Measuring the Digital Divide in the Field of e‐Government
Ninoslava Savić 1 and Zoran Radojičić 2
1
Higher School of Professional Business Studies, Novi Sad, Serbia
2
Faculty of Organizational Sciences, Belgrade, Serbia ninas @ uns. ac. rs zoran @ fon. rs
Abstract: This paper considers a topic of monitoring and evaluation of e‐Government, focusing on a phenomenon known as digital divide that may exist in this field. Measuring a level of digital divide is especially important for decision makers, who are in a position to create or correct strategies for synchronized development and use of e‐Government services, with respect to different entities like countries, populations, economies or companies. We investigate the size of digital divide in the context of applying different e‐Government modules within monitored entities, divided into relevant groups. After defining one model for measuring different types of digital divide in e‐Government usage, the model is applied on the case of Serbia, calculating sub‐indices and the compound e‐Government polarization index ‐ EGPI. The model is a flexible and opened system that allows easy changes of its basic input parameters. This means that its semantic does not change when the set of sub‐indices, the set of indicators for its quantitative expression and / or a division of objects into groups within a certain type of digital divide are changed. At the same time, all calculations are performed according to the same rules defined by the model. The paper contains both the theoretical part, and an empirical quantitative research. The results of this research elaborate on the actual level of polarization in acceptance of e‐Government modules within enterprises in Serbia. Also, these results emphasize risk groups of enterprises that should receive special attention in the future, in order to minimize digital divide in usage of e‐Government.
Keywords: information society, e‐government, digital divide, measuring digital divide, e‐government polarization index EGPI
1. Introduction
Electronic government( e‐Government) presents a new functional model of the public sector’ s internal and external relations, based on sophisticated ICT solutions, which ensure better government service provision, and increasing citizens’ involvement. It consists of internal operational processes, external service provision and the supply of information by government institutions via Internet. The main benefits, expected from the implementation of e‐Government, are:
• improving relations between citizens and the government,
• improving quality of government services,
• enabling integrated and individualized government services,
• reducing costs of service provision by improving the efficiency of government organizations,
• ensuring provision of government services and relevant information independent of time and place,
• improving government policies and decision‐making processes,
• strengthening democratic institutions and democratic processes( Holland, Bongers, Vandeberg, Keller and Te Velde, 2002).
E‐Government must be an innovative and continual process that includes the following phases:
• information provision( initiated by‘ the government side’),
• interaction( e‐communication between the government and the service consumers),
• transaction( interaction which involves a financial element),
• integration( cooperation between different government institutions),
• transformation( creation of new organizational forms).
Digital divide is phenomenon that comes together with growing ICTs and rising networked society. It implies different types of polarizations in relation to different possibilities to benefits from using ICTs, observed in national or international framework. Internationally, there could be an e‐polarization between highly developed and less developed countries and regions. Nationally, there is an internal e‐polarization within certain country,
432