Theoretical Foundation

Abstract

This chapter traces the evolution of reinventing government of the 1990s to public service delivery in the digital era. It illustrates that public service delivery in the digital era is a means of addressing a long-standing reform agenda not only to increase efficiency but also to influence the way decisions are made. It shows how technology has become a formidable enabler for networked governance bringing together concepts of privatization, public-private partnership, and contracting as a workable solution to many of the government large applications systems concerns, thus making possible the virtual state. This has enabled the citizen to participate in the agenda setting of government. However, the digital era poses important civil liberty concerns related to citizen identification and identity management amongst other privacy related issues. The focus is the need for management to seek a continuous process of using technology to transform their entity into one that truly places the customer as the centre of attention for achieving a customer-oriented environment.