Customer Reviews

Building the Virtual State: Information Technology and Institutional Change

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I whole-heartedly agree with the other reviews and add one additional comment. I used this book in my Information Technology course to Masters of Public Administration Students. The response to the book was terrific. It helped me make the point that a significant part of information technology in organizations is the people element, and led to terrific discussions on the role of social capital in organizations, among other things. In short, it is a very useful text for an MPA Information Technology course. Fountain's book is a major contribution to the literature on information technology in the public sector and is raising important points about the challenges ahead for e-government.

Jane Fountain wants to understand the implications of information technology - particularly the Internet - for institutional change in government. The research reported in this book deals with three experiments in applying information technology in the U.S. government in the 1990s: the establishment of an International Trade Data Base (ITDB) for administering the North American Free Trade Agreement, the development of a one-stop shopping informational web site for small businesses called the U.S. Business Advisor, and efforts to modernize the use of information technology within the Ninth Infantry Division of the U.S. Army. On the basis of these three cases, Fountain concludes that the introduction of information technology "disrupts complex ecologies of institutionalized power relationships" (p. 205) inside governments and institutional actors, as a result, attempt to reconstruct those disrupted relationships in unanticipated and sometimes regrettable ways. Sometimes the disruption is so great that the resistance to the introduction of new technology prevails and "many potential connections remain unforged, and numerous opportunities to gain stunning efficiencies, cost savings, integrated services and joint problem solving in complex policy areas lie fallow." (p. 201)

In Chapter 1, the author distinguishes between "objective" and "enacted" technology. Enacted technology is the result of the introduction of objective technology in a set of social relationships where resistance to introduction is possible. This distinction reflects the author's concern for possible gap between the potential of objective technology and the actuality of enacted technology.

Chapter 2 focuses on the National Policy Review (NPR), an initiative of the first term of the Clinton administration that was led by Vice President Al Gore. The NPR was supposed to come up with recommendations on how to "reengineer" government in a manner analogous to the contemporaneous reengineering of business - that is, via the introduction of information technologies to reduce the costs of sharing information within organizations. It was hoped that this would reduce hierarchy, make possible huge cost savings, and empower citizens. The NPR provoked a lot of discussion and debate within the government about how to accomplish these aims and the three experiments studied by Fountain were all influenced by it. Nevertheless, each of these experiments had its own impetus and logic that went considerably beyond the NPR.

The first experiment, the establishment of ITDB, followed mainly from the signing and ratification of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). NAFTA required important changes in the handling of trade-related traffic across the U.S.-Canadian and U.S.-Mexican borders. The previous growth in international trade had already forced the U.S. Customs Bureau (a sub-agency of the Treasury Department) to automate its processing of trade clearances. The ITDB proposed to go much further by integrating a variety of trade and non-trade functions at the borders to deal with trade in both legal and illegal goods, legal and illegal immigration, while simultaneously upgrading the ability of the government to collect and analyze trade data. Unfortunately, worries about the potential delayed deliveries of goods due to overly ambitious government monitoring of trade on the part of businesses gave them a good reason to support efforts of the Customs Bureau to maintain primary authority over the processing of trade documents. The Customs Bureau felt threatened by ITDB and resisted efforts by other agencies to invade its turf. A series of bureaucratic battles ensued with the results well described by Fountain in Chapter 7.

In Chapter 8, Fountain considers the efforts of an interagency task force to establish a web site to provide a single portal for information about government regulations for small business owners. The U.S. Business Advisor was developed and deployed successfully and it won awards for utility and user-friendliness. However, the incentive structure within the U.S. government was not very good at encouraging the sort of continuous interagency coordination and cooperation needed to maintain the site, so it soon developed broken links that were not repaired and needed upgrades did not occur.

In Chapter 9, Fountain describes the efforts of the Ninth Infantry Division to modernize its information systems by creating a Divisional intranet. The first problem, that of overcoming the resistance of field commanders, to substituting paper-and-pencil-based systems with electronic ones, was dealt with by giving too much power to mid-level officers to design the system. The superior officers had difficulty specifying what particular information they needed because of the complexity of the tasks they performed, so they ended up being swamped with a lot of unnecessary information. The soldiers who previously were trained to submit written forms to the mid-level officers moved to electronic submission without sufficient training and without complete knowledge of how this information would be used at higher levels. They became "de-skilled." The mid-level officers suggested intranet designs that enabled them to do their jobs more efficiently but did not enhance the quality of information that went to their superior officers.

The best feature of this book, therefore, is the honest description of what actually happens -- as opposed to what is supposed to happen - when new information technology is introduced into government agencies. In order to get to this part of the book, however, the reader is made to plow through six chapters on theory, all quite well done, that do not necessarily have to be there given the empirical focus of the research. Students of bureaucracy and technology will certainly benefit from the reading of these chapters. But other readers may be excused for getting impatient when the first empirical material is introduced on page 107. Nevertheless, Jane Fountain's book is a serious and well-written effort to understand the challenges associated with modernizing the U.S. government by introducing new information technologies.

This impressive book examines the integration of information technology into government agencies. Its major contribution is to examine the role of the organizational milieu in the process of adoption of information technologies in government organizations. Information technology offers the possibility of revolutionizing government-first, by promoting greater integration of information and action among government actors, and, second, by fundamentally changing the relationship between government bureaucracies and citizens. However, it turns out, as Fountain illustrates dramatically through a series of case analyses, that what is technology possible is not always institutionally possible. This book helps the reader understand this gap, further it helps the reader understand how technology is shaped by the institution that it goes into-what comes out is not always what you expect. One needs to understand institutional interests (e.g., technologically-induced transparency is often not in the interest of an organization); as well as organizational culture (e.g., new technologies sometimes embody values that are anathema to those inculcated by an organization).

This book therefore should appeal to three audiences: first, to academics who are interested in organizational behavior, because the Virtual State is a significant addition to a growing literature on the autonomy and importance of institutions in society; second, to sophisticated lay readers, who would like to read a serious but readable treatment about how government "really" works, and, in particular, why, what often seem like easy fixes are, in fact, not so easy; and, third, to thoughtful public managers, who wish to improve organizational performance through the use of information technology.

A number of books on the information technology and public management have been published. The better ones provided a solid rendition of conventional stories of either agency empowerment or implementation hurdles. Jane Fountain's exquisit "Virtual State" is excitingly different. Using clear language and razor-sharp analysis, she provides a comprehensive framework to understand the interaction of information technology and public management. Eminently readable, well researched case studies complement crisp analysis. Fountain has done nothing more than providing the new yardstick all future works of this genre have to measure against - and nothing less! A must read!

"Building the Virtual State" is a superb book on the real issues facing Governments as they move to realize the promise of the Internet. Technology has opened up opportunities to restructure Government from top to bottom. However, the same is true of the private sector. From Government's track record, e-government will face as rocky a road as e-business.

Jane Fountain's book makes the challenges facing Government clear. They are not technological. They are found where technology meets organization. And they are hard problems. And they are problems that must be faced. Any one committed to improving government services, having them reach out to all citizens, cutting the cost of government and making government responsive, should own a copy of this book.

This book is the first work analyzing Digital Government, with special emphasis on the the risks and caveats of egov projects and dynamics between structure and technology. Fountain's "Technology Enactment" framework is specially useful for analyzing egov projects, and understanding their complexity generated by strength of institutional barriers and required operational change.

The strength of this book, as some of the other reviews state, is that it clearly illustrates that the promise of technology will be fulfilled only if governments and other organizations understand how the human side of organizations either supports or undermines the implementation of technologies. This has become very clear particularly this past year as we read press reports that focus on how political divisions between government departments inhibit our ability to effectively pursue critical initiatives (e.g., terrorism is the most striking example, but decisions related to health care is another example). By describing and analyzing several real cases, Fountain identifies problems that hinder the best use of technology as well as solutions that promote best practices in an engaging way. The theoretical rigor, as well as practical application, makes this a useful book for both academics and practitioners. Personally, I hope that all people who are responsible for implementing policies related to the use of technology in government read this important book.

It is a clear text that presents the fundamental concepts of e-gov.
Remains valid despite the years, specially analysis the implications of information technology for institutional change in government.

The book is a deep and dense study (but quite readable if you pay
attention) of how information technology is being incorporated, and
could be incorporated, into government. The author draws from at least
three traditions in public policy, organizational management, and
technology enactment. I won't try to replicate the ample information
offered by other reviewers, but I'll attest that I found lots of
quotable passages in the book.