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- Bernhard, Irene, 1953-, et al.
(författare)
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A Study of Small Enterprises with Focus on Entrepreneurship and E-government in a Regional Development Context
- 2014
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Ingår i: Uddevalla Symposium 2014. Geography of Growth. The Frequency, Nature and Consequences of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Regions of Varying Density<em></em>: Revised papers. - Trollhättan : Högskolan Väst. - 9789187531026 ; , s. 165-183
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This paper aims to describe and analyse a sample of small enterprises located in a region undergoing structural change with focus on entrepreneurship and e-government and is a further development of a previous study that focused on how municipalities supported entrepreneurship and destination development. In this study the focus is extended to include small enterprises contributing to development of tourist destinations within the same region. In-depth qualitative interviews were made with twelve managers from ten small enterprises. Based on a theoretical discussion of entrepreneurship, e-government and regional development, the results indicate that networks and strategic networking were important for these small enterprises both in terms of developing the enterprise but also to develop entrepreneurship for regional development. The findings further indicate that municipal information, communication and competence development in order to support entrepreneurship and the development of small enterprises could be improved. The importance of face-to-face contacts was stressed. The use of local e-government was hitherto limited to e-services for public procurement. The entrepreneurs who used the e-services had mainly positive experiences, although despite the complexity of the e-services. The respondents did not ask for more municipal e-services, but that could be a consequence of their limited experience of the potential of local e-government. The use of social media among the enterprises was limited due to lack of time, competence and motivation for most of the enterprises, although the potential of social media for marketing was seen as extensive. A few of the respondents were on the other hand very skilled in their use of digital media, as a consequence of their professional knowledge and business orientation.
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| 2. |
- Bernhard, Irene, 1953-, et al.
(författare)
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Challenging Organizational Issues When Municipal Contact Centers are Implemented in Sweden
- 2013
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Ingår i: Electronic Journal of e-Government. - 1479-439X. ; 11:2, s. 198-209
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Two case studies of the implementation of Contact Centres(CCs) in Swedish municipalities were compared and discussed from anorganizational perspective. The research method was semi-structured qualitative interviews with different personnel categories in both municipalities. Several challenging organizational issues for management and employees were identified:the implementation strategies varied among the cases and affected the pace of implementation, attitudes and motivation, the mental construct and understanding of the implementation. The financing of the CC and recruitment strategies created problems, but in somewhat different ways and in phases of the process in each case. The potential of using registered information as asource for planning and decision-making was not fully utilized, although somestatistics were produced. In both cases there was a combination of formal andinformal learning strategies and flexible co-operation among the employees inthe CCs which contributed to continuous learning processes and a good,co-operative working climate. There was a need for continuous updating ofskills in both cases, but with slightly different focus, related to theorganization of the work. The organization in response groups required morespecialist competence, compared with the organization without response groups,which required more general competence. Some challenges for the caseadministrators in the back offices were to adapt to a more process-oriented organizationof their work, and to co-operate more with their colleagues both in the backoffice and at the CC. They now had the possibility to plan their administrativework in a better way than before, but some administrators missed the previousspontaneous contacts with citizens. Initially, many case administrators wereafraid of losing their jobs and work tasks to CC, contributing to negativeattitudes towards CC and hampering the learning process in taking part in theimplementation process.
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| 4. |
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| 5. |
- Bernhard, Irene, 1953-, et al.
(författare)
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Lessons Learned from the Implementation of Contact Centers in Swedish Municipalities
- 2013
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the 13th European Conference on e-Government. - Reading : ACAD CONFERENCES LTD, CURTIS FARM, KIDMORE END, NR READING, RG4 9AY, ENGLAND. - 9781909507227 ; , s. 63-70
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Abstract: Two case studies of the implementation of contact centers (CCs) in Swedish municipalities were compared and analyzed. The purpose of the article is to focus on lessons learned from the perspectives of the management and the employees in the organizations according to the MOA-model. The research method used was semi-structured qualitative interviews with different personnel categories in both municipalities. According to our findings the implementation strategies varied among the two cases. The strategies affected the pace of implementation, attitudes and motivation aspects and understanding of the implementation. The potential of using registered information as a source for planning and decision-making was not fully utilized in the municipal organizations, although some statistics were produced. In both cases there was a combination of formal and informal learning strategies and flexible co-operation among the employees in the CCs which contributed to continuous learning processes and a good, co-operative working climate. Some learning challenges for the handling officers at the back offices were to adapt to a more process-oriented organization. Initially, many handling officers at the back-office were afraid of losing their jobs and work tasks to CC, contributing to negative attitudes towards CC, and hampering the learning process in taking part in the implementation process. The establishment of a CC is a comprehensive organizational change process affecting the whole municipal administration. A challenge for the municipalities is to formulate relevant strategies and manage the implementation in order to involve all employees.
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| 6. |
- Bernhard, Irene, 1953-, et al.
(författare)
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Municipal Support of Entrepreneurship and Business Development from an e-Government Perspective
- 2013. - 1
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Ingår i: Uddevalla Symposium 2013 Innovation, High-Growth Entrepreneurship and Regional Development. - Trollhättan : University West. - 9789197794374 ; , s. 177-193
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper aims to describe and analyze municipal support of entrepreneurship and business development from an e-government perspective. We analyze two Swedish municipalities and a local tourism company partly owned by the municipalities located in a region undergoing structural change, focusing on efforts of municipalities to develop digital services to support entrepreneurship and business development to promote local and regional development. The research method is based on case study methodology. The case studies are part of the research project “Maritime Inlands – past, present and future strengths” (Marifus) financed by Interregional European Union Regional Development Fund (Interrreg). Based on theoretical discussions of entrepreneurship and e-government theories, the analyses of the two case studies show substantial variations in how they supported entrepreneurship. The findings indicated that e-government services so far have under-used potential for the studied municipalities and the tourism company in order to support efficient communication and information towards the entrepreneurs and businesses aiming at local and regional development.
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| 7. |
- Bernhard, Irene, 1953-, et al.
(författare)
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Towards Inclusive E-Government : The Development of Municipal Contact Centers in Sweden
- 2013. - 1
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Ingår i: Developing E-Government Projects. - Hershey, PA : Information Science Reference. - 9781466642454 - 9781466642461 - 9781466642478 ; , s. 225-247
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this chapter, five case studies of the implementation of contact centers in Swedish municipalities are described and discussed with a focus on inclusive e-government. The research methods used are mainly qualitative interviews with different categories of municipal personnel and also with some citizens. The main conclusions are that the implementation of contact centers contributes to increased accessibility of municipal services, even for those citizens who might have problems using Internet services. The study indicates and development towards increased equal treatment of citizens and a contribution to reducing problems related to the “digital divide.” Municipal services became more adapted to citizens’ needs by using citizen-centric methods and dialogue during the development process and in the daily work of the contact centers. The implementation of municipal contact centers can thus be seen as a step towards inclusive e-government, but there is still a need to go further in this direction.
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| 8. |
- Bernhard, Irene, 1953-, et al.
(författare)
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Value Creation of networks and networking for small enterprises and destination development
- 2014
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Ingår i: The 23rd Nordic Symposium on Tourism and Hospitality Research. - Köpenhamn. ; , s. 81-82
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Literature recognizes that networks and networking are vital for firm performance and enterprises of all sizes are joining international networks (Lechner & Dowling, 2003; Bernhard & Karlsson, 2014; Cesário & Noronha Vaz, 2014;). Further research claims that networking is an important business activity for entrepreneurs, especially important for small businesses during start-up, which can then contribute to the growth of the business and superior performance. The emerging information society challenges relations not only between public agencies such as municipalities and citizens but also small enterprises in many ways. Earlier research also claims that entrepreneurship is a key issue in destination development.This study aims to describe and analyze the value creation of networks for small enterprises and destination development. The enterprises are located in two municipalities in a region undergoing structural change, due to the closure of a big car plant. We will focus on the value creation of different forms of networks and networking such as face-to-face and digital-based networks. Further we focus on value creation related to different actors within the networks, such as the role of entrepreneurs, municipalities, customers and sub-contractors. Theories on entrepreneurship, e-government, social media and network are important for our study.The research method is based on case study methodology with use of qualitative in-depth interviews, observations and document studies. Twelve interviews were conducted with managers from ten small enterprises (defined as microenterprises according to European Commission (Ekonomifakta, 2014). We contacted the public managers at the business offices in each municipality and they selected a list of companies involved in destination development within their municipality. Two of the ten enterprises were chosen from the list made by the managers. The remaining eight were selected from the list of members of the tourism company’s website. The tourism company is partly owned by the two municipalities and managed by a non-profit association for tourism development. Each interview took about an hour and was recorded before transcribing. All interviews were conducted in autumn 2013 and were made together by the authors. The analysis was made by qualitative content analysis and done in two steps; first separately by each author, after which the analysis was discussed together. This was done in order to increase the validity of the analysis. Regarding some issues respondents have received follow-up questions in order to get further understanding.The main findings indicated that networks and municipal support were important for the small enterprises. The municipalities could for example support network building for destination development. The use of local e-government was hitherto limited to e-services for public procurement. The respondents did not ask for more municipal e-services, but that could be a consequence of their limited experience of the potential of local e-government.The respondents stressed the importance of face-to-face contacts for establishing and maintaining their networks. The use of social media among the enterprises was limited due to lack of time, competence and motivation for most of the enterprises, although the potential of social media for marketing was seen as extensive. A few of the respondents on the other hand were very skilled in their use of social media, as a consequence of their professional knowledge and business orientation. Strategic choices of networks and relevant competence to handle social contacts (both face-to-face and digitally) contributed to the value creation.This research provides insight into and deeper understanding of some important aspects that contribute to value creation for small enterprises and destination development.
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| 10. |
- Grundén, Kerstin, 1952-
(författare)
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A Study Circle Approach for Competence Development of e-Government Implementation
- 2010
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Ingår i: Electronic Government and Electronic Participation. - Berlin : Springer. - 9783854997665
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Implementation of e-Government means cultural changes involving changes of attitudes and competences, apart from technological changes. An interview study of a web-based course for issues related to implementation of e-Government at the County Academy of Sweden is described and analysed. The course was developed with a study circle pedagogical approach. Interviews were made with eighteen respondents from different authorities, different geographical locations and different professional roles. The respondents were especially positive to the group discussions of the studied course. The discussions were relevant for support of behaviour changes and competence development related to implementation of e-Government. A study circle approach could be relevant in order to encourage development-oriented learning needed for implementation of e-Government. There is also a need for pedagogical learning of producers and organisers of web-based education in public organisation, in order to make them conscious about the importance of different pedagogical approaches for different education objectives.
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