Index of information and communication technology use in labour administration: its need, its pertinence and its potential use
| Date | 01 June 2020 |
| Published date | 01 June 2020 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0020852318769142 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
Index of information
and communication
technology use in labour
administration: its need,
its pertinence and its
potential use
Anna M. Galazka, Malcolm J. Beynon
and Tim Edwards
Cardiff University, UK
Abstract
This article examines the variation in the level of use of information and communication
technologies by national bodies of labour administrations across 81 different countries.
Extending empirical research on the state of information and communication technol-
ogy use, it introduces a prototype index of country-level information and communica-
tion technology use. The index allows for the exposition of the contributions of
sub-dimensions of information and communication technology use, including labour
inspection, public employment services and labour dispute prevention and settlement.
Graphical evidence showing sub-index and final index formulations for individual
countries is given, along with graphical evidence of the country-level ranking and geo-
graphical variations of information and communication technology use (including the
sub-dimensions of this use). The future potential of the prescribed approach is
demonstrated by offering possible explanations behind the results on a sample
of countries.
Corresponding author:
Anna M. Galazka, Cardiff Business School, Cardiff University, Aberconway Building, Colum Drive, Cardiff
CF10 3EU, Wales, UK.
Email: galazkaa@cardiff.ac.uk
International Review of Administrative
Sciences
2020, Vol. 86(2) 240–260
!The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0020852318769142
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Points for practitioners
In times of pressure on public administration worldwide for the greater provision of
information and communication technology-enabled products and services to citizens,
policymakers, public procurers of technology-based solutions and providers of infor-
mation and communication technology assistance programmes should have access to
toolkits for the assessment and comparison of the use of new technologies in and
across public organizations. In this article, we offer future value for such practitioners
by proposing one such tool. Using global data on the use of information and commu-
nication technologies from the field of labour administration, we demonstrate its
potential to construct indices of information and communication technology use in
selected areas of the public service.
Keywords
cross-country analysis, e-government, indexing approach, information and communica-
tion technologies, labour administration, public administration
Introduction
Interest in the impact of information and communication technologies (ICT) on
the public administration modernization agenda has accelerated in the last 20
years (see, e.g., Bellamy and Taylor, 1994). Governments are under pressure to
increasingly render their services through the competent application of ICT
(
Siug
zdinien_
e et al., 2017; Van Jaarsveldt and Wessels, 2015). Despite growth
in the number of studies evaluating the adoption, acceptance, performance or
success of national public administrations in general (see Wirtz and Daiser,
2018), the specific area of labour administration remains poorly understood
(Hastings, 2016). As defined by Convention 150 of the International Labour
Organization (ILO) – a United Nations agency developing labour standards,
policies and programmes to promote decent work – labour administration
refers to ‘public administration activities in the field of national labour policies’
(ILO, 1978). This includes the functions of labour ministries and/or their equiv-
alents, public employment services, labour inspection, dispute prevention and
settlement services, and vocational education and training institutions (Heyes
and Rychly, 2013: 1). Related to this, the Convention defines the system of
labour administration as ‘all public administration bodies responsible for and/
or engaged in labour administration’ (ILO, 1978).
In this article, we complement the state of e-government research by empirically
scrutinizing technology use by national labour administration systems.
Specifically, we demonstrate the rigorous development of a tool that might
allow for assessments of the level and variation of levels of ICT across nations.
In so doing, we contribute to the creation of scientific knowledge in the arena of
Galazka et al. 241
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