E-government and changes in the public sector: the case of Greece

During the past few decades, many governments around the globe have orchestrated e-government projects in order to improve the way they operate and provide public services to citizens. Apart from the opportunities they open up, e-government projects bring about changes in the well-established practices of the public sector. This paper illustrates some of these changes by exploring a Greek e-government initiative. As the case illustrates, e-government requires an output orientation and business-like behavior from officials, enables constant electronic control, and leads to the standardization of official’s knowledge. Drawing upon these changes, we propose a framework of the transformations that e-government brings about in the work roles, nature of work, forms of knowledge, modes of control, and source of accountability of officials.