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E-Government Field Force Automation: Promises, Challenges, and Stakeholders

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Electronic Government (EGOV 2007)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 4656))

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Abstract

With the growing pervasiveness and maturity of fully mobile and wirelessly connected technologies (FMWC), many organizations have begun to equip their field workforce with such information and communication technologies (ICT). The aim of these projects is to automate fieldwork operations, that is, to make them more effective, to improve field force responsiveness, and to speed up the field processes, while using resources and assets more efficiently. In both private and public sectors, such projects have been pursued, yet the specific promises and challenges are not deeply understood. We share early but already robust results from a multi-year research project, which studies the nature and interaction of organizational, social, technological, and human-actor related variables in local government field workforce automation, or short, field force automation (FFA). According to our findings, the ICT-based automation of fieldwork and field workforce appears as a far more demanding undertaking than other successful automation projects. However, the high potential for significant gains in productivity and fieldwork efficacy seem to justify a sumptuous and at times arduous adaptation process.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Washington, Box 352840, Seattle, WA 98195-2840, USA

    Hans J (Jochen) Scholl, Raya Fidel, Shuhua (Monica) Liua, Michael Paulsmeyer & Kris Unsworth

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  1. Hans J (Jochen) Scholl
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  2. Raya Fidel
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  3. Shuhua (Monica) Liua
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  4. Michael Paulsmeyer
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  5. Kris Unsworth
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Maria A. Wimmer Jochen Scholl Åke Grönlund

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Scholl, H.J.(., Fidel, R., Liua, S.(., Paulsmeyer, M., Unsworth, K. (2007). E-Government Field Force Automation: Promises, Challenges, and Stakeholders. In: Wimmer, M.A., Scholl, J., Grönlund, Å. (eds) Electronic Government. EGOV 2007. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 4656. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-74444-3_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-74444-3_12

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-74443-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-74444-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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