E-government and organizational change: reappraising the role of ICT and bureaucracy in public service delivery

There is a substantial literature on e-government that discusses information and communication technology (ICT) as an instrument for reducing the role of bureaucracy in government organizations. The purpose of this paper is to offer a critical discussion of this literature and to provide a complementary argument, which favors the use of ICT in the public sector to support the operations of bureaucratic organizations. Based on the findings of a case study – of the Venice municipality in Italy – the paper discusses how ICT can be used to support rather than eliminate bureaucracy. Using the concepts of e-bureaucracy and functional simplification and closure, the paper proposes evidence and support for the argument that bureaucracy should be preserved and enhanced where e-government policies are concerned. Functional simplification and closure are very valuable concepts for explaining why this should be a viable approach.