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Public Sector Shared Services Move Out of the "Back-Office": The Role of Public Policy and Mission Criticality

Published:02 August 2017Publication History
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Abstract

Shared service providers typically host routine and administrative business processes as a way to standardize company practices and increase efficiency. In the public sector, however, its application to functions critical to an organization"s central mission is moving shared services out of the "back-office." This research employs and extends Bergeron"s (2003) framework to case analysis of two public safety networks within the United States, and prompts the addition of two new characteristics for public sector shared services, Public Policy and Type of Service. In this sector, we find that legislative controls, i.e. policy, manage information and communications technology (ICT) investment to meet efficiency and especially effectiveness goals, while mission criticality serves to trump cost considerations. Recommendations resulting from this research should lead to improvements in the cost and performance of public-sector shared services and their role in ICT-supported, mission-critical, shared services.

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          cover image ACM SIGMIS Database: the DATABASE for Advances in Information Systems
          ACM SIGMIS Database: the DATABASE for Advances in Information Systems  Volume 48, Issue 3
          August 2017
          130 pages
          ISSN:0095-0033
          EISSN:1532-0936
          DOI:10.1145/3130515
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