icegov2012 proceedings

Furthermore, it is understood from the highest standard deviation
values for political commitment (8.81) and financial constraints
(8.15) that though some participants were extremely positive
about the consistent political will and funds, whereas others were
not satisfied and had ambiguities. They believe that political
commitment and financial constraints need further improvement.
The discussions with experts revealed that the highest average
(7.92) of political commitment does not necessarily represent the
successful organizational interoperability as some commitments
did not produce fruitful outcomes. Hence, despite of effective
measurements outcomes, the benchmarking can be a disguise if
the interpretation is not correct [4]. Furthermore, they argue that
the policy makers should coordinate directly with back-office for
feedback about these constructs. Selecting interoperability
measures for benchmarking is difficult as the organizations vary
in scope, objectives, and complexity. The measurement
instrument and the constructs described in this paper are the first
step towards advancement of organizational interoperability.
Satisfaction shown from Population Welfare Department, The
case of Sindh is a positive indication that the instrument is
applicable and useful, but there is a need of further extension of
this research to generalize the usefulness of in different types of
public organizations.
Finally, the participants were asked to discuss the applicability of
the proposed measurement instrument and the measurement
constructs for organizational interoperability. The overall
feedback from the participants during participative discussions
about the measurement instrument and constructs was quite
satisfactory, whereas some participants had different views about
some measurement constructs e.g. constitutional restrains and
financial constraints. Though they agree upon the importance of
including these constructs in assessment of organizational
interoperability for the reasons of creating awareness that they’re
important, the measuring and benchmarking of these constructs at
the provincial, district, and local level requires further
investigation. The discussion also concluded that more focus is
required on the aspects of organziational interoperability as it is
equally important to the technical interoperability.
6. CONCLUSIONS
Measurement of organizational interoperability is still a major
challenge for public organizations as there is hardly any
promising, tested, and validated measurement instruments.
Although the organizational aspects of interoperability have
recently proven themselves equally important as technical aspects,
they are still sparsely described in conceptual maturity models and
frameworks. There is hardly any available literature describing
measurement methods and measures to assess organizational
interoperability. There is a definite need of improvement in
organizational interoperability as there are no existing benchmarks
due to the lack of adequate measurement methods and measures.
This paper proposes a measurement instrument focusing both
organizational and technical interoperability. Based on the
literature reviews of existing interoperability maturity models and
frameworks, we developed a list of 15 organizational
measurement constructs in 6 sub-layers of the organizational
layer. Though the proposed measurement instrument includes
both organizational and technical interoperability measurement
layers, our focus was to assess organizational interoperability. The
sub-layers of organizational interoperability provide the guideline
for assessment, whereas the selection of relevant measures or
measurement constraints can vary from organization or
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organization. Furthermore, we conducted a case study of the
population welfare organization government of Sindh to illustrate
the operationalization of developed measurement instrument and
test the applicability and usefulness of selected constructs. The
case study shows that the measurement constructs and the
instrument provides considerable insight into organizational
aspects of interoperability. The case study entails that the
measurement constructs can be implemented on top of each other.
We found that our approach using measurement layers and
constructs is seen as helpful, but further research is recommended
to investigate the applicability of the measurement instrument
while selecting and applying the measurement constructs to the
different types of public organizations. Finally, we conclude that
the target group of this case study was limited, whereas more
respondents should be included for further evaluation of proposed
measurement instrument and measures.
7. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to director general Population Department, Government of
Sindh for granting us permission to conduct interviews and survey
session for case study. We specially thank the participants of
PWD Sindh for interactively participating in questionnaire based
survey on measuring and benchmarking the organizational
interoperability.
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