Exit the E-government Ivory Tower: A Training Strategy -- A Case Study from Austria

Abstract

The national Austrian e-government curriculum aims to train government and public administration staff at all organisational levels, so the training plan needs to be developed on the basis of the national egovernment aims and adapted according to the target groups, the contents and teaching modalities. This paper presents the implementation of the egovernment curriculum in Austria that began in 2006 and continues today. Based on a case study approach, the paper looks at the issues important in the implementation of a nationwide e-government strategy and training programme. The Austrian egovernment curriculum is considered in terms of its strengths and the aims achieved, but also the limitations, weaknesses and mistakes made. It concludes that countries wanting to implement a nation-wide e-government strategy, regardless of whether they are an emerging nation or a highlyadvanced country, need to support their egovernment strategy with an e-government training plan.

Does E-government Education Meet Competency Requirements? An Analysis of the German University System from International Perspective

“…Business skills [18]; project management, financial management, performance management [5]; change management [11] politicaladministrative e-policy competencies [11]; legal framework, administrative workflows [4]; public policy [5] Even though the mentioned competencies transcend disciplinary boundaries, they predominantly evoke the impression to be assembled multi-disciplinarily. Most of the competencies can be traced back to specific disciplines and are rarely amalgamated in a truly interdisciplinary manner.…”

“…Exemplarily assigned knowledge, skills, competencies technical Information technology skills [18], IS design competency [11]; information systems [5] sociotechnical e-government impact [11,12]; technology and egovernment adoption; politics of e-government [12] organizational e-government structures [4]; organizational design [11]; process management [4,11] managerial…”

Developing an E-Government Training Program

“…curriculum) of e-government education. Examples of topics covered included identifying the competencies to be incorporated into e-government curriculum (Hunnius & Schuppan, 2013;Schuppan, 2014), examining the implementation of a nation-wide e-government education curriculum (Edelmann et al, 2013), and appraising the alignment between the duties and responsibilities of Government Chief Information Officers vis-à-vis the curriculum of training programs targeting them (Estevez & Janowski, 2013).…”

“…Some of the oft cited challenges faced by developing countries include inadequate information infrastructure, poor leadership and weak governance, as well as a lack of human and knowledge capital. In fact, studies have pointed to the importance of knowledgeable and skilled public servants and citizens in achieving e-government success (Dawes & Pardo, 2002;Estevez, Cellary, & Davies, 2014;Edelmann, Parycek, & Schossbock, 2013;Humnius & Schippen, 2013). Even though the need for excellent e-government training programs has often suggested to address such knowledge deficiency (Edelmann et al, 2013;Humnius and Schippen, 2013), a scan of the literature revealed a lack of insights on how an effective e-government training program targeting government executives and citizens can be developed.…”

“…Existing studies in this area are mainly descriptive in nature (e.g. Edelmann et al, 2013), with the findings being specific to the context of these studies. As such, it is often difficult to transfer the findings from these studies to meet the contextual needs of different countries.…”