Information technology support for reengineering public administration: A conceptual framework

Abstract

The growing complexity of the society and the need for government regulation of economic and social development is confronting public administration with a great deal of complex problems which may be hard to solve unless public administration becomes more efficient and cost-effective. As for developing countries, the high efficiency and cost-effectiveness of their public administration in place of the existing inefficiencies are equally important for sustaibable development. Thus, public administration in both industrialized and developing countries is increasingly charged with the responsibility of improving its performance but, at the same time, make it more cost-effective. This dilemma could be possibly resolved by reengineering public administration processes through innovative and cost-effective information technology (IT) support. This paper proposes a conceptual framework for information technology support in public administration. The framework conceptualizes public administration as policy planning, policy implementation, and policy administration

and proposes a three-tier architecture for support systems for the three aspects of policy management. Further, within each tier of support systems, the framework also proposes appropriate types of systems (such as decision support systems, executive support systems, expert systems, etc) for realizing appropriate support from IT. A phased approach to the implementation of this architecture and issues related to its application in developing countries are also discussed. © 1995.