Conclusion and Recommendation for Future Enhancement of ICT Adoption in Public Sector

Findings On Background Setting For Adoption Of Ict In Malaysia

One of the main objectives of the Malaysian government is to expedite the process by which the public organizations in the country work in order to meet the growing demands, needs and expectations of the people in the age of technology advancement. In this context the government of Malaysia sought the need to adopt technology for effective reform of how its bureaucratic machinery operates in all sphere of services delivery. In lieu of such thoughts for change in service delivery in public sector of Malaysia, the government welcomes the idea of capitalizing on the advantage and opportunities in the information communication technology (ICT) to accomplish works. To adopt technology and utilize it effectively for delivery of services, the government has launched Multimedia Supper Corridor (MSC) in 1996 in order to accelerate the country into ICT applications for enhancement of public services. According to the findings of this book, there were some initiatives and attempts before the launch of MSC to meet the public consumptions and to set lay a solid ground for ICT adoption and utilization in public organizations’ sphere. These include various services that were introduced such as MAYPAC (Malaysian Packet Switched Network) and MAYCIS (Malaysian Circuit Switched Network), Data Transmission on the Switched Telephone Network (DATEL) which was oriented towards global access at greater speeds of data transmission capability. To exploit the most of information revolution in the Malaysian public sector, Malaysia’s own MEASAT-1 (Malaysia East Asia Satellite) launched in January 1996 further marked an exciting journey which supplemented the already improved infrastructure such as a fibre optic cable network nation-wide, optical fibre cables (including laid under the sea bed connecting Sarawak and Sabah), the introduction of the Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN), the Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), microwave, satellite and other key technologies. The establishment of the National Information Technology Council (NITC) chaired by the former Prime Minister (Dr Mahathir Muhammad) further underscores the importance of the entire IT industry in overall national development and government intent in guiding future directions of delivering public services in the country. NITC, despite has been shrunken in size as well as solely represented by the key bureaucrats (as opposed to its diversified members in its early formation), functions as a think tank and advises government on IT development for efficient public work outputs in the country.

To date, some current policy initiatives eventually emerged include MyICMS886, National Broadband Plan, Critical National Information Infrastructure (CNII), National Cyber-Security Policy (NCSP) to achieve the underpinning objectives of changing the traditional mode of operation in public sector organizations in the country. A number of grass root initiatives were spawned and listed in the NITC’s website such as Digital Malaysia, New Economic Model, MSC Malaysia, MSC Flagship Applications, MSC’s Cybercities, MyGovernment Portal, eKuala Lumpur, My Domain Registry, Malaysian Communiaction and Multimedia Commission, Communication Content Infrastructure, Creative Industry, Lifelong Learning Programme, e-Government, and e-Learning system in some higher institutions in the country.

E-government in particular has contributed a lot to the improvement of governmental efficiency and effectiveness in service provision through resilience use of ICT by numerous government agencies and public service organizations. One thing is to adopt ICT devices in public sector; however, it is another thing to utilize them by the bureaucratic bodies and government machineries.

Having shed lights on the background of ICT adoption and utilization in the Malaysian public sector, the overall perspectives of the book can be broadly summarized in three-fold. First, the book examines the governance of adopting ICT in the Malaysian public sector as well as the key players the spearhead its implementation with special references to issues of divergence and convergence. Second, it examines the theoretical framework and/or model that can help explain the impact of the ICT on the people and reactions to new change or mode of working using technology in public sector at large. Third, the book empirically evaluates the extent to which Malaysian civil servants are capable of embracing the opportunity brought by ICT digital revolution and the challenges associated with these new ICTs in light of human factors and reactions to technology. More specifically, the objectives and coverage of the book can be summarised as follows: