The development of information-based societies worldwide is now impacting public organizations and their delivery of services to citizens. Systems Thinking and E-Participation: ICT in the Governance of Society provides a systemic-based inquiry platform to explore boundaries, limits, and advantages of information and communication technology use in the public decision making processes. With theoretical and practical contributions, this publication examines the impact of governmental technologies useful to those involved with politics, sociology, and information systems.

The development of information-based societies worldwide is now impacting public organizations and their delivery of services to citizens. Systems Thinking and E-Participation: ICT in the Governance of Society provides a systemic-based inquiry platform to explore boundaries, limits, and advantages of information and communication technology use in the public decision making processes. With theoretical and practical contributions, this publication examines the impact of governmental technologies useful to those involved with politics, sociology, and information systems.

This book discusses how systems thinking and approaches can aid management consultants in navigating the complexities of client advisory in current realities. It thereby brings to the forefront aspects of holism, flexibility and responsibility - the keys to success in today’s world. Management consultants are called in to offer an independent expert view of an organisation/ a situation and are expected to address some of the most pressing problems businesses face. The client does not exist in a silo, but in a complex environment that lies at the intersection of a range of internal and external factors that are often unseen and unpredictable. The organisation itself presents an alien territory that the consultant is expected to acclimatise to within a very short period of time, and come up with solutions that “insiders” would not have been able to visualise. The book presents a range of ideas, concepts and reference cases that are relevant and topical for consultants in their daily work. It argues that systems thinking allows holism and flexibility in management consulting – while holism is about the ability to encompass the environmental and organisational complexity, flexibility is about the ability to think creatively and adopt different approaches to accommodate this complexity. With commentaries, case studies, conceptual models and perspectives that cut across multiple industries, sectors and countries, this book is a valuable resource for academics and professionals alike. The book’s inner pages and its page on Springer.com contain additional comments providing perspectives of clients, industry experts and academia.

Makes the case for systems thinking in an easily accessible form for a broad interdisciplinary audience, including health system stewards, programme implementers, researchers, evaluators, and funding partners.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a [CC BY-NC-ND 4.0] License. It is free to read, download and share on Elgaronline.com. Exploring academic and policy thinking on e-participation, this book opens up the organizational and institutional 'black box' and provides new insights into how public administrations in 15 European states have facilitated its implementation.

"This book is a collection of knowledge on contemporary experiences on technological, societal and legal setups of e-Government implementation in emerging economies"--Provided by publisher.