Deployment of Enterprise Architecture in the Namibian Government: The Use of Activity Theory to Examine the Influencing Factors

Abstract

Government in both developed and developing countries strive to deliver effective and efficient services to its citizens. Hence the rapid increasing use of information technology to enhance service delivery. However, IT carries its own challenges, such as incompatibilities, lack of integration and lack of scalability. Many approaches, from both academic and professional domains have been employed to assess the challenges, for improvement purposes. Government of some countries have therefore introduced enterprise architecture (EA) to addressing IT challenges. Similarly, EA is influenced by many factors, making it not as easy as we are made to understand. Thus activity theory was applied to examine and understand how the challenges manifest into complexities, and in turn, have negative impacts on services delivery.The use of the activity theory (AT) helps to reveal that non-technical factors were completely ignored or sometimes considered to be less significant to the technical factors. Based on the interpretation of the findings, process, communication, lack of awareness, roles and responsibilities, actors' relationships, policies and people were uncovered as some of the influencing factors in the deployment of EA, in the Namibian government-wide Ministries. The communication between various business units and IT unit was influenced by those in authority as they make use of their power for individual interest. These types of legitimate actions through roles and responsibilities, contributed to the misalignments of business processes and activities in the deployment of EA in the Namibian government-wide Ministries. If both technical and nontechnical factors are not considered in the implementation of systems and technologies governments' service delivery will continue to be hampered as depicted in the framework presented in this article.

Enterprise Architectures in E-Governments Studies: Why, What and How?

“…It was underscored that simply taking an IT perspective is a serious mistake [27], EAs were primarily product oriented while sociopolitical aspects were often neglected [29]. Non-technical factors were ignored or considered less significant than technical ones [30]. To address such non-technical issues, institutional aspects of applying EA in governments were investigated [28,31,32].…”

“…Similarly, it was reported that current EAs were primarily product oriented, with their sociopolitical aspects neglected often [29], and simply taking an IT perspective on EA as a prerequisite to e-government implementation was a serious mistake [27]. Both technical and nontechnical factors should be considered [30], and two key institutionalization techniques, inductive communication and deployment of experts to local contexts, might help overcome the struggles of translating new practices [32]. More concrete contributions were produced in some studies such as how EA was understood by public sector authorities [15], twenty challenges faced by the public sector agencies [17], sixteen problems and eight root causes in the context of public sectors [18] when developing and implementing EA.…”

“…Some studies employed theories to improve the rigorous of research methods. For instance, activity theory was used to help revealing the importance of non-technical factors in the deployment of EA [30]. Action design was used when performing the longitudinal case study of government EA adoption in Finnish public sector [24].…”

Devising a strategy for IT governance implementation in municipalities. A case study of South Africa

“…Awareness campaigns and training targeted at ordinary citizens educating them on the benefits of e‐government and providing content in local languages has been suggested to support effective use of technology (Bwalya, ; Mow, ; Ndou, ). Centres of excellence and training programs are proposed to uplift ICT skills in key disciplines (Nair & Prasad, ; Ndou, ; Shaanika & Iyamu, ; Tsokota et al, ). Napitupulu and Sensuse (), Mow (), and Tsokota et al () discuss the importance of regulatory assessments and monitoring for IT initiatives; factors which are not discussed in detail in the literature reviewed.…”

Developing the enterprise architecture for the Namibian government

“…For example, over 30 states within the United States of America have used the EA for their services (Bui, Markus & Newell, ). However, the development and implementation of the EA continue to be challenging in developing countries, particularly in the Africa continent (Shaanika & Iyamu, ). The challenges are attributed to non‐technical factors, which include environmental settings and cultural backgrounds.…”