Automating the public sector and organizing accountabilities

The official version of this paper is available on the Communications of the Association for Information Systems website: http://aisel.aisnet.org/cais/vol26/iss1/1/. The AIS owns the copyright to this article and the version below may only be used for not-for-profit purposes.The paper stresses the necessity of striking a balance between public values, potential benefits and possible inefficiencies of ICTs in the bureaucratic process. The analysis shows that these technologies shift and redistribute roles and responsibilities, simultaneously enhancing accountability while sometimes exacerbating dysfunctions. Several cases of ICT implementations in the public sector (or e-government) are examined in order to reflect upon the interaction of ICTs with public sector accountability processes. Implementation of ICTs in the public sector not only contributes to the functions of accountability, they may also exacerbate existing accountability dysfunctions and make them more visible