“Institutional Dimensions of e-Government Development

• DOI: 10.1177/0095399712445870
• Date: 01 September 2013
• Author: Seok-Jin Eom
• Published date: 01 September 2013
• Subject Matter: Articles

Administration & Society

45(7) 875 –907

© 2012 SAGE Publications

DOI: 10.1177/0095399712445870

aas.sagepub.com

445870AAS45710.1177/009539971

2445870EomAdministration & Society

© 2012 SAGE Publications

1Seoul National University, Republic of Korea

Corresponding Author:

Seok-Jin Eom, Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul National University, 1 Gwanak-

ro, Gwanak-gu, Seoul 151-742, Republic of Korea.

Email: sjum21@snu.ac.kr

“Institutional Dimensions

of e-Government

Development:

Implementing the Business

Reference Model in the

United States and Korea”

Seok-Jin Eom1

Abstract

Why do similar e-government initiatives, implemented by different nations

but aimed at achieving similar policy goals, produce different outcomes? To

answer this question, this study examines institutional arrangements for

e-government development during the Bush administration in the United

States and the Roh Moo-hyun administration in Korea. The results of this

study demonstrate how different institutional arrangements for e-govern-

ment developments in terms of the concentration of authority based on

differing legal frameworks and the development of diverse and powerful

managerial tools for control and coordination contributed to producing dif-

ferent outcomes with regard to building Business Reference Models (BRM)

in the two nations.

Keywords

e-government, institutions, Business Reference Model (BRM)

Article

876 Administration & Society 45(7)

Introduction

Why do similar e-government initiatives, implemented by different nations

but aimed at achieving similar policy goals, produce different outcomes?

What are the central institutional dimensions and processes that contribute to

producing these different outcomes? What structural and political dimen-

sions at the national state level influence variation between nations of

e-government systems and their performances in spite of diffusion and imita-

tion at the global level?

Since the 1990s, e-government has been seen as a core step toward the

creation of the information society; thus, e-government initiatives that suc-

ceeded in one nation were benchmarked and imitated by other nations.

International organizations such as the United Nations and the Organization

for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), as well as global

information technology (IT) consulting firms, have contributed to the expan-

sion and diffusion of e-government worldwide by publishing research on

e-government best practices and providing consulting services to promote

IT systems (Dunleavy, Margetts, Bastow, & Tinkler, 2006; Eifert & Puschel,

2004; Mayer-Schönberger & Lazar, 2007; Tingling & Parent, 2002).

Perhaps not surprisingly, however, the same e-government initiatives

diffused from one nation to another have produced different outcomes. One

of the best examples is the diffusion of the Business Reference Model

(BRM), a part of the U.S. Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) frame-

work. It was implemented in the United States and Korea but resulted in

very different systems in each of the two countries. The U.S. BRM has a

function-oriented structure independent of organizations in accordance

with the project’s policy goals, including an objective to integrate “stove-

piped” information systems (ISs) built in government agencies and to iden-

tify opportunities to simplify processes and unify work across the agencies.

By contrast, the Korean BRM has an organization-oriented structure even

though its purpose was similar to that of its U.S. counterpart.

Comparative institutional analysis has been used extensively to describe

and explain national variation in state structures, policies, and policy-making

processes. This article draws from this rich vein of theory and methods and

extends them to the development of information infrastructure in govern-

ments. This study analyzes how different institutional arrangements for

managing control and coordination problems contributed to producing the

different outcomes of BRM initiatives in the two nations. In brief, U.S. insti-

tutional structure for development of e-government policy is characterized

Eom 877

by a concentration of authority based on a legal framework, development of

diverse and powerful managerial tools for control and coordination, and

leadership based in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) over

federal agencies. These institutional dimensions contributed to the develop-

ment of a function-oriented BRM independent of organizations and achiev-

ing the project’s policy goals. By contrast, the Korean implementation of

the BRM suffered from fragmented authority, ineffective managerial tools,

and confrontations among agencies over the course of building the BRM.

Consequently, the Korean government had no choice but to abandon its orig-

inal function-oriented system plan, and produced an organization-oriented

form of the BRM. Given the generally centralized and strongly planned

nature of national government in Korea, these dimensions are counterintui-

tive and paradoxical. Similarly, U.S. federal policy making is typically frag-

mented often due to agency autonomy and bureaucratic politics. These

counterintuitive results invite a comparative analysis of the institutional

contexts that produced them.

This article contributes to our understanding of the “powers of institu-

tions” on e-government developments. A focus on the importance of insti-

tutions is not news to institutional scholars, who have always emphasized

the value of broad institutional analysis in binding together explanations

that might connect global institutional forces and local structure and agency.

However, in the area of ISs and IT, the use of institutional theory remains

in its infancy primarily because, to date, technology-related variables and

technological systems have been in the mainstream in e-government

research (Bekkers & Homburg, 2005; Currie & Swanson, 2009; Fountain,

2001; Lyytinen, Newman, & Al-Muharfi, 2009; Orlikowski & Barley,

2001; Snellen, 2005; Weerakkody, Yogesh, & Irani, 2009). Moreover, even

e-government research that has drawn from an institutional perspective has

emphasized the cultural-cognitive aspects of institutions and institutional

isomorphic mechanisms in e-government building processes. This article

draws out institutional perspectives more closely related to state structures

and processes and applies them to e-government research (Fountain, 2007;

Hassan & Gil-Garcia, 2008; Mignerat & Rivard, 2009).

I argue that “institutions matter” in IS/IT research and provide evidence

for this line of argument by examining the influence of multilevel institu-

tional arrangements including the legal frameworks and organizational rou-

tines that are the focus of institutional analysis in political science. The two

cases presented in this article serve as detailed examples to support the argu-

ment that IT systems are constructed and implemented with the mediation of