Management and Strategies for Digital Enterprise Transformation, E-Government, and Digital Divide

Introduction

The present study is dedicated to the following research question: “Are the international recommendations on e-government, Digital Division and Management and Strategies for Digital Enterprise Transformation producing successful outputs?”

e-Government (e-Gov) involves the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to achieve political goals and to ensure an efficient functioning of Public Administrations (OECD, 2019a; United Nations, 2020a). Public Administrations will be “open by default” and “digital by design” according to Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OCDE) (OCDE, 2018a). Thus, innovative ICTs should be properly integrated in digital governments to maximize their potentialities (Bannister & Connolly, 2020; European Commission, 2016a). Globally, it is possible to identify a gap between e-Govs and Digital Enterprise Transformation (e.g. e-commerce) between developed and developing countries. In this sense, digital divisions are closely related to a gap between citizens, families and businesses regarding the access to ICT and internet in different geographical areas (OCDE, 2006; United Nations, 2018a; Yera et al., 2020). In addition, almost all business integrates digital technologies due to a transition from the Industrial Era to the Digital Era, with business digitization/digital transformation and technologies contributing for improving companies results (Institute for Digital Transformation, 2017; Martínez-Caro et al., 2020). Consequently, defining policies and plans for maintaining and optimizing digital resources is required to maintain digital enterprises (Martínez-Caro et al., 2020; OECD, 2017). E-Government arises essentially from the 90's, simultaneously with the emergence of internet and, Digital Enterprise Transformation, including e-commerce practices (Diniz et al., 2009).

Recently, the concept of digital governance has emerged, as a continuity of e-Gov, with the exponential appearance of new ICTs. Interestingly, for some authors these two terms as synonyms (i.e., e-Gov vs. digital governance). Digital government is related to take full advantage from digital technologies, as well as, from the huge amount of data daily generated (big data). Among the aims of digital government are to restructure, simplify and enhance efficiently and sustainably services to citizens. Additionally, governments should ensure in public sector: open-source data compliant with the principles of transparency, integrity, accountability and participation and the management of this data to design and evaluate new services (OECD, 2018a; United Nations, 2020a).

Public Administrations will tend to be “open by default” and “digital by design”, which allow the communication of needs by companies and citizens and the definition of public policies or public services with higher quality and spontaneity. In this context, it is expected the development of platforms to communicate not only between Public Administrations and citizens, companies or the civil society, but also between these stakeholders, in order to find innovative and creative solutions for countries' problems. Overall, these measures will contribute for a greater predictability of citizens' problems and for a proactive and rapid response to social problems by governments (OECD, 2018a). For instance, in European Union, Public Administrations (and public institutions) are intended to be “open, efficient and inclusive”, aiming at providing boundless and intelligible services to all citizens and businesses. Therefore, Public Administrations must apply new digital opportunities to develop and deliver innovative, creative and useful services for companies and citizens (European Commission, 2016a).

Currently, diverse conceptual models of e-Gov are purposed. These models are applied to understand and optimize governance processes (Fath-Allah, Cheikhi, & Al-Qutaish, 2014; Morales & Bayona, 2020; Shahkooh, Saghafi, & Abdollahi, 2008; Supriyanto & Mustofa, 2016). Reference models are applied in business and within the scope of Public Administrations to optimize and/or create processes (Scholta et al., 2019). For instance: