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Knowledge Flows and the Use of Internet-Related Information
Technologies in Public Sector Organizations:
A Comparative Case Study
The possibilities the Internet affords have become ever more important for government
agencies in recent years. With tasks continuously growing in complexity and with more
decentralized structures, Internet-related technologies have become a necessity for government
agencies to function successfully. In addition, the managerial mindset created by public sector
reforms such as the National Performance Review (NPR) in the United States (National
Performance Review, 1993; Osborne & Gaebler, 1992) or the New Public Management (NPM)
in Europe (Barzelay, 1992, 2001) demanded that citizens’ interests be at the core of public
administration’s attention, advocating a customer orientation comparable to the private sector.
Together with the information society as a driving force, this has led politicians and government
officials the world over to make large investments in new technologies in order to make public
services available online.
Generally, the introduction of these new technologies takes place in the form of a specific
project (referred to as a “ digital government project” in this study). These project groups may
assume any form between the two extremes of a tightly-knit work team with clear boundaries,
whose members were recruited specifically for the project, to a loosely-bound group of
individuals spread across various agencies, who participate in the project on a voluntary basis.
The success of a digital government project (DGP) depends upon a mix of external and internal
factors. In terms of factors external to an agency, political endorsement and constituent
satisfaction are especially important, whereas significant internal factors are the government
officials’ ability to manage innovation, and knowledge sharing within the agencies. This study
focuses on the last, examining how knowledge is shared in DGPs: how do public managers
decide what to include and what to exclude in a project? How do they attribute priorities to
various activities? What sources inform these decisions? How is their communication network
structured?
Convention