OECD Peer Review of E-Government in Denmark - ePractice.eu

Figure 6.8 Importance of obstacles to collaboration
Lack of incentives to work together
Lack of a common e-government
vision
Lack of a common understanding of e-
government within the organisation
Internal resistance to change
Lack of guidance and leadership
Lack of clear instructions
Performance measures that do not
recognise the value of collaboration
Habit of non-collaboration
Lack of managerial accountability
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Very important Important Somewhat important Not important Was important (now mastered) Not relevant
Source: OECD E-Government Survey: Denmark.
It is important to recognise that the requirement for, and benefits of, collaboration vary depending
on which level of government is being considered. Many of those interviewed for the review felt that
the greatest need for collaboration currently exists at the State government level, where a wide variety
of cross-agency and cross-sectoral e-government initiatives occur or originate. There was frequent
mention of the experience with the development of the business portal, where there is evidence of
smaller organisations participating quite actively while large ones have been more reluctant to get
involved. Some attribute this to the effect of www.virk.dk adding quite substantially to the service
delivery capability of smaller organisations that have made less e-government progress on their own,
but representing less of a benefit (perhaps even a cost) for larger organisations that have made much
more progress developing their own e-government offerings.
Key point 6.4
Denmark has identified collaboration as a key aspect of achieving its e-government goals. The idea of
collaboration is widely accepted by government officials. However, the actual behaviour of government
organisations is characterised by a silo rather than a collaborative style of operations.
The e-government strategy targets this challenge with a significant range of activity designed to facilitate more
collaboration on e-government, and many frameworks and ICT infrastructures designed to facilitate this. However,
while officials appear generally satisfied with what has been put in place to assist them, there is still only a
moderate level of collaboration actually occurring. A range of obstacles to collaboration, including a lack of
incentives and appropriate performance measures, have been identified. Efforts made to rectify these and other
deficiencies would presumably lead to higher levels of collaboration on e-government in the future.
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