methodology

4.1.1 Instrument development

The data on Chinese government websites were collected in three steps. First, the essential principle (to get more forceful conclusion, the sample range should cover all of the mainland province government websites and the city level government websites, which should be selected through stratified random sampling) to choose the sample objects was made (see Hu and Zhong, 2004). According to the principle, 31 Chinese government websites at the level of province and 158 at the level of city were selected. Second, questionnaires were designed and research tasks were assigned. To assure the reliability of the research, several key factors were considered during the designing of research items, such as the answers listed should include all of the optional choices to a question, only one choice is the correct answer to a question, etc. Finally, the method to control and manage the measurement errors was developed. To guarantee the quality of the data, we construct a research group including two professors, four doctor candidates and 11 master candidates. To reduce measurement errors effectively, the tasks were cross-allocated to different assistants to avoid the impact from personal character, such as interests, knowledge, experiences, etc. For getting a region’s EPS Integration Index (EPSII), several lower level government websites should be evaluated, and then the data were synthesised into one index. However, when someone assesses a websites, he might give a higher score to the style he likes than he does not. Therefore, if one research assistant evaluates all of the lower level government websites, it may make error accumulation to the region’s (such as a province or a municipalities) EPSII. So, to avoid the impact of personal character (e.g., interests and knowledge), we assigned the sampling websites (task) to different research assistants. And then the measurement errors were calculated to be referenced when the data was analysed and discussed. The approach was used in the research on Chinese e-Gov in 2002, 2003 and Jiangsu EPS in 2004, 2005.

Regarding instrument construction of EPS development, the items used to operate the constructs of each research variables were mostly adopted from relevant previous studies, with necessary validation and wording changes (see Table 1). These indicators focused on online front-end public services and adopted a citizen’s perspective on EPS including 56 items totally. Items measuring PIS were adapted from Stowers (1999, 2002), West (2001, 2005), Relyea (2002), Cullen and Houghton (2000), Accenture (2003) and Kaylor et al. (2001), and PTS items were adapted from Stowers (1999, 2002), West (2001, 2005), Cullen and Houghton (2000) and Kaylor et al. (2001). In addition, PPS items were adapted from Ake Gronlund (2003), Gregory (2003), Evans and Yen (2006), etc. All items were measured using a binary code (‘0’ or ‘1’) with anchors ranging from ‘no’ or ‘yes’. The final questionnaire was validated by two professional

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translators to ensure that no syntax or semantic biases occurred during the translation from English to Chinese.

Table 1 Items of EPS

Item Support studies

Public Information Service (PIS)

Stowers (1999), West (2001, 2005), Relyea (2002), Kaylor et al. (2001) and Cullen and Houghton (2000)

Sub-items About government Stowers (1999, 2002) and West (2001, 2005) Agencies/associations Stowers (1999, 2002) Email Stowers (1999), West (2001, 2005) and Relyea (2002) Phone information Stowers (1999), West (2001, 2005) and Relyea (2002) Address information Stowers (1999), West (2001, 2005) and Accenture (2003) News Stowers (1999), West (2001, 2005) Policy and law Stowers (1999), Cullen and Houghton (2000) Government reports Stowers (1999) and Kaylor et al. (2001) E-meeting schedule Stowers (1999) and Kaylor et al. (2001) Bulletin Stowers (1999) and Accenture (2003) Procurement information Stowers (1999), Relyea (2002), Cullen and Houghton (2000)

and Kaylor et al. (2001) Bids information Kaylor et al. (2001) and Accenture (2003) Job information Stowers (1999), Cullen (2000) and Kaylor et al. (2001) Publications to access Stowers (1999) and West (2001, 2005) Databases to access Stowers (1999) and West (2001, 2005) Navigation bar Cullen and Houghton (2000) and West (2001, 2005) Navigation column Cullen and Houghton (2000) and West (2001, 2005) Simple search West (2001, 2005) and Accenture (2003) Advanced search West (2001, 2005) and Accenture (2003) Other branches of government Stowers (1999), West (2001, 2005) and

Cullen and Houghton (2000) Upper levels of government Stowers (1999), West (2001, 2005) and

Cullen and Houghton (2000) Lower levels of government Stowers (1999), West (2001, 2005) and

Cullen and Houghton (2000) Other governments Stowers (1999), West (2001, 2005) and

Cullen and Houghton (2000) English edition West (2001, 2005) and Accenture (2003) Other language edition West (2001, 2005) and Accenture (2003)


Table 1 Items of EPS (continued)

Item Support studies

Public Transaction Service (PTS) Stowers (1999), Cullen and Houghton (2000), West (2001, 2005) and Kaylor et al. (2001)

Sub-items Transaction listings Stowers (1999) and Cullen and Houghton (2000) Transaction guide Stowers (1999) Transaction process Cullen and Houghton (2000) Result feedback Stowers (1999), Cullen and Houghton (2000) and

West (2001, 2005) Firm registration Stowers (1999), West (2001, 2005) and Kaylor et al. (2001) Firm annual inspection Ma et al. (2005) Online applications Stowers (1999) and Cullen and Houghton (2000) Taxes/revenues Stowers (1999), West (2001, 2005) and Kaylor et al. (2001) Foreign trade Cullen and Houghton (2000) Environment protecting Stowers (1999) and Cullen and Houghton (2000) Social insurance to company Cullen and Houghton (2000) Financial insurance to company Cullen and Houghton (2000) Marriage registration West (2001, 2005) and Kaylor et al. (2001) Online education Stowers (1999), Cullen and Houghton (2000) Documents to citizen Stowers (1999) Labor insurance to citizen Cullen and Houghton (2000) Social insurance to citizen Cullen and Houghton (2000) Financial fiscal to citizen Cullen and Houghton (2000) Health/human services Stowers (1999, 2002) Legal consulting Stowers (1999) and Cullen and Houghton (2000) Electricity/water services Cullen and Houghton (2000) Transportation Stowers (1999) Complaints taken online Stowers (1999), West (2001, 2005) and Kaylor et al. (2001)

Public Participation Service (PPS)

Stowers (1999, 2002), Kaylor et al. (2001), West (2001, 2005), Ake Gronlund (2003), Gregory (2003), Carter and Belanger (2005) and Evans and Yen (2006)

Online voting Ake Gronlund (2003), Gregory (2003), Evans and Yen (2006), Stowers (1999, 2002), Cullen and Houghton (2000) and West (2001, 2005)

Online forum Gregory (2003), Stowers (1999, 2002), Cullen and Houghton (2000), West (2001, 2005) and Kaylor et al. (2001)

Online survey Ake Gronlund (2003), West (2001, 2005) and Kaylor et al. (2001)

Message board Ake Gronlund (2003), Gregory (2003) and Jaeger and Thompson (2004)

Privacy protection Stowers (1999), West (2001, 2005) and Relyea (2002) Digital authentication Relyea (2002) Forum Registration Stowers (1999) and Kaylor et al. (2001) Email registration Stowers (1999) and Kaylor et al. (2001)

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4.1.2 Data collection

To collect the data related to the development of Chinese EPS, a research planning was made with the assistance of the Information Centre of Jiangsu Province (Jiangsu Sheng Xinxi Zhongxin) of China and the Laboratory of School of Economics and Management of Southeast University of China. Two professors, together with four doctor candidates and 11 master candidates participated in this research. They are familiar with e-Gov and EPS and subtly understand about the study. They are invited to evaluate the websites and fill out the questionnaires. The survey was performed during August and October. In August, first cycle of survey was performed. And in September, second circle of checking was performed to reduce record errors. And in October, the sample data were recorded into computer system for further analysis.

Of the 205 returned questionnaires, 16 were excluded because of incomplete answers, leaving 189 valid including 31 province government websites and 158 city government websites. At the level of province, the samples included all of province government portal websites in Mainland China. And at the level of cities, the samples included 22.35% (158 in 707 including cities at county level) of the city government portal websites. The Chi-square goodness-of-fit test was used to test whether the sample data ratio came from the population with a specific distribution. The results indicated that this sample was representative of the population of Chinese local government at the level of province and city.

Furthermore, to ensure validity and reliability, this study pre-tested the questionnaire first. Regarding reliability, the survey had strong internal consistency with all multiple-item constructs achieving Cronbach’s alpha of 0.9021 and standardised item alpha of 0.8964 exceeding the recommended value of 0.70 for the social science research (Moreno-Jimenez and Polasek, 2003). Regarding validity, the result shows Hotelling t2 = 9651.2127, prob. = 0.000, thus the data is valid and suitable for further analysis.

4.2 Results

This section reports the analysis results. We used EPS Integration Index (EPSII) to evaluate the development of Chinese local government EPS. EPSII means the ratio (in decimal) of items whose binary code value equal ‘1’ in one questionnaire. We assigned all the research items equal weight without considering their importance because one aim of this study is to find what and how many EPSs are provided by Chinese local governments. According to the analysis framework of EPS, EPSII were presented by three subitems including PISII, PTSII and PPSII, which were used to measure the development of PIS, PTS and PPS. In the following part, the development of Chinese EPS, PIS, PTS and PPS were analysed using the software package of SPSS (Yu and He, 2005).

4.2.1 The EPSII of Chinese local governments

Among 189 valid questionnaires, all of the 31 (16.40% of sampled population) government websites at the level of province and 158 (83.60% of sampled population) government websites at the level of city have delivered e-services to citizens in Mainland


China. The EPSII of 31Chinese provinces weighted computing by 189 samples is listed in Appendix A.

The descriptive of Chinese EPSII is demonstrated in Table 2. The findings illustrate that the mean value of PISII is the highest (0.577012); the following is PTSII (0.372128) and PPSII (0.159352). The mean value of EPSII is 0.433210 almost consistent with the report of UNDPEPA (0.4356) (UNDPEPA, 2001). The tests of normality show that all of the variables are normal. So, the variables are suitable for the further analysis.

Table 2 Descriptive of EPSII

Statistic EPSII PISII PTSII PPSII EPSII

Mean 0.577012 0.372128 0.159352 0.433210 Lower bound 0.543725 0.316601 0.135948 0.396708 95% Confidence

interval for mean Upper bound 0.610299 0.427656 0.182755 0.469711 Variance 0.008 0.023 0.004 0.010 Std. deviation 0.0907486 0.1513822 0.0638034 0.0995125 Minimum 0.4200 0.1159 0.0313 0.2411 Maximum 0.8000 0.8261 0.2813 0.7321 Range 0.3800 0.7102 0.2501 0.4910 Skewness 0.159 0.632 0.064 0.610 Kurtosis 0.079 1.370 –0.799 1.692 Kolmogorov-Smirnova 0.071 0.096 0.129 0.101 Sig. of Kolmogorov-Smirnova 0.200* 0.200* 0.200* 0.200*

*This is a lower bound of the true significance. aLilliefors Significance Correction.

4.2.2 The PISII of Chinese local governments

The PIS is an elemental function of EPS system. It is used to deliver public information to businesses and citizens, so as to improve governance transparency and databases sharing widely. Figure 2 shows that ‘Navigation Bar’ has the highest score of 0.9577 among the items of PIS. It is to say that 95.77% government portals provide navigation information to businesses and citizens. However, “Other Language Edition” has the lowest score of 0.0952. Only less than 10% of government websites have editions in other languages (excluding Chinese Edition and English Edition). In addition, ‘Government Procurement Information’, which is the column more concerned about by businesses (Kaylor et al., 2001; Accenture, 2003; UNDESA, 2005), and ‘Job Information’, ‘Databases’ which are the items more concerned about by citizens (Kaylor et al., 2001; West, 2001, 2005; Jaeger, 2003, 2005), have lower service level.

132 G. Hu et al.

Figure 2 The PISII of Chinese local governments

4.2.3 The PTSII of Chinese local governments

PTS is the service that is delivered lying on complex ITCs and organisational Business Process Reengineering (BPR). By PTS applications, government can perform transactions through G2B and G2C models. Figure 3 indicates that ‘Transportation’ service has the highest score of 0.6349 among the items of PTS. It is to say that 63.49% government portals provide transportation services to businesses and citizens. Following are the ‘Transaction Guide’ and ‘Labour Insurance to Citizen’, which have the score of ‘0.6085’ and ‘0.4974’. However, ‘Transaction Process’ service has the lowest score of 0.1058. Only nearly 10% government websites have provided transaction process service to businesses and citizens. In addition, ‘Environment Protecting’ services, “Financial Insurance to Company”, which are the items more concerned about by businesses (OMB, 2002; Accenture, 2003; UNDESA, 2005) and ‘Documents to Citizen’, ‘Electricity/Water Service’, which are the items more concerned about by citizens (Stowers, 1999, 2002; West, 2001, 2005; Jaeger, 2003, 2005; Shi, 2007), have lower level.

4.2.4 The PPSII of Chinese local governments

The PPS means government presents e-participation approach for businesses, citizens to participate in policies amending and decision-making. In this way, civic democracy level and government decision quality will be enhanced. According to Figure 4, the item of ‘Message Board’ has the highest score of 0.4074 among the items of PPS. It is to say 40.74% government portal websites provide massage board services to the public. Following are ‘Online Survey’ and ‘Email Registration’, which have the score of ‘0.1958’ and ‘0.1799’. However, ‘Digital Authentication’ service has the lowest score of 0.0317. Only nearly 3% government websites have provided online certification service to businesses and citizens in order to protect the safety of websites and the privacy of users. In addition, ‘Online Voting’ and ‘Forum Registration’ services, which are the items more concerned about by businesses and by citizens and which can


guarantee the public involving into the decision-making (Moreno-Jimenez and Polasek, 2003; Jaeger, 2003, 2005; UNDESA, 2005; West, 2005; Shi, 2007), have lower service level.

Figure 3 The PTSII of Chinese local governments

Figure 4 The PPSII of Chinese local governments

5 Conclusions

Governments, almost all over the world, are going to be online and implementing the internet to offer public services to their citizens and organisations. This paper defines these processes and applications as ‘EPS’. With the development and adoption of ICTs in China, leaders expect to foster administrative reforms by transforming government functions, streamlining procedures, and enhancing administrative transparency through

134 G. Hu et al.

applying EPS. Drawing on NPM theory and on NPS theory and the application of ICTs in providing public service, this paper develops a theoretical framework, which includes three categories of PIS, PTS and PPS, about what e-services governments should provide to public. Every category is divided into two aspects based on whether one service involves other government sectors when it is provided, such as PIS of single-sector and PIS of multi-sectors, PTS of single-sector and PTS of multi-sectors, PPS of single-sector and PPS of multi-sectors. We wish that this framework may help governmental agencies and IS designers to better understand what e-services should be provided in their EPS systems. The contributions of this paper are threefold. First, it assists our understanding of the backgrounds and concepts of EPS. Second, it provides an analysis framework of EPS in a new IT context: what types of e-services should be offered. Third, it describes the implementation of EPS in China and improves the infrastructure reform resolution of Chinese government IT application.

Except the academic value above, managerial implications for governmental policy-makers, governmental agencies, and IS developers are also obvious. For governmental policy-makers responsible for future strategic planning of EPS, this study provides the following recommendations:

“Several studies pointed out the lack of appropriate performance measurements for EPSs (IOS Press, 2005; Steyeart, 2004). An analysis framework is proposed and relevant service items (i.e., About Government, Agencies/Associations, Email, Phone Information, etc.) are identified in this study. According to the evaluation of Chinese EPS, we suggest that regulators and policy makers can improve strategic planning for EPS investments through monitoring these three categories (PIS, PTS and PPS) and 56 service items as elemental performance indicators.”

For governmental agencies responsible for developing implementation strategies for EPS, this study provides the following recommendations:

“To improve public satisfaction to their government, governmental agencies should provide sufficient service items, such as Job Information, Database, Electricity/Water Services and Online Voting, which are more concerned about by businesses and citizens (Jaeger, 2005; West, 2005; Shi, 2007). So, we suggest it will be necessary that governmental agencies develop implementation strategies that emphasise the sufficiency of EPSs through deep research on the need of public to EPS.”

For system developers responsible for EPS design, this study provides the following recommendations:

“The figures show that many service items (i.e., Government Procurement Information, Job Information, Databases, Documents to Citizen, Financial Insurance to Company) concerned about by citizens and companies are not designed well. We recommend that IS developers should pay more attention to the demands of user during the designing of EPS system.”

This paper examines what EPS is and its implementation among local governments in China. However, the factors influencing the implementation of EPS have not been studied sufficiently. Future study will construct the theoretical model, such as Structure Equation Model (SEM), of impact factors on EPS and test the model using survey data empirically.


Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the help of Mr. Wei Li, Master of Logistics Management of Sydney University and Master of Professional Accounting of Western Sydney University, Sydney. At present, he is a professional analyst at Woolworths Ltd., who provided the proofreading of our manuscript. We are also grateful to the Information Centre of Jiangsu Province of China for her fund support and the Laboratory of School of Economics and Management of Southeast University of China for all assistance received for the study. We also acknowledge the support given by Miss Wenwen Pan in improving the document.

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Appendix A The statistic of EPSII

Province Chinese name EPSII

Anhui 安徽 0.3911

Beijing 北京 0.6049

Fujian 福建 0.4331

Gansu 甘肃 0.4018

Guangdong 广东 0.5000

Guangxi 广西 0.4286

Guizhou 贵州 0.3125

Hainan 海南 0.3572

Hebei 河北 0.4898

Henan 河南 0.4048

Heilongjiang 黑龙江 0.4018

Hubei 湖北 0.4388

Hunan 湖南 0.3444

Jilin 吉林 0.5089

Jiangsu 江苏 0.5393

Jiangxi 江西 0.4796

Liaoning 辽宁 0.4286

Neimenggu 内蒙古 0.3215

Ningxia 宁夏 0.2411

Qinghai 青海 0.2991

Shandong 山东 0.5067

Shanxi 山西 0.4143

Shanxi 陕西 0.4256

Shanghai 上海 0.5149

Sichuan 四川 0.5179

Tianjin 天津 0.4434

Xizang 西藏 0.2679

Xinjiang 新疆 0.3750

Yunnan 云南 0.4494

Zhejiang 浙江 0.4554

Chongqing 重庆 0.7321

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