Policymaking in an Information Wired Environment
limited 12 . In this respect , a claim is made that future technological and methodological developments would not solve the problem unless they are able to properly deal with how the delivered information is tailored to and accompanies the specific tasks government actors engage in .
4 . Concluding Remarks
A central topic of this paper is that ICT supported knowledge flows among the different actors can become a foundational ( new ) infrastructure for policy activity and service delivery ( see Whitworth 2009 ; Whitworth and Whitworth 2010 ). This information wired sociotechnical system encroaches upon the many relationships a system can establish as a result of its representation capability , decision-making processes , and organizational patterns ( Gil-Garcia 2012 ; Occelli 2012 ). From the policy point of view , it empowers changes in the government and governance relationships as it allows government actors to timely reconfigure their actions , meet user needs , and deliver higher performance system functionality .
The fact that any human organizations will increasingly rely on ICT gives support to the arguments made in OECD ( 2011 ) that ICT usage should extend from disseminating information to establishing relationships between inside and outside government , thus making the linking between government and governance more effective in improving the viability of communities and society .
In this respect , the role and functions of complexity-based cognitive mediation artifacts are going to be more and more important as they become an integrant part of the sociotechnical system . Although limited , to a small part of the system , the preliminary investigation carried out in Piedmont shows that the effort to develop such an approach is possible and worth being undertaken .
Of course , as the usage of these artifacts affects the whole socioinformational linkages the overall pattern of the government – governance relationships will also be continuously reshaped . Maintaining openness and flexibility while guaranteeing robustness of the government – governance relationships over time , therefore , will raise challenging research and policy issues .
PICTO research and the Piedmont case study suggest that , from the point of view of government , some issues are likely to deserve priority attention :
a . efforts of extending the policy perspectives , by complexity thinking , should be primarily aimed at favoring inter-organizational linkages , among the different government offices , at the different institutional levels . As ICTs are transversal to all government departments and policy domains , they can no longer be considered as plugged in factors to be dealt with in isolation . The fact that their usage forms hybrid complex sociotechnical policy bundles requiring cooperation by the different government departments should be reiterated and the arguments for handling them by means of a trans-disciplinary approach popularized ( Fuerth and Faber 2012 ); b . the significance of information in policy practices is a main topic to address for empowering government actors . In
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Of course , there are other reasons for that : the relatively low permeability to ICT diffusion ; the lack of scientific competences of civil servants ; the general cultural inertia which so far has hampered the possibilities to undertake innovative action procedures in the public sector ( see Occelli 2007 ).
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