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This paper aims to investigate the difficulties encountered when integrating e‐Government systems across jurisdictions. The study focusses on the entanglement of social and technical interests involved in e‐Government integration projects and in particular on managing the tensions which arise between global and local network actors.

A case study of Australia's first attempt to make the nation's cultural collections accessible from a single online resource is conducted based on extensive archival data. This historical analysis applies concepts associated with Actor‐Network Theory as a theoretical lens to investigate relationships between various actors and to trace the trajectory of the project.

The analysis reveals that although the project originated from large institutions, buy‐in was restricted to individuals and the most significant value was for smaller organisations. Furthermore, although the global networks that governed the project could translate their visions through the local production networks, because the network's underlying weaknesses were never addressed, over time this destabilised the global vision. Finally, this case study demonstrates the true value in data consolidation projects can often be in delivering functions that were not originally imagined by the system designers.

Given the case study method, the findings of this study are likely to be idiosyncratic and not all integration projects will follow a similar trajectory. However, it is also unlikely that any national data integration initiative will follow a truly linear trajectory. Future research should focus on approaches to managing the negotiations between global and local actors.

This case study offers advice for projects attempting to consolidate data sources from disparate sources, highlighting the importance of key individual actors; identifying suitable technology artefacts; and aligning the needs of the local networks with the global vision.

The study highlights the need to align local and global interests in e‐Government integration projects and provides advice for projects attempting to consolidate data sources from disparate sources.

This paper seeks to highlight a poorly‐understood dimension of digital exclusion that is not related to access to information and communication technologies (ICTs), but rather to the reduction in flexibility for providing and administering public services following the implementation of an integrated e‐government system.

A case study of a project focused on reducing barriers to the delivery of driver licensing services to a remote indigenous community in Australia was undertaken and the data were analysed using Kling et al.'s socio‐technical interaction network (STIN) modelling approach.

The paper makes four recommendations to improve the licensing situation for the community that are induced from the findings. In particular the paper draws attention to the need to carefully analyse possible negative impacts of any e‐government initiative for those at the margins of society.

The paper aims to analyse the current situation as the foundation for recommending future actions. These can form the basis for subsequent interventions in the licensing situation.

This research provides an outsiders' overview of the licensing situation and recommendations for change that take account of a diversity of viewpoints and interests.

The paper contributes to our understanding of the relationship between ICTs and social exclusion in three ways. It provides a rich narrative describing the secondary impacts of integrated e‐government systems, a theoretically grounded analysis of the situation and some recommendations for addressing some of the implications at both the community level as well as calling for more careful evaluation of possible negative consequences about shifting service provision to integrated systems.

The purpose of this paper is to extend the perspective provided by stage models and examine the wider contexts in which government service transformation occurs. Traditional stage models of e-government have been criticised as being too narrowly focussed suggesting that government services are transformed by information and communications technology (ICT) in a linear manner.

Government service transformation involves the interplay of a multitude of social and technical factors over time. We propose that an appreciation of the wider institutional, political and economic contexts is necessary and develop a framework of government service transformation in terms of the locus of context and focus of the change initiative. This framework is illustrated with reference to a case study of the transformation of the building approvals process in Singapore over two decades.

Application of the framework to the case study illustrates that government service transformation is not a linear progression and is influenced by decisions and factors related to both inner and outer contexts.

While bringing institutional theory to extend analyses of service transformation, the reconstruction of events in the case study presented does not provide a rich enough data set for a full analysis of the institutional forces at play.

Managers of e-government initiatives can use the dimensions of the framework to assess their progress, as new technologies emerge and policy priorities change.

The framework presented in the paper provides a complement to existing models for examining e-government transformation and brings a theoretically based perspective to government service transformation which is lacking in existing stage models.

The purpose of this paper is to explore a class of social information systems which are purposefully designed to address wider social objectives. Specifically, the paper investigates the embedding of ICTs into the wider networks of social policy action and explores issues associated with the integration of social information systems into complex problem domains.

A case study of a social information system and its integration into networks of actors with an interest in the underlying social concern is presented. The system under analysis is first described in terms of the emerging characteristics used to define this class of social information system. The wider policy network in which the social information system is implemented is then described and the integration of the social information system into the wider network is discussed.

The case study illustrates that for complex social problems, there can be multiple interests embedded in an ecology of sub-networks. Each sub-network can make use of the social information system in different ways which creates difficulties in the social information system gaining sufficient legitimacy to be institutionalised into the wider policy network.

The paper extends understanding of social information systems by proposing that a class of social information systems are developed to pursue human benefit. Recognising the context in which these systems are integrated as an ecology of interests, shifts the focus of social information systems design from examining the requirements of a relatively homogenous community of actors to understanding how social information systems can be developed to enable information exchange within and across heterogeneous communities.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

It is often said that we live in a time of crisis for social democracy. Many of the West European centre-left parties that seemed the natural parties of government in the second half of the twentieth century are in decline. The most common long-term explanations centre on a shrinking working class, a widening gap between the party elite and their core voters, and the challenges from new populist parties and/or greens. Short-term policy factors include the failure to address the recent financial and refugee crises. None of these factors carry much explanatory weight for developments in Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic in the three decades since the transition from communism. We find that much of the explanation for the rise and the fall of the five social democratic parties in these countries lies in the dynamics of party competition and party system change. All parties face dilemmas of policy, electoral appeal and coalition-building. The Central European cases suggest that it is how social democrats handle such challenges and make difficult choices about strategy and tactics that ultimately shapes their long-term fate. Centre-left parties are stronger masters of their fortunes than much of the literature on the decline of social democracy suggests. Consequently, seeking a common structural explanation for the rise and decline of social democratic parties might be a double fallacy: both empirically misleading and a poor base for policy advice.