In this study, the relationship between task characteristics and business intelligence (BI) success is empirically tested on a business intelligence system in an e‑Government context in Denmark. The purpose of the study is to investigate which tasks contribute to BI success. A total of 1.351 end users replied to the questionnaire, and the response rate was 32%. In this study, task compatibility and task difficulty have a substantial relationship with user satisfaction. The relationship between task significance and use was also substantial, as well as the relationship between user satisfaction and individual impact. The model was a good fit, having a relatively high determination coefficient and predictive relevance. Therefore, the study determined that tasks are important factors contributing to BI success. 

Despite the growing availability of e‑government services, citizens are still reluctant to use them. Prior research has mostly focused on investigating reasons for e‑government use. Why individuals refrain from using these services seems to be of less scientific interest. The present study sets out to reveal what barriers to e‑government adoption citizens perceive. A qualitative and explorative interview study was conducted with 18 citizens in Germany to better understand how citizens perceive e‑government and what keeps them from using it. The study yields twelve different barriers to e‑government adoption among which no need to use/rare usage of public services, no personal counsellor, and perceptions of convenience are the most important. The results suggest that the characteristics of the services themselves are highly influential for the decision to not use e‑government. In contrast, technological shortcomings like data security or a lack of usability only play a subordinate role. 

Public organizations increasingly seek to digitalize their services, and migrate citizens from traditional communication channels towards digital self‑service channels. In Denmark, digital communication and self‑service channels are mandatory for public organizations, citizens and businesses. Denmark has the highest share of citizens who use digital channels to interact with public authorities in the EU. However, the use of traditional channels remains high, and occurs among adopters and non‑adopters of digital channels alike. Within the multichannel management stream of e‑government research, there is a methodological gap in how knowledge can be generated on citizen multichannel behavior, and why citizens continue to use traditional channels. Practitioners need this knowledge to improve administrative efficiency and citizens’ satisfaction with digital services. Therefore, this paper presents a study of how scholars, practitioners, and caseworkers collaborated to generate data on citizen multichannel behavior. The study occurred in the public authority Udbetaling Danmark, where caseworkers periodically use an IT system to log incoming calls. First, a draft version of a classification scheme was created from co‑listening to calls and contextual interviews with citizens. To ensure engagement and a common understanding of the classification categories, the scheme was co‑developed with caseworkers in three iterations. Observations, joint discussions and interviews were used to uncover problems related to caseworkers’ understanding of the scheme, and identify technical and practical problems related to its use. With the new classification scheme, the share of logged calls increased from 10 ‑ 50 percent to 90 ‑ 95 percent. Moreover, the collaboration led to a closer understanding of citizens’ problems among the involved actors and a willingness for future collaboration to improve the services. This paper contributes to the multichannel management field of e‑government and to practitioners by presenting a method for how knowledge can be generated on citizen multichannel behavior in collaboration with caseworkers. 

One of the greatest challenges that digitalisation brings along for the public sector is the need to equip their employees with digital competences. Since private sector companies are often assumed more progressive in exploiting digital media, it seems worthwhile for the public sector to understand how the need for digital competences is addressed by the private sector. However, the public sector needs to be careful before transferring solutions from the private sector one‑on‑one as both sectors exhibit various differences. Our aim in this study is therefore, to analyse which digital competences are needed by employees in both sectors and how the employees are equipped with these competences. In doing so, we have conducted 17 interviews in German public and private sector organisations. Our results exhibit only marginal differences between public and private sector organisations. Furthermore, we find that rather than being able to handle IT, the most important competences in the digital era are soft skills such as time and self‑management as well as to understand the impact of digitalisation in general. In the private sector, analytical skills are furthermore important for developing new business opportunities. In order to equip employees with the required competences, training plays an important role in both sectors. Based on our results, we enhance an existing framework of digital competences by adding the dimension impact awareness in order to provide for the required ability to evaluate the impact of digitalisation on processes and activities outside of the digital world. 

Denmark is far in developing Digital Government. Two essential challenges have, however, emerged. First, the use of information and communication technology (ICT) has caused unlawful administration in some areas due to deficient and faulty programming, in some cases violating the very core of rule of law. This unwanted side effect of digitalisation has been counteracted by a development of new principles of Danish administrative law; administrative law by design and the requirement for a good administration impact assessment. Administrative law by design imposes a duty on public authorities to apply a value‑based approach and to ensure relevant legislation and unwritten principles of public administrative law are embedded into the design of ICT. Good administration impact assessment entails a requirement for mapping all relevant legislation and principles of administrative law as part of the development of a given technology, if it is to be used by public authorities. Second, a major challenge is the skidding of control and insight as the digitalisation transition progresses and the technologies used develops. Some Danish authorities have already lost the oversight, the knowledge and the control of the systems used within their areas of administration, as also described in this article. During the summer of 2017 Danish administrative law might have adjusted to this challenge as well. The Parliamentary Ombudsman stated that in some cases the explicit acceptance of the democratically legitimised parliament, in other words legislation, is needed, if private companies are to develop and operate technologies used in the public sector. The aim of this article is to give a brief description of these two challenges caused by digitalisation and to hopefully serve as inspiration for others facing similar challenges and to give a more comprehensive insight in the subsequent development of Danish administrative law. 

Information and communication technologies (ICT) are important for people with disability in their day‑to‑day life, as they offer possibilities and opportunities for these people to enjoy a range of new social interactions. In this article we examine the affordances of different types of social media and discuss the dichotomy between simplicity of use and social presence. Further, we discuss the implications of these affordances for development of public e‑services aimed at improving the social life of people with disabilities. Our findings show that virtual worlds are the most engaging medium. However, other social media can to some extent offer the same affordances for people with disability. We suggest that future research should empirically investigate the affordances offered by social media to people with disability and find ways of combining the affordance perspective with usability studies to fill the void in the category high social presence/low complexity of use. Finally, we present suggestions for development of an e‑service that can fill this gap and create a viable social medium for people with disability. 

Until now, explanations of citizens’ online behaviors in the Western world have been scarce, with accounts of analyses of citizens’ behaviors in authoritarian governance regimes in the East being even scarcer. This study contributes to the understanding of which factors contribute to citizens’ use of social media in state‑citizen communication patterns in authoritarian governance regimes, with a focus on Chinese citizens’ use of Sina Weibo microblogs. Based on the analysis of 1572 questionnaires collected from citizens living in Hunan (People’s Republic of China), the study quantifies the factors that impact (1) Chinese citizens’ intentions to use Sina Weibo and (2) actual use of Sina Weibo in state‑citizen communication patterns. Results indicate that peer pressure and trust in individual civil servants positively impacts use of Government Sina Weibo microblogs by citizens, anxiety negatively impacts citizens’ use, whereas institutional trust does not explain citizens’ use. Use intentions mediate the relations between respectively peer pressure and interpersonal trust in officials, and actual use. The study contributes to the literature on trust and anxiety (especially in the Chinese society) in relation to the use of microblogging by Chinese government, and adds to our understanding of the role of microblogging in state‑citizen communication patterns in authoritarian governance regimes in general, and in the Chinese governance system in particular.