Ecologies of Information and Communication Technology Platform Design for E-Government Service Provision

This research chapter, through the presentation of an empirical case study surrounding the implementation and use of an electronic property tax collection system in Bangalore (India), developed between 1998 and 2008, critically examines both the role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in governmental reform processes and the contribution of such technologies to the deeper understanding of the social dynamics shaping e-government projects used to reform public sector institutions. Drawing on the theoretical perspectives of the ‘Ecology of Games' and ‘Design-Actuality Gaps', both of which recognise the importance of a multitude of diverse motives and individualistic behaviour as key factors influencing organisational reform and institutional change, the chapter contributes not just to an understanding of the role of ICTs in public administration reform, but also towards that emerging body of research which is critical of managerial rationalism for an organization as a whole, and is sensitive to an ecology of actors and their various motivations operating within the symbiotic organisation.