Lithuania: Knowledge Management in

eGovernment

Prof. Renaldas Gudauskas

2003 11 24

The challenge for Leaders today is to define an economic, social, and political vision for a new kind of society: a knowledge-based society.

The Harvard Policy Group, 2000, ‘Eight Imperatives for leaders in a networked world’, Technical Report, John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Situation

The real problem is, that in many cases Strategic decision making Political leadership from strategy has degenerated into orchestrating operational improvements.

There is great need for critical mass of highfliers – vision builders, change masters, IT alliance managers, relationship builders, reformers and organizational re-architects

eGovernment application layers

VISION

STRATEGIES

INITIATIVES

PROJECTS

APPLICATIONS

Political decision

F E E D B A C K Im

ple

men

tati

onO

per

atio

nP

olit

ical

&

Str

ateg

ic

Dim

ensi

onReference models for general strategies

Reference models for: engineering;system architectures processesData and information

European Development towards Online One-stop Government: The “eGOV” Project by Maria A. Wimmer.

In Proceedings of the ICEC2001 Conference, 31/10 - 4/11/2001 in Vienna.

The development of successful eGovernment programmes require:

There must be visible and committed leadership within both the political and administrative arms of government.

There must be the right infrastructure and implementation programme, with clear accountability for results.

There must be a clear policy statement, set deliverables and a timetable.

There must be a framework for an authentic e-government strategy.

Accenture, ‘eGovernment Leadership: Rhetoric vs Reality – Closing the Gap’, company report, www.accenture.com/xd/xd.asp?it=enWeb&xd=industries\government\gove_study.xml

Definition eGovernment is often defined as “e-business of the state”.

This is justifiable by the fact that both e-government and e-business use the same infrastructure, hardware and sometimes also software.

eGovernment is the application of information and communications technology (ICT) to transform the efficiency, effectiveness, transparency and accountability of informational and transactional exchanges within government, between governments and government agencies at federal, municipal and local levels, citizens and businesses; and to empower citizens through access and use of information and knowledge.

E-government and the e-world in general has at least five dimensions:

Technological Legal Organisational Socio-economic Democratic

Jakisch G., 2000,

Gren P., 2001,

eGovernment can be seen from four perspectives: The addressee’s (citizen’s) perspective:

integrated access management and one-stop (single-window) service

The process perspective: redesigning organizations

The co-operation perspective: sustaining collaborative decision making

The knowledge perspective: managing distributed domain knowledge

Lenk K., Tranmüller R., 2000, ‘A Framework for Electronic Government’, DEXA 2000, IEEE Press, pp. 271-277.

For governments, strategic transformation involves four critical factors that form the Cornerstones of “eGovernment”:

Customer centricity Knowledge focus Government integration Private sector

involvement.

Jeremy Andrulis, Reconstructing government: Decisions that can shape your future. IBM Corporation 2001

World Bank assessment

Public and private sector Knowledge management, supported by information and communications technology, is an important element of knowledge economy. For an institution or company to manage knowledge well, there needs to be a systematic alignment of overall management and information management policies and processes, mindsets and cultures, organizational structures, technologies, budgets, and worker skills.

Lithuania aiming for a Knowledge economy. March 2003.

Promoting KM, eGOV, eBusiness

Lithuania’s Public sector is facing several challenges in implementing its Knowledge management and eGovernment strategy. By far the most pressing concern is the need for credible, organized leadership to set priorities, develop action plans and monitor their implementation, and tackle cultural issues for knowledge sharing.

General eGovernment Barriers:

Organisational cooperation Legal issues Technical infrastructure Integration on existing processes Funding Political support

More detailed barriers include skill and knowledge deficits, risk, suspicion, privacy concerns, social exclusion and digital divide as well as technical, data, structural, and cultural barriers.

Heeks R., 1998;

Kaptelinin V. 2000

Problems

The absence of an adequate legal framework for electronic transactions hampers the provision of eGovernment and eBusiness services.At present, despite initial steps to harmonize domestic legislation with international standards for electronic transactions, Lithuania lags behind in passing relevant regulations.

There is a shortage of skilled technical and managerial staff to undertake KM tasks. The education system does not produce the needed practical and theoretical skills.

Links bertween the public administration and the education system should be created to provide formal and nonformal training on KM.

The Knowledge Performance Challenge The Government of Lithuania proposes

the following goals to help more firms develop, adopt and market leading-edge innovations.

GOALS Vastly increase public and private

investments in knowledge infrastructure to improve Lithuania’s R&D performance.

Ensure that a growing number of firms benefit from the commercial application of knowledge.

Priorities

Assign to the state institutions clear responsibilities for knowledge management and eGovenment policy, strategy, and monitoring of eGovernment processes.

Develop a knowledge management strategy and action plan to accelerate the integration of information systems within and among ministries.

Implement knowledge management systems within public institutions, with top level political support.

Encourage knowledge sharing in organizations and provide the incentives and environment for employees to do so. This recommendation is relevant not only within the public administration, but also for many businesses.

The Structure of Interaction of Information Society Development Institutions of the Government of Lithuania

The Commitee of Information Society of Lithuania

The Ministry of Transport of Lithuania

The Ministry of Justice of Lithuania

The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Lithuania

Other Ministries

The Ministry of Science and Education of

Lithuania

The Commission of Information society development of the Government of Lithuanian

Other State Institutions

eGovernance

The General Strategy of the Commission of Information Society Development

Strategic Direction 2002 - 2004

IntegrationIS Strategy

Context of

Lithuania

Context of EU

Strategic Coordination

Strategic Control

Primary tasks Provide good quality KE legislation; Ensure effective internal IT and KM use in the

government structures; Creating favorable climate for business and IT

synergy; KM education and training issues; Involvement in e-commerce processes E-knowledge creation fostering

A Knowledge-Based Development Strategy

AccessAccess to the rich diversity of human social and cultural experience in

order to build not only an informed or knowledgeable society, but a wise one

 

EmpowermentThe capacity and opportunity to participate actively in local, national and

global decision-making processes 

GovernanceInstitutional framework to promote and encourage smart-partnership 

New Value orientation of eGovernment:

Knowledge Management components and sub-elements

LEARNING

PEOPLETECHNOLOGY

PROCESS

Attitudes, Sharing, Innovation, Skills, Team work, Motivation, Organization, Vision/Objectives, Communities Standards

Data stores & formats, Networks, Internet,

Data Mining & Analysis, Decision tools, Automation

Standards

KM Maps,Work flows, Integration,

Best Practices,Business Intelligence

Standards

70%

10%

20%n% = effort

required

KM strategist D. Bhatt

Organizational learningOrganizational competencies

Teams Individuals

K

n o w le d gebase

Knowledge

Information

Data

K

n o w le d gebase

Structure of eGovernment Organizational Knowledge Base

OWERSEAS

Public property

Private property

Knowledge developme

nt and distributio

n

Government Business

Universities

NGO

Knowledge Clusters: Government, Business, Universities

Knowledge use

Binding three layers

Knowledge (KM, content, organisational tools)Knowledge (KM, content, organisational tools)

Computational science (visualisation, simulation ..)Computational science (visualisation, simulation ..)

Interactivity

Communication Infrastructure, Computing Infrastructure

KBT

ICT

Complexity

Conclusions • The development of Information Society and Knowledge

Economy are main priorities of Lithuanian Government; • eGovernment is part of Public administration reforms strategy; • eGovernment policy is closely related with other

Governmental policies; • eGovernment projects are not only a ICT (information and

telecommunication) projects; • Lithuanian Government has adopted eGovernment Concept in

which KM functions are included; • KM oriented eGovernment projects can be implemented only

with close collaboration with private sector. • In the long run Lithuania has to develop new competencies

and it should be new generation of Knowledge managers