Municipal E-Government in the Provincial Capitals of

Vicente Morales1,2, Sussy Bayona2

1Facultad de Ingeniería en Sistemas, Electrónica e Industrial, Universidad Técnica de Ambato Ambato, Ecuador, 180150 [email protected]

2 Unidad de Posgrado de la Facultad de Ingeniería de Sistemas e Informática, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos Lima, Perú, 15081 [email protected]

Abstract government (e-government), maturity models have been designed. It is considered that the "optimal" level of maturity The level of development of the e-services of the cantonal of an organization is one that can help achieve strategic municipalities varies depending on several determinants objectives effectively and efficiently [4]. The maturity model such as the size of the government, population density, of an e-government web portal is structured in stages or budgets assigned by the central government, among others. levels of development that determine the maturity of the This article aims to determine the development of the e- same. The main benefit of these models is to provide a way government of the cantons that are the most representative to classify e-government portals [5]. Benchmarking and in each province because they are the ones that contain in ranking tools, such as the e-government index, vary their jurisdictions their respective provincial capitals and for depending on the methodology and components used [6]. having achieved a greater social and economic Population density, municipality size and type of development. For this purpose, the information contained in government are significant institutional factors in the the web portals of 24 cantonal municipalities were collected implementation and development of e-government [7]. and analyzed. The results show that the degree of e- government development in the cantonal municipalities in This article presents the results of the evaluation of the web general has a tendency similar to that the annual budget and portals of the 24 cantons of Ecuador that include the population density, so it is necessary to give more attention provincial capitals in their respective jurisdictions. The to the low-e-government development sectors with in order cantons evaluated are generally those with the highest to achieve greater technological and social equity. population density and budgetary allocation, and have achieved greater social economic development within each Keywords: e-government, canton, determinants of success, province [8]. To evaluate the development of municipal e- municipality. government through the evaluation of its e-services offered to citizens, the Aramouni model [9] was used. Aramouni model is an extension of the Esteves model [10]. 1 Introduction This article is organized in five sections, which includes Public and private organizations, and more specifically the Introduction. Section 2 reviews the literature on the municipalities in different countries, are aware that municipal e-government index, evaluation tools and the information and communication technologies (ICTs) are a determinants in its implementation. Section 3 details the strategic ally to achieve their objectives and provide better research methodology. Section 4 presents the results. Finally, service to citizens. In Ecuador, the constitution and Section 5 presents the conclusions. administration of the cantons is governed by a Municipality, as stipulated in the Political Constitution of the State. The Municipality is a sectional government entity that 2 Literature Review administrates the canton autonomously to the central government [1]. The municipalities offer their services Change in municipalities has become a necessity and through web portals and present different levels of maturity. governments have budgeted for e-government projects in Likewise, the web portals of local governments are usually order to provide adequate services to citizens, keep them not as developed as the entities of the central government [2] informed and increase confidence in the applications of ICTs [3]. In order to assess the level of development of electronic

978-1-943436-08-8 / copyright ISCA, CAINE 2017 October 2-4, 2017, San Diego, California, USA [11] which have contributed to major changes in government models mentioned are explicitly focused to evaluate the institutions such as reduction of bureaucracy [7]. development of a municipal e-government.

2.1 Models of E-Government used in To evaluate the development of maturity levels of Municipal Environments municipal e-government, the closest models are those used by Gómez [16] and Aramouni [9], as it focuses more at the The Municipality is a sectional government entity that level of municipalities. These models are composed of five administrates the canton autonomously to the central dimensions that represent the different stages of maturity of government [1]. ICTs have become one of the central the e-government lifecycle. The stages of these models are supportive elements in the provision of e-services to citizens, very similar to those defined in e-government lifecycle and e-government can play a prominent role in the future models such as Accenture, Gartner Group and European governance of municipalities [7]. Local e-government can Union [10]. contribute to the transformation of municipalities towards an agile, transparent, effective, efficient, productive and 2.2 E-Government Assessment Tools participatory management model capable of providing a better service to citizens and promoting sustainable local There is much debate among scholars about what development [12]. constitutes e-government success, what method is best to measure it, and what attributes or variables describe it best. The definitions for the term e-government are diverse, but This lack of consensus naturally leads to disagreement over generally refers to the use of ICTs to support government the best approach to classifying e-government programs in operations, engage citizens and provide government services different countries [17]. Benchmarking and ranking tools [3] [4]. International research suggests that most such as the e-government index vary depending on the government-to-citizen (G2C) transactions take place on a proponents in terms of their methodology and components local or municipal scale, however, local government web used [6]. At the country classification level, a widely used portals are often not as developed as those of the central method for calculating the e-government index is that of the government [2] [3]. The implementation of e-government in United Nations (UN) [6]. The UN research team to determine developing nations faces many challenges and the the overall e-government development index bases its willingness of individuals to accept, that change is only calculation on three aggregate components: Index of online possible if they are aware of the potential benefits of e- service, Telecommunications Infrastructure Index and government initiatives [13]. Human Capital Index [17]. The UN has developed a four- stage maturity model of e-government that is used to classify Maturity models provide systematic benchmarks for UN member states [12] [18]. evaluating e-government performance in particular areas of policy. The "optimal" maturity level is one that can help At the level of evaluation of e-government web portals, the achieve its strategic objectives in the most effective model most focused on e-government municipal and efficient way [4]. The maturity model of an e- environments is that of Esteves [10], which was expanded by government web portal is structured in a set of stages of Gómez [16] and Aramouni [9]. The calculation process is development that determine the maturity of the e- based on a maturity model structured in five layers and government portal. The main benefit of these maturity applied to evaluate the development of specifically models is to provide a way to classify e-government web municipal e-government. The layers will be evaluated to portals. [5]. define an indicator or index of municipal e-government development. For each stage, a series of qualitative variables The e-government maturity models focus on the are defined that account for the existence of the relevant development of e-government using sequential steps, for attributes of the online government service, which in turn, example, from an immature to mature e-government with will allow to define a global e-government index [9]. These better quality. From the academic point of view, the most tools are used by decision-makers when designing mentioned maturity models in the literature are the Layne information and communication policies and allocate and Lee model [14], and the Andersen and Henriksen model resources to implement those policies, and despite their [5]. The first describes the different stages of e-government widespread use, current tools for benchmarking and development and proposes a "growth stage" model for a fully classification have limitations, for example, they do not functional e-government. The Andersen and Henriksen differentiate between Static websites and highly integrated model proposes a reorientation of e-government maturity and interactive portals [6]. models, focusing ICT applications on improving core activities and bringing end-users as the main stakeholders in For the development of the research in this article, we used future e-government investments [15]. None of the two the Aramouni model [9], the same one that also has its bases in the Moon models [7] and Layne & Lee [14]. Aramouni uses 5 levels or layers of maturity and 26 attributes (e- implementation of local e-government: Institutional and services) categorized by levels that will be assessed by access [20]. assigning dichotomous variables, which will determine the development index of municipal e-government (see Table 1). 3 Methodology

2.3 Determinants of Municipal E- The present study is descriptive of mixed type (qualitative Government Success and quantitative). The sample is non-probabilistic. The population is constituted by the web portals of the cantons of There is much debate among scholars about what the local governments of Ecuador. The sample is made up of constitutes e-government success, what method is best to the web portals of the 24 cantonal municipalities that include measure it, and what attributes describe it best. The review provincial capitals in their respective jurisdictions, and of the literature on the main factors leading to success in local which in turn are the most representative for their population e-government initiatives presents many differences when size, budget allocation and for having achieved greater referring to a unified conceptual framework of success development Social economy. The unit of analysis is the web factors, however, a starting point when referring to this Is portal of each cantonal municipality [8]. that the studies identified are based on a categorization of critical factors. Revised literature has identified political, In order to assess the level of development of municipal e- technical and organizational factors and has shown the need government, it was necessary to define a methodological for the implementation of local e-government to respond to basis for measuring the progress of e-government initiatives the needs of citizens and encourage their active participation in a defined area. We used the methodology developed by Aramouni [9] that also has its roots in the model of Baum Research on e-government success depends not only on and Di Maio [24] that defines an analytical scheme oriented technological factors but is influenced by other factors such to the measurement of e-government development, this as: Leadership, governance, human, social, cultural, methodology was adapted and used for this study and economic and even political, geographic and demographic focuses on the measurement of the attributes or e-services factors. Successful implementation and adoption of e- available in the municipal web portals. government will increase transparency and foster open, inclusive and responsive governance [12] [13] [19] [20]. The Each one of the web portals of the cantonal municipalities size of the municipality and the type of government are was examined, being analyzed the content, specifically in considered to be significant institutional factors in the relation to the services offered by the e-government. For the implementation and development of e-government. It is data collection, an instrument was designed in spreadsheets likely that larger governments will be more proactive and in order to facilitate the tabulation and processing of the data strategic in advancing e-government [7]. Another study by each web portal. The format consists of the following explores the complex relationships between the relative fields: levels, attributes and dichotomous variables assigned success of state web portals and certain organizational, to each of the e-services offered by the web portals of institutional and contextual factors [21]. Government factors cantonal municipalities. (strategy, leadership, financing and others), technical factors (infrastructure and IT standards, perceived advantages in the The weighting weights assigned to each of the stages of web service and others) and organizational factors (political the e-government maturity model give priority to higher and legal, implementation, technical staff and others) are levels because of their technological complexity in their mentioned in [19]. It is also noted that political, technical and implementation. In Table 1, the column with the number (3) organizational factors, stating the need for the in the header corresponds to the maximum dichotomous implementation of local e-government to respond to the values that can be assigned to the presence of an e-service, needs of citizens and encourage their active participation column (4) contains level-weighted values, and column (5) [12]. contains the partial values of e-government index by level of maturity. The e-services in bold and shaded in the table are Other studies to be mentioned conclude in the existence of the additional attributes with respect to the original model of existing relationships between institutional and Esteves [9]. organizational contextual or environmental factors and their influence on the success of e-government web portals [22]. Obtaining and analyzing data, and determining the results There are also aspects such as complexity, human resource was performed following the procedure set out in Table 2 [8]. capacity as well as economic [23]. Another study identifies In order to compare the level of development of e- possible critical factors in e-government implementation and government in the municipalities, the e-value that became classifies it into four categories: Institutional, resource, the municipal e-government index for each canton was access and legal, but concludes through its results in two determined (stage 5, Table 2) categories of critical factors for the successful Table 1: Aramouni e-Government Model [9] An ideal web portal would achieve a maximum e-value (1 Stage / Level Attributes / E-services (3) (4) (5) or 100%) through the Equation (1): (1) (2) Printed matter 1 Plenary / Legislative 1 e-value = (7*0,25+4*0,50+5*0,75+8*1+2*1,25) (1) information e-value % = 18/18 = 1 Seeker 1 Presence 0.25 1.75 Site map (Web map) 1 For the case of the (see Figure 1), the e- News 1 government index was calculated using the Equation (2): Links 1 Dates updated 1 City map / Map 1 e-value = (5*0,25+3*0,50+4*0,75+7*1+0*1,25) (2) Urban transportation 1 e-value % = 12,75/18 = 0.71 (E-government index) 0.5 2 information Productive activities 1 Photographic record 1 Email 1 4 Results Phone number 1 Interaction Claims 1 0.75 3.75 Using the formula presented in the previous section, the e- Hours of operation 1 government development indices of the 24 cantonal Reply to email 1 municipalities were calculated, establishing a ranking with citizen folder 1 Online payments 1 data from the 24 (see Figure 1). Digital certificate 1 Mobile 1 Transaction 1 8 4.1 E-government Development in Cantonal Personalization 1 Online procedures 1 Municipalities Help for procedures 1 Tracing 1 The results obtained reflect the considerable progress Survey 1 e-Democracy 1.25 2.5 made by several municipalities in the evolution of e- Forum 1 government (see Figure 1), and that in some cases are due to Sumatoria 26 18 factors that have had a direct impact on their development as The procedure for calculating the municipal e-government the political decision of their authorities, and not Directly to index based on the data obtained in each of the web portals factors with high budget values (see Figure 3) and population examined is as follows: the dichotomous values (column 3, density (see Figure 4). A case of these is the Municipality of Table 1) assigned to the e-services offered by each level are Cuenca, which, with lower values of budget and population Suman. This sum is multiplied by the corresponding weight in relation to other cantons, reached the first place in the of each level (column 4, Table 1). These partial results ranking of municipal e-government (0.71). correspond to the e-government index by level (column 5, Table 1). The partial results are added up and the value of the Likewise, the results reflect that cantons with higher e-government development index of the corresponding values in budget and population than others with similar municipal canton is obtained. characteristics, have not achieved a significant advance in the development of e-government, as the case of Table 2: Procedure for Analysis of Web Portals [8] Municipality (see Figure 1). Stage Description Results (Table 1 & Figure 1) Determine the availability of The demographic and specifically population factor has 1 web portals in each cantonal List of municipal web portals. increased in the capitals of province, but especially they have municipality. been polarized in two cantons and . Define the weight assigned to Ponderación de criterios 2 each level of maturity. asignados (columna 4). Of the total population distributed in the 24 cantons under Define the e-services to be study, 56% are concentrated in these cantons. This is also one E-servicios a evaluar 3 evaluated by level of (columna 2). of the reasons for having a higher budget allocation by the maturity. State, since, to a larger population, greater social needs (see Determine the variables used E-servicios definidos como 4 for the evaluation of each e- variables dicotómicas Figure 4). service. (columna 3) E-servicios evaluados 5 Evaluate e-services. (columna 4) y (Figura 1).

0.8 0.71

0.65 0.65

0.64 0.64

0.63 0.63

0.61 0.61

0.7 0.58 0.56

0.6 0.53

0.46

0.44 0.44 0.44 0.43

0.5 0.43

0.38 0.38 0.31

0.4 0.29 0.26

0.3 0.21 0.2 0.1 0

Figure 1: Ranking of e-government index of cantonal municipalities

4.2 Factors affecting Municipal E-Government and Guayaquil and 44% are distributed in the remaining 22 Development cantons (see Figure 4). One of the factors mentioned in the literature review is related to political factors (political decision, Analyzed the annual budget allocated by the State to each of leadership) and organizational factors. In the case of Cuenca, the 24 Cantons in 2016 (see Figure 3), two fully polarized blocks Ambato and Loja, the political decision has been a predisposing are determined. The first formed by Quito and Guayaquil and the factor for an important development of e-government in relation second by the remaining 22 cantons. The first block corresponds to the other cantons, in spite of budgetary constraints. In general, to 59% of the total budget allocated to the 24 cantons and the in the development of e-government, not necessarily, cantons other cantons share 41%. As for the total population with larger population and larger state budget, have achieved corresponding to the 24 cantons, 56% are concentrated in Quito greater development of municipal e-government (see Figure 1).

$350 $310

$300 $270 $250 $200 $150

$100

$50

$40

$35

$29

$26

$23

$21

$20

$19

$18 $18 $17

$50 $17

$12 $12 $12

$11

$9

$8

$6

$4 $3 $0

Figure 3: Annual Budget (in millions of USD)

4.3 Availability of e-services As for e-services less offered by the municipalities, According to the results obtained, most of the cantonal approximately 2% of their web portals offer services such as municipalities evaluated, largely comply with the indicators of "Update Date", "Transport", "Citizen Folder" and the first stage of the e-government development model proposed "Personalization". Within the most offered e-services, nearly by [6] [9]. Achieving on average 70% of compliance in the first 100% of the web portals offer services such as "Printed", level, and practically with a zero participation (0%) in the last "Plenums / Legislative Information", "News", "Links", stage of the model. The cantons that are a benchmark in each "Productive Activities", "Photographic Record", and "Mobile", province have not achieved important goals regarding direct of this group the first four correspond to the first layer of the interaction in decision making through citizen participation model. using electronic means. 2,500,000

2,000,000

1,500,000

1,000,000

500,000

0

Figure 4: Population by cantons (INEC-2010)

The "Complaints" e-service also stands out, since 83.3% of initiatives will enrich the analysis of the study. Future research the municipalities make this service available to citizens through should deepen, analyze and specify the success factors through an electronic means to present complaints and observations. But a measurement tool to be raised to the political, technical and this e-service of "Complaints" turns out to be efficient in only organizational leaders of local e-government experiences to 33.3%, since the e-service "Response to electronic mail" only further advance in the knowledge of them. In addition, reaches that percentage. In this case, the answers are not specific considering that e-government models are tools that are used by to the concerns raised and only remain in offers indicating that decision makers, but these current benchmarking and they will soon attend classification tools have limitations, for example, they do not differentiate between static websites and highly integrated web 5 Conclusions portals and interactive, therefore, a study in this environment would allow a better decision making by the entities responsible Larger municipal governments are more proactive and for public policy. Also, it is important identify the critical strategic in advancing e-government, and are generally the success factors in order to implement e-government in the cantons with the largest population and allocation of economic municipalities. resources. The influence of certain factors such as financial and population in the development of e-government in cantonal Referencias municipalities does not necessarily reflect in a direct relation, since they have reached the first places in the ranking of [1] Constitución Política de la República del Ecuador, 2008. municipalities, cantons that have lower values Population and [2] Qiuyan Fan. An Evaluation Analysis of E-government budget than others. There should be technical responsibility in Development by Local Authorities in Australia. Int. J. the management of e-government applications in relation to Public Adm., vol. 692, no. 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