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14 Diff usion of Personalized Services
ff
among Dutch Municipalities
Evolving Channels of Persuasion
Vincent Homburg and Andres Dijkshoorn
CHAPTER OVERVIEW
In the Netherlands, municipalities are autonomous with respect to issues
of design and management of electronic government services. One of the
horizons for development is the implementation of personalized electronic
services. In this chapter, we investigate how and why various municipalities
adopt personalized electronic services by analyzing the channels of persua-
sion that are being used in the diff
ffusion process. In order to do this, we
analyze (1) a time series of personalization prevalence in more than 400
municipalities in the years 2006 through 2010 with a quantitative “rate of
diff
ffusion” model and (2) qualitative data that were gathered during inter-
views with key stakeholders in ten selected municipalities. We present an
explanatory model of diff
ffusion of personalized electronic service delivery
that includes notions of institutional pressure, organizational search activi-
ties, and “framing” of innovations.
1 INTRODUCTION
Within the e-government literature, increasing attention has been given
to explanatory models of e-government diffusion (see Table 14.1 for a literature review).
What can be noticed in these explanatory studies is that there is an
emphasis on structural-functionalist characteristics. Although useful in
itself, these explanations do not provide insights in questions like how pub-
lic sector organizations actually adopt e-government innovations. Theo-
retical insights like Orlikowski’s (2000) practice lens and Cziarniawska
and Sevon’s (2005) travelling of ideas point toward human agency and
environmental pressures as explanations for the varieties of observed out-
comes (i.e., prevalence of e-government services) in public organizations.
By focusing on “agency” next to “structure” (Orlikowski & Barley, 2001),
it is hoped to shed light on the process of technological and organizational
change, so that eventually diffusion can be more eff ec
ff tively stimulated.
184 Vincent Homburg and Andres Dijkshoorn
Table 14.1 Review of Explanatory E-Government Studies
Author(s)
Dependent variable
Determinant(s)
Moon (2002)
E-government adoption
City size (economies of scale),
(following Hiller &
council-manager forms of
Belanger, 2001)
government
Holden, Norris &
E-Government adoption
Citizen demand, form and type
Fletcher (2003)
(following Layne & Lee,
of government, geographical
2001)
characteristics of city
Gilbert, Balestrini
Citizens’ willingness to
Perceived time savings, fin
fi ancial
& Littleboy (2004)
use E-Government
security, trust, information quality,
cost savings
Reddick (2004)
E-Government adoption
City size (economies of scale),
(following Layne & Lee
council- manager forms of gov-
(2001) and Hiller and
ernment, geographical location
Belanger (2001)
tangible benefi ts, separate IT
fi
department
Moon & Norris
E-Government eff ectiveness
ff
Managerial innovation orientation,
(2005)
through e-government
fi nancial resources, technical
fi
adoption
capabilities, city size
Norris & Moon
E-Government adoption
City size (economies of scale),
(2005)
(websites & online ser-
council-manager forms of
vices)
government, geographic location
Horst, Kuttschreuter Citizens’ willingness to use
Perceived usefulness of services
& Gutteling (2007)
E-Government
(determined by trust in govern-
ment, risk perception)
Reddick (2009)
Managers’ perception of
Management capacity,
e-government effect
ff
iveness
collaboration
Homburg &
Adoption of personalized
City size
Dijkshoorn (2011)
service delivery
In this chapter we examine the diff
ffusion of a specific, more or less
mature form of e-government, personalized e-government, in a specific set-
ting (municipalities in the Netherlands).
2 PERSONALIZATION AND PERSONAL SERVICE
DELIVERY IN DUTCH MUNICIPALITIES
Various authors have suggested that various “stages” or “levels of maturity”
can be discerned in electronic service delivery (Anderson & Henriksen,
Diff
ffusion of Personalized Services 185
2006), with delivery of static information being one extreme of a contin-
uum and integrated services being the other extreme. Characteristic for the
latter is that there is supposed to be a seamless integration of information
services across administrative boundaries.
Recently, the idea of integration has been pushed a bit further by the dis-
cussion of personalized integrated services (Pieterson, Ebbers, & Van Dijk,
2007; Homburg & Dijkshoorn, 2011). These kinds of services take into
account previous interactions of citizens with government, and through
authorization, profi
filing, and customization, one-to-one relationships
between service providers and users are established (examples at national
or federal levels include the Belgian MyMinFin e-tax initiative, the Danish
borger.dk portal, the Estonian eesti.ee initiative, the French mon.service-
public.fr website, the Norwegian Norway.no portal, the British direct.gov.
uk site, and the Dutch mijnoverheid.nl site). This kind of service delivery
can be viewed as an attempt to realize the ambitions of customer orienta-
tion and delivery of high-quality, more individualistic services that have
been brought forward by advocates of New Public Management wave of
reforms (Homburg, 2008).
In this chapter, we do not argue that personalized e-government service
delivery is or should be a necessary next step; rather, we analyze personal-
ized e-government services as a “case” of diff
ffusion of a specific innovation
and analyze how the diff
ffusion of personalized e-government service delivery
takes place. In order to be able to actually explain the diff
ffusion, we analyze
the diff
ffusion in a population of more than 4001 municipa
lities in a single national jurisdiction, the Netherlands. The Netherlands can be categorized
as a decentralized unity state (Esping Andersen, 1990; Pollitt & Bouckaert,
2004), implying that municipal governments are relatively autonomous vis-
à-vis central government with respect to issues of management, including the
design and management of electronic services (Van Os, 2011). At the central
level, e-government initiatives are coordinated by the Ministry of the Interior
and Kingdom Relations (services for citizens) and the Ministry of Economic
Aff a
ff irs, Agriculture and Innovation (services for businesses). A chief infor-
mation offi
fficer (CIO) coordinates e-government initiatives that involve vari-
ous ministries. Development and implementation of initiatives that involve
various layers of government (provinces, municipalities) takes place under
the heading of the ICTU Foundation (which implements the National Imple-
mentation Program i-NUP and is jointly governed by central and local gov-
ernments) and the Logius agency (who owns and maintains infrastructural
components like authentication facilities and is part of the Ministry of the
Interior and Kingdom Relations). Municipalities may jointly purchase ser-
vices under the heading of the GovUnited initiative. Furthermore, there are
various forms of cooperation between municipalities and ministries in spe-
cifi
fic sectors like social security, policing, spatial planning, etc. These initia-
tives and organizations are mentioned here to illustrate that explanations
that explicitly include contexts might be very relevant.
186 Vincent
Homburg and Andres Dijkshoorn
3 THEORETICAL ANTECEDENTS OF DIFFUSION
Diffusion of a new idea, product or service is defi
fined as the spread of its use
in a population of potential adopters (Rogers, 1995). The process of diffu-
sion has been linked to characteristics of the innovation itself, the social
system (community of potential adopters), channels of communication, and
time (Mahajan & Peterson, 1985).
Advancements in the disciplines of sociology and organization studies
such as the emergence of the new institutionalism (DiMaggio & Powell,
1983; Tolbert & Zucker, 1996) have highlighted cognitive structures,
norms, and prevailing values in which innovation takes place. Institu-
tionalism holds that adoption of innovations does not take place because
individuals or (private as well as public organizations) organizations make