Evolution of Public Information Management (PIM): Information Management in Federal Organizations

IT-Governance, Federal Organizations, Public Administration

Initial Situation

The federal organization of public administration creates specific (organizational, economic, legal, technical) general conditions for information management and IT governance that require appropriate adjustments to the concepts and structures of IT management. The characteristics of these specific conditions and the resulting requirements for the design of an information management concept for the public administration were previously handled inadequately. In particular, the complex division of responsibilities between federal, state and local governments as well as the development and management of IT, which is so far barely coordinated across units, provide major challenges to the public administration. 

The aim of this project is to advance the gained experiences to an appropriate model for the Public Information Management in Germany. To achieve this, the characteristics and basic conditions of federal organizations will be analyzed from technical, economic, organizational and legal perspective and the different perspectives will be compared with each other.

Realization

In order to deal with the different perspectives, we will conduct expert interviews and small case studies in addition to the basic work in form of a literature review and the analysis of documents. Therefore, the respective current situation will be evaluated. Based on this, we will discuss different models of the design. The result provides a comparison of the observed features from the different perspectives of federal organizations with the resulting requirements and design recommendations for an IT controlling concept.

Value

Federal organizations, which are characterized by different forms of the identified characteristics, can develop individually appropriate control concepts and adapt them according to their own development stage respectively. Simultaneously, a cross-level consistency and interoperability of control approaches is ensured.

Research Funding

ISPRAT - Interdisziplinäre Studien zu Politik, Recht, Administration und Technologie e.V.

Publications

  • Schwertsik, A.R.; Wolf, P.; Krcmar, H. (2010): Understanding IT Governance: Towards Dimensions for Specifying Decision Rights. Paper presented at the Multikonferenz Wirtschaftsinformatik 2010, Göttingen.
  • Schwertsik, A.R.; Wolf, P.; Krcmar, H. (2010): Entscheidungsstrukturen der IT-Governance in der öffentlichen Verwaltung: Ergebnisse einer Fallstudie. Paper presented at the Vernetzte IT für einen effektiven Staat: Gemeinsame Fachtagung Verwaltungsinformatik (FTVI) und Fachtagung Rechtsinformatik (FTRI) 2010, Koblenz, 25.-26. März 2010, Koblenz.

Contact

Dr. Andreas R. Schwertsik