Managing stakeholder interests in e-government implementation: lessons learned from a Singapore e-government project.

ABSTRACT

As e-government plays an increasingly dominant role in modern public administrative management, its pervasive influence on organizations and individuals is apparent. It is, therefore, timely and relevant to examine e-governance--the fundamental mission of e-government. By adopting a stakeholder perspective, this study approaches the topic of e-governance in e-government from the three critical aspects of stakeholder management: (1) identification of stakeholders; (2) recognition of differing interests among stakeholders; and (3) how an organization caters to and furthers these interests. Findings from the case study point to the importance of (1) discarding the traditional preference for controls to develop instead a proactive attitude towards the identification of all relevant collaborators; (2) conducting cautious assessments of the technological restrictions underlying IT-transformed public services to map out the boundary for devising and implementing control and collaboration mechanisms in the system; and (3) developing strategies to align stakeholder interests so that participation in e-government can be self-governing.

Keywords: convergence; e-governance; e-government; stakeholder interests

**********

INTRODUCTION

The notion of corporate governance is a subject of debate in the strategic management literature (Sundaramurthy & Lewis, 2003). Disputes have persisted over the optimal configuration of power in an organization to exploit the collective strength of its stakeholders (Demb & Neubauer, 1992; Sundaramurthy, 2000; Westphal, 1999).

Scholars such as Eisenhardt (1989), and Hawley and Williams (1996) have argued that self-serving opportunism is a predominant habit among stakeholders. They suggest that procedural controls must be enforced to restrain the manifestation of delinquent behavior. Yet social psychologists suggest otherwise. Noting that stakeholders are inherently inspired by motivational desires of self-actualization (Davis et al., 1997), they propose that instead of imposing restrictive perimeters around stakeholders' actions, responsible stakeholders should, in fact, be empowered to exercise their own judgments and should be cherished as partners of the governance system (Donaldson & Davis, 1994). Not surprisingly, these opposite viewpoints have prompted other researchers to seek alternative theoretical approaches that go beyond the direction of either stance (Audia et al., 2000). Among them, Demb and Neubauer (1992) propose a paradoxical approach to corporate governance--one that encapsulates the simultaneous demand for both stakeholder control and cooperation.