The implementation of integrated electronic service delivery in Quebec: the conditions of collaboration and lessons
| Date | 01 September 2017 |
| Author | Luc Bernier,Christian Boudreau |
| Published date | 01 September 2017 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0020852315598215 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Review of
Administrative
Article
Sciences
International Review of
Administrative Sciences
2017, Vol. 83(3) 602–620
The implementation of integrated
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DOI: 10.1177/0020852315598215
in Quebec: the conditions
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of collaboration and lessons
Christian Boudreau
Universite´ du Que´bec, Canada
Luc Bernier
Universite´ du Que´bec, Canada
Abstract
The article addresses the difficult conditions of interorganisational collaboration for
the implementation of integrated electronic service delivery from three theoretical
perspectives: institutional, political and managerial. These perspectives are used to
conceptually define the main obstacles to interorganisational collaboration and the
leverage available to public managers to facilitate the integration of electronic services.
Based on a multiple case study in Quebec, the authors examine, more specifically, the
institutional, political and managerial conditions that have delayed the integration of
electronic services in this Canadian province. They show how the persistency of admin-
istrative practices, the desire for autonomy of public organisations and cumbersome
governance structures have contributed to the diversification of the supply of online
services in Quebec at the expense of an integrated service. Drawing on theoretical
considerations and the study results, the authors propose that public managers do not
stick only to horizontal governance mechanisms, but also make use of vertical govern-
ance mechanisms, to mitigate the effects of certain constraints on interorganisational
collaboration and to accelerate the implementation of integrated electronic service
delivery.
Points for practitioners
Several countries have made integrated public service delivery a priority of
e-government. To effectively coordinate these projects with their multiple partners,
public managers need to apply a hybrid governance to benefit from the stability of
the hierarchy and the flexibility of the network. More specifically, the study shows
Corresponding author:
Christian Boudreau, E´cole nationale d’administration publique, Universite´ du Que´bec, 555, boulevard Charest
Est, Quebec, G1K 9E5, Canada.
Email: christian.boudreau@enap.ca
Boudreau and Bernier
603
vertical governance to be an effective tool to coordinate the activities of a network of
organisations involved in the implementation of integrated service delivery.
Keywords
administrative organisation and structures, administrative science, administrative
theory, e-government, information and communications technology, networks, partner-
ship, public administration
Introduction
For several years, many governments have tried to integrate their electronic service
delivery in order to make it easier for citizens to access these services and to
streamline the use of their resources (Borins et al., 2007; Boudreau, 2011).
Integrated electronic service delivery, understood as a set of online services offered
by several organisations (Kernaghan, 2005), is a response to the proliferation of
government websites and the diversification of online services (United Nations,
2012). It is also part and parcel of recent efforts to counteract the fragmentation
of programmes and the ‘agencification’ of organisations inspired by New Public
Management (Bouckaert et al., 2010).
Government portals are designed to make life easier for their users by organising
the content according to a more intuitive rather than administrative rationale.
Integrated service delivery can also help to improve the quality and efficiency of
services in specific sectors such as health, education and justice. Today, no one
seems to question the utility of an integrated electronic record to effectively moni-
tor the health situation of a patient, the progress of a student or the incriminating
trial of an offender.
While the majority of industrialised countries have officially made integrated
service delivery one of their priorities for electronic government, the actual state of
affairs is very different. Citizens and businesses often have to put up with many
repetitive formalities in the course of their online transactions. Several government
portals do nothing more than describe the steps to be followed with the agencies in
charge of the services and redirect the user to the websites of these organisations.
This shallow integration reflects the difficulty that public organisations face when it
comes to interconnecting their technological infrastructure and harmonising their
administrative processes (United Nations, 2012). One of the challenges of integrat-
ing electronic service delivery is to make the various systems interoperable by
standardising technologies, data and processes. Another challenge, but more com-
plex this time, is to convince various organisations that are anxious about keeping
their autonomy to work together to interconnect their operations and systems. This
article focuses on this challenge of securing collaboration by showing the organ-
isational constraints and challenges facing managers in the course of integrated
electronic service delivery projects.
604
International Review of Administrative Sciences 83(3)
The article is structured as follows. We start off by addressing the conditions of
interorganisational collaboration in strategic resource management from three the-
oretical perspectives: institutional, political and managerial. In a second part, we
go on to present our methodological approach, which revolves around a multiple
case study conducted in the Canadian province of Quebec. Third, after drawing
a portrait of integrated electronic service delivery in Quebec, we examine the
institutional, political and managerial conditions that have delayed the integration
of electronic service delivery. In the fourth section, on the basis of theoretical
considerations and the results of the study, we propose the introduction of vertical
governance mechanisms that help mitigate the effects of certain constraints on
interorganisational collaboration and accelerate the implementation of integrated
electronic service delivery.
Theoretical considerations in relation
to interorganisational collaboration
On the basis of a review of the scientific literature, this section discusses the main
obstacles to interorganisational collaboration and its levers from three perspec-
tives: institutional, political and managerial.
Institutional perspective: a bureaucratised and fragmented order
Despite a political and economic environment conducive to service integration, the
majority of public organisations continue to operate as largely autonomous
bureaucracies that prefer to work in silos rather than as a network (Fountains,
2001, 2009). This persistency is explained by the presence of government rules and
routines that induce the vertical management of programmes and services, whether
in terms of funding, accountability, performance, evaluation, privacy or security
information (Dawes, 1996; Fountains, 2001; O’Flynn et al., 2011). Many of these
rules and routines embedded in the bureaucratic functioning of government organ-
isations also tend to be perpetuated in the ways in which organisational actors take
ownership of information technologies and their use, preventing them from exploit-
ing their potential to the full (Fountains, 2001).
New Public Management and, more recently, the ‘whole-of-government’
approach have not therefore overcome the bureaucracy. While this bureaucracy
still proves effective in ensuring the ongoing management of high-volume services
(Boudreau, 2006), it proves less effective in managing complex problems requiring
the input of entities with no or little relationship of subordination between them
(Milward and Provan, 2000; United Nations, 2014). Given that solving complex
problems requires the pooling of resources (e.g. information, technology, expert-
ise and budgets), a strictly vertical governance is not enough. By vertical govern-
ance, we mean a management method that is hierarchically organised and
structured according to formal rules laid down by the centre (Rhodes, 1997 ).
Public managers must also use a horizontal governance based on dialogue and
Boudreau and Bernier
605
negotiation in order to coordinate and make the necessary organisational adjust-
ments (Provan and Lemaire, 2012). By horizontal governance, we mean a method
of administration based on trust and collaboration among a network of organ-
isations with no or little authority between them, with the aim of offering joint
solutions to often complex problems (Agranoff and McGuire, 2001; Milward and
Provan, 2000).
Political perspective: the desire or organisations for autonomy
Improving integrated electronic service delivery calls for the interoperability of
government back offices, that is to say, the capacity of the organisations that
administer these services to share information in order to offer their customers a
seamless procedure (Pardo et al., 2012). Interoperability presupposes a standard-
isation of systems, processes and data. Over and beyond the technical challenges of
interoperability, service integration also has a political dimension (Bekkers, 2007;
Dawes, 1996). Faced with attempts to interconnect their systems, organisations try
to maintain control not only over their strategic resources, but also over their
information domain, that is to say, the way in which information is selected,
labelled and...
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