Editorial

Abstract

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the first issue of the tenth volume of Transforming Government: People, Process, and Policy (TGPPP). Over the years, the constant update of the journal's scope to advocate theoretical as well as empirical research has led to an increase in the quality of submissions and citations. The papers in this issue of TGPPP provide a rich contextual background in the area of electronic identification (eID), open government, e-Governments service disruptions, evaluating e-Government services and transformational government. The first four papers within the issue comprise a special section guest edited by Ulf Melin, Karin Axelsson, Elin Wihlborg and Marijn Janssen on the topic of "Identity, identification and eID in a public e-service context". The first paper is by Peter Parycek and Gabrie Lentner, entitled "Electronic Identity (eID) and Electronic Signature (eSig) for Government Services-A Comparative Legal Study". This paper provides an overview of approaches towards identity management pertaining to Citizen to Government e-Government applications. The overview is based on elaborating on and comparing different approaches towards electronic identities and e-Government taken by Austria and Liechtenstein, Germany and the Swiss Canton Zug. The authors assert that such an analysis will also help shed light on the regulatory framework provided for by the European Union. Here, an important distinction is made to understand the differences and possible solutions faced by e-Government systems regarding an electronic identity management system. The paper adopts a comparative law methodology that is considered similar to the case study research that is a common qualitative research method in information systems (Yin, 2002). The comparative law methodology was adopted specifically under the premise that the legal framework is essential for the design of eIDM, based on the reasoning that law provides the foundation for any technological solution and also the framework within which it operates. Thus, this study also provides insights for legal informatics research that combines technology and law. The findings indicate that the four countries compared adopted four different technical and legal solutions. The reason lies in the different legal cultures and the existing legal frameworks in which the legislator in most cases seeks to fit the respective e-Government solution, rather than adopting a completely new solution. Following the above research paper, we have a research paper by Karin Hedström, Fredrik Karlsson and Fredrik Söderström, entitled "Challenges of introducing a professional eID card within health care". The idea of transforming the health-care sector through the use of information technology has grown to the extent that it has resulted in significant investments being made (Angst and Agarwal, 2009). In line with the latter argument, the authors assert that the introduction of eID cards within health care is one definitive example. The aim of this paper is, therefore, to examin...