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There is a recent
growth of e-governance system around the world as can be seen in when
surfing the internet. Almost every country has a website and is
disseminating news, reports, updates, achievements, policies, new projects
and others through the use of that website. In other words, government
have jumped into the ultimate information superhighway medium – the
internet. However, there are still no concrete guarantees in this new
means of governing people. The question is if this new trend in citizen
governance is effective or has more potential than its offline
counterpart. Particularly, the question should be directed to its effects
in service delivery and good governance. To question e-government’s
effectiveness is fitting since its establishment would cost a country a
lot of money, which could be painful for developing countries.
Literatures have specified
several main conceptualization of e-governance. They are:
e-governance as customer satisfaction;
e-governance as processes
and interactions; and e-governance as
tools (Finger and Pecaud, 2003). Thus, the concept of e-governance itself
can be subjected to psychoanalysis to identify its effects specifically on
service and good governance. This can be more interesting in the light of
developing countries since they have fewer budgets and less skilled
Information technology experts, but need to get the most out of an
e-governance project. According to Backus (2001), there is great potential
that developing countries would benefit from e-governance, but would have
to deal with several weaknesses in political, economic, social and
technological aspect. For instance, the political weaknesses of developing
countries might be at the most severe but not limited to budget or the
lack of cyber laws; while their social weaknesses might be low literacy
and low IT literacy (Backus, 2001). The effectiveness of e-governance is
affected to great extent by these weaknesses.
Statement of the Problem
The emergence of
e-governance is an area that is unexplored, specifically in the case of
effectiveness and good governance. Although it is just a type of extension
of the offline governance, it can be treated as stand-alone form of
government, separate from the actual form of governance that the
government of that country implements. Developing countries may mostly
testify to this as they try to put necessary service online, but may fail
to do so because of the low IT literacy of its citizens. Psychoanalytic
approach in analyzing the weaknesses of a developing country in terms of
making e-governance effective might be necessary. Specifically,
psychoanalysis will help examine the psychological views of citizens
toward e-governance, which will then identify the necessary improvements
the government must do to improve e-governance effectiveness. The
following research questions will be explored in the study:
Ø
What are the
psychological factors that affect the effectiveness of e-governance in
developing countries?
Ø
How can
e-governance be improved by using psychoanalysis of citizens of developing
countries?
Ø
Are culture and
the preference for technology a factor in determining the success of
e-governance?
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of the study is
to be able to test the relationship between the psychological
characteristics of the citizens and the IT personnel of the government and
the effectiveness of e-governance system in developing countries,
specifically in Bangladesh.
Methods
The research design to be
used is the descriptive approach. This type of research presents facts
concerning the nature and status of a situation, as it exists at the time
of the study (Creswell, 1994). This also believes that the
relationships and practices that exist, beliefs and processes that are
ongoing, effects that are being felt, or trends that are developing.
(Best, 1970) Furthermore, such approach tries to describe present
conditions, events or systems based on the impressions or reactions of the
respondents of the research (Creswell, 1994).
Psychoanalysis will be
conducted on several citizens of a particular developing country. The
country chosen is Bangladesh.
Several
psychological factors will be derived from the respondents. The research
will try to link and interpret those factors with the effectiveness of
e-governance in terms of service and good governance.
Psychoanalysis
will be used to analyze the data. Correlation coefficient will be used to
test the relationship between the psychological variables and the
effectiveness of e-governance. |
