Att vara eller inte vara med : en studie av kommuners virtuella deltagande

In today's society, the internet is an important part of everyday life. Over recent years the number of electronic services has increased markedly. Communities such as Facebook, consume more of people's time than 5-10 years ago. How can public authorities benefit from these communities or are the municipalities not ready for this? The municipalities determine how their resources should be allocated based on the municipality's needs. The municipalities may be in charge of such matters of public interest which is linked to one municipality or its citizens. The purpose of this study is to explain what a virtual meeting platform means and how the public authority can take advantage of the virtual world to create benefits for its citizens by modifying existing tools. We have chosen a deductive approach with elements of induction, and the study is positivistic because of the approach on trying to find absolute knowledge from this study. We have developed five hypotheses by material from a pilot study. The material from the pilot study has served as the basis for a quantitative survey among users of Facebook. By introducing the Balanced Scorecard a municipality can, based upon local needs and capabilities, develop goals and measures based on the municipality strategy. We have constructed a model that is partly based on David Lundberg's 5-model (Lundberg, 2009). The model, Heimberg Flower, focuses on the "benefit"-factor which is directed towards the virtual options from which the municipality may choose which options to examine or test. Our hypothesis could prove two significant relationships, there is adesire for internet-based services, and that Facebook is preferred over other virtual meeting places for representation by the municipality. Using the modified Balanced Scorecard according to Heimberg Flower, the model can serve as a basis for municipalities in efforts to implement IT solutions that create value for the citizen