Toward Delivery of Effective Mobile Government - Literature review Example

?“Toward Delivery of Effective Mobile Government: The Case of Oman” Table of Contents Literature Review 3 References 9 Literature Review According toAbdelghaffar & Magdy (2012), it has been recognised that most of the governments globally are increasingly moving towards implementing the concept of mobile government which is also prevalently known as m-government. This is due to the fact that the governments intend to enhance their interaction with the public along with enhancing the delivery and the quality of their services by following the strategic idea of mobile government. The perception of mobile government can be described as a policy that engages the use of mobile as well as wireless technologies, devices, services and applications for the purpose of improving the services to the associated parties who are engaged with an e-government structure. The several parties include the various governmental units, citizens and businesses. Due to the factor of increased demand of the public for attaining superior public services, the notion of mobile technologies ultimately has paved the way for the governments to quickly serve various public services to the citizens. The facet of m-government assists the governments in order to deliver public services at anytime and anywhere for the citizens. Abdelghaffar & Magdy (2012) also noted that there lay significant advantages of mobile government and simultaneously there also lay few major limitations. The vital factors that include the constraint of the screen of the mobile phones and privacy are observed to be the major limitations of mobile government. According to Mobile Government Consortium International (2012), the noteworthy benefits of mobile government comprise increased operational efficiencies, reduced costs and capability of delivering superior services to the citizens. Moreover, the other advantages of mobile government include convenience and flexibility and modernisation especially of the organisations linked with public sector and capability to reach huge number of people. For these particular benefits, the governments are quickly adopting the aspect of mobile government in order to fulfil their expected goals by a considerable extent. Along with the implementation of the mobile government, the governments worldwide also have showed immense interest upon the notion of e-government. According to Janowski (2001), the idea of e-government stands for electronic medium of government which extensively makes the application of information and communication technologies (ICTs) especially the tool of internet in order to attain better government. The concept of e-government is considered to be an effective tool that possesses the ability to enable superior policy results, deliver better service qualities and make large engagement with the business units and the citizens. Moreover, the aspect of e-government also makes competent utilisation of public funds as well as various government procedures that ultimately assists the governments to attain their desired goals. In this regard, Janowski (2001) stated that the governments felt the need of employing the significant feature of e-government in order to minimise the pressures that they face considerably. Janowski (2001) identified that the governments often face various sorts of pressures that include globalisation, dissimilar expectations of the citizens, fiscal demands and constantly evolving societies. Moreover, along with minimising the above mentioned pressures, the governments also intend to become responsive against social transformations with the intention of addressing the public concerns, deliver better public services to the citizens and manage the funds competently. It has been noticed by Janowski (2001), that there lie few imperative reasons for the governments to embrace e-government. It basically raises operational competency, enhances the service quality and helps to attain various policy consequences. Furthermore, the other reasons also include that factors that the idea of e-government establishes a close link as well as builds trust between the government and the citizens, contributes significantly in order to attain financial objectives and it can be a vital contributor towards initiating reforms in future. In addition, Janowski (2001) stated that the governments also implement the facet of e-government in order to improve the aspect of customer focus. According to Janowski (2001), the notion of customer focus is about offering a logical interface with the government to the public as well as the business units that focus upon their various requirements rather than the government structure. According to the report published by Mobi Solutions Ltd (2010), it has been viewed that there lie certain crucial reasons for the governments about implementing the concept of mobile services more in comparison with the idea of the services related with internet. In this regard, Mobi Solutions Ltd (2010) stated that the mobile services had a wider reach and can be offered to larger amount of people as compared to internet services. This is because the penetration of mobiles surpasses internet penetration as the majority of the people use mobile phones, much more than the services offered through internet. Moreover, the facility of mobile service plays an imperative part in critical situations like providing crisis communication or making delivery of urgent messages. In this regard, the people can make good use of the mobile services in these tough situations as they carry their mobile phones with them, which is not feasible in the case of computers having internet connection. The computers are connected at a specific location, whereas, the mobile linked services are accessible everywhere at any time. In addition, it has been observed that the adoption rates especially of the mobile phones are quite faster in comparison with the computers having the connection of internet. The penetration of the mobile phones are mounting rapidly particularly in the urban areas. All these significant reasons ultimately increase the scope of utilising mobile government as compared to e-government by a considerable extent (Mobi Solutions Ltd, 2010). According to Kushchu & Kuscu (2004), it can be stated that the concept of mobile government has a substantial influence upon the roles as well as the functions of e-government and also upon the creation of composite strategies along with tools for e-government efforts. Kushchu & Kuscu (2004) noted that a broad collection of people accessing the functions of mobile phones as well as computers with internet connection are increasing rapidly. Moreover, especially the access of mobile phones is constantly becoming natural in daily life of the people and thus for this particular major reason, the governments would have to focus more upon the aspect of mobile services or initiate the idea of mobile government. According to Victoria University Institutional Repository (n.d.), the information and communication technology (ICT) segment in Oman has been viewed to gain momentum in recent times as compared to its early phase of development. Moreover, in relation to the ICT sector of Oman, the penetration of personal computers (PC’s) in Oman was quite low which stood at 3.24 PC’s per 100 residents in the year 2002. The skilled ICT workers are quite limited in Oman and also are unenthusiastic to join in the private sector or start up their own businesses. There lie certain important aspects that describe the scenario of the ICT sector in Oman. In this regard, in relation to the ICT segment in Oman, there lies the absence of an autonomous ICT entity in Oman in order to supervise as well as regulate the segment. Moreover, in Oman, lack of support for the ICT sector has been viewed especially from private and public institutions along with availability of insufficient resources related with ICT courses within vocational training and higher education levels. In order to progress the ICT sector in Oman on the basis of the above mentioned grounds, the Ministry of Manpower took significant actions that included the introduction of trade regulations or legislations in order to progress ICT related investments. Moreover, the Ministry also looked forward towards fostering IT education in different schools in Oman for the purpose of improving computer as well as internet literacy (Victoria University Institutional Repository, n.d.). According to a report published by Certiport Inc (2010), the Oman Information and Technology Authority (ITA) broadly aims to change the Sultanate of Oman into a viable knowledge based community by enhancing ICT’s for the purpose of developing the services of the governments, individuals and business units. The ITA was founded in the year 2006 in order to introduce different e-governance projects especially in Oman. By the introduction of ITA, the various significant public services to the citizens were enhanced and the government of Oman enthusiastically adopted the aspect of e-governance by a large level (Certiport Inc., 2010). Naqvi & Shihi (2009) stated that most of the Oman citizens possess mobile devices. Thus, various organisations belonging to Oman have already started to employ their mobile devices in order to deal with the clients. However, Naqvi & Shihi (2009) identified that the services of related to mobile government in Oman have been segregated into two major groups that include pull and push services. The concept of push services is often recognised to be passive in nature where the clients of Oman usually obtain notifications about specific activities or events. In contrast, the pull services play an imperative part in responding to the enquiries made by the clients through mobile devices. Besides, Naqvi & Shihi (2009) also observed few weaknesses along with major opportunities and threats especially of the ICT sector in Oman. From the perspective of the weaknesses of the ICT segment in Oman, it has been viewed that there lies low access rate of the computers along with having internet connection, incomplete infrastructure of ICT and low amount of experienced and trained IT working personnel. Moreover, the other weaknesses also include the nonappearance of any sort of legislation or regulation in order to support the development of the ICT segment in Oman, low level of technological advancements as well as awareness about the benefits of ICT and extreme bureaucratic work type in the governmental organisations in Oman. From the viewpoint of the opportunities of the ICT sector in Oman, it has been viewed that the support of the government in Oman about the privatisation of the ICT sector is increasing rapidly. Moreover, there has been an increase in adaptation rate of mobile telecommunication services in Oman. The common structural changes within the governmental organisations in Oman and the dependence of the growth of the ICT segment upon the public sector ultimately raised substantial threat on Oman’s ICT sector (Naqvi & Shihi, 2009). As noted by Carroll (2006), the major drivers of the mobile government in general include the penetration of the mobile devices which possesses significant part in the daily as well as business life, appearance of the application of internet in the mobile devices that is mounting extensively and the speedy advancement of ICT sector in different regions. These crucial drivers of the mobile government or the m-government ultimately have led the governments of various regions to initiate this particular concept in order to offer better public services to the citizens by a considerable level. Furthermore, Carroll (2006) also stated that the mobile government also contributes significantly to various areas that include enforcement of laws, education as well as healthcare system and transportation. References Abdelghaffar, H. & Magdy, Y., 2012. The Adoption of Mobile Government Services in Developing Countries: The Case of Egypt. ICT Journal, Vol. 2, No. 4, pp.333-341. Carroll, J., 2006. M-Government. ‘What’s in It for Me?’: Taking M-Government to the People. [Online] Available at: https://domino.fov.uni-mb.si/proceedings.nsf/0/e0343cc32a70298ac12571800030131a/$FILE/05_Caroll.pdf [Accessed June 19, 2012]. Certiport Inc., 2010. Background. Portal. [Online] Available at: http://www.certiport.com/portal/common/documentlibrary/Oman_Case_Study_092910.pdf [Accessed June 19, 2012]. Janowski, T., 2001. Introduction to Electronic Government. Documents. [Online] Available at: http://www.emacao.gov.mo/documents/14/01/seminar1.pdf [Accessed June 19, 2012]. Kushchu, I. & Kuscu, M. H., 2004. Introduction. From E-government to M-government: Facing the Inevitable. [Online] Available at: http://www.mgovservice.ru/upload/uploadfiles/From%20eGov%20to%20mGov.pdf [Accessed June 19, 2012]. Mobile Government Consortium International, 2012. Introducing Mobile Government. About. [Online] Available at: http://www.mgovernment.org/ [Accessed June 19, 2012]. Mobi Solutions Ltd., 2010. Relevance and Trends. Mobile Government: 2010 and Beyond. [Online] Available at: http://www.mobisolutions.com/files/Mobile%20Government%202010%20and%20Beyond%20v100.pdf [Accessed June 19, 2012]. Naqvi, S. J. & Shihi, H. A., 2009. M-Government Services Initiatives in Oman. Issues in Informing Science and Information Technology, Vol. 6, pp.817-824. Victoria University Institutional Repository, No Date. ICT Sector in Oman. Oman Case Study: Background. [Online] Available at: http://vuir.vu.edu.au/483/1/03chapter5-8.pdf [Accessed June 19, 2012]. Read More