This chapter focuses on technology-enabled government via robotic government and electronic government (e-Government) and compares this with the conventional government approach. With increased popularity and dependence on virtual presence of government, it has become essential to focus on online government and design interventions on how to develop e-Government. Robotic operations and processes are also finding increased acceptance. This entails that future generations of government setup exploring robotic government may be worthwhile. This research is a step towards development and refinement of theories, principles, concepts, and practices for online government and robotic government in addition to conventional government. Exploration of technology related aspects in the government service is principal objective of this research. It also enlists facilities and services that may be provided by any government. Pros and cons of introducing e-Government and robotic government are qualitatively explored. Panel discussions are done. Experts in the government sector and related technology, brain stormed the issues in e-Government, robotic government, and conventional government. Furthermore, a survey was done to explore leadership aspects of people in governing positions. Introduction of technology has facilitated an improvement in the public sector performance. The study opines that the governed and governing are at ease with e-democracy, e-citizenship, e-identity, and e-voting and are willing to welcome robotic government. This chapter identifies and analyzes emerging issues in contemporary modes of government.
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The purpose of this research is to extend boundaries of knowledge and understanding into government to (a) robotic government and (b) online government or e-Government along with (c) conventional government. With increased popularity and dependence on virtual presence of governing and governed, it has become essential to focus on online government. Robotic operations and processes are also finding increased acceptance. This entails that future generations of government setup exploring robotic government may be worthwhile. Development and refinement of theories, principles, concepts, and practices for online government and robotic government will definitely take time and require a lot of effort to materialize. This, therefore, is the right time to work on robotic and online government in addition to conventional government.
Different governments provide different facilities and perform different activities. For example, the list of facilities provided by and activities performed by the Chinese Government may be different from that of USA, Japan, UK, Canada, and even Korea. Some governments engage their set up to provide less facilities and services whereas some other governments prefer to provide more facilities and services. Education is free in some countries due to state sponsorship but it is very expensive in some other countries. Same is the case with health care. The governments may or may not be compassionate, merciful, giver of peace, protector, mighty, compeller, majestic, creator, maker, fashioner, forgiver, dominant, relenting, giving, provider, knowing, forbearing, embracing, judge, self subsisting, hearing, seeing, subtle, aware, encompassing, and independent. Therefore, it may be worthwhile to explore a comprehensive list of facilities provided by and activities performed by any government. This research will focus on it and see how technology facilitates provision of these facilities and services.
Technology-enabled emerging concepts in government are e-Democracy, e-Citizenship, e-Identity, e-Voting that may be followed by robotic-democracy, robotic-citizenship, robotic-identity, and robotic-voting. Technology may affect social based values of inclusion, accessibility and power relationship ratios. There are new mechanisms for public sector service providers and citizens’ interactions. These mechanisms are related to technological, psychological, legal, economical, and organizational fields. Public service effectiveness and efficiency may be affected by technological and social advances. Availability of Government-to-Government (G2G) hardware and software applications may facilitate efficient public sector performance. New challenges are transparency (Jaeger & Bertot, 2010), cyber-terrorism, deciding the correct balance between offline and online government/citizen and citizen/citizen interactions, information management strategies within the public sector, new legal issues, technological limitations of citizenry, language issues, interoperability, effectiveness of Web 2.0 in e-Government, and identity management such as authentication, privacy and trust. It may be useful to explore avenues for e-Participation such as using Wikis and blogs to enhance participation and e-Democracy issues including ways to improve democratic processes via global usage of technology. Thus, exploration of robotic government set up, e-Government set up and conventional government set up may be of use to every one. Many researchers such as Jaeger and Bertot (2010); Shareef, Kumar, Kumar and Dwivedi (In Press) and McDermott (2010) have worked on some of these issues but still there is room for further exploration due to continual technological and social evolution. Furthermore as per the researchers’ knowledge there is no such research from Pakistan.
Regarding leadership aspects of those in governing positions, this research theorizes, designs and tests mechanisms that may lay foundation for typical-maximal-and-ideal conventional-robotic-and-online intellectually stimulating, contingently rewarding, and idealized influence (behavioral) leadership practice-assessment-development-training-coaching-and-education via facilitating respondents' conventional, online, and robotic leadership assessment and development. The following are the desired leadership characteristics of robotic government and e-Government: