A conceptual model for EAI adoption in an e-government environment

Abstract

The non-integrated nature of Local Government Authority (LGA) Information Systems (IS) is strongly associated with the inconsistency and duplication of data, reduction in data integrity and quality, and high operational and maintenance cost. The reason is that legacy IS within the LGAs are usually tailored to support particular business processes and functions and are as a consequence usually difficult to integrate. This gives rise to a strong need for an integrated architecture that facilitates reuse of existing applications and flexibly implementing business processes across the functional boundaries within the LGAs. This paper examines a potentially important area of IS integration in the United Kingdom (UK) LGAs through Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) technology. A review of the literature indicates that EAI has been a focal technology for several organisations in solving their integration problems. However, is new in the LGAs; thus research literature around it is limited. Yet the effect of IS integration using EAI technology remains under explored, as little research has been conducted to comprehend the LGAs perception of integration that influences their decisions and actions. The author demonstrates that it is of high importance to investigate this area within LGAs and result in research that contributes towards successful EAI adoption. Therefore, resulting in the development of a conceptual model that may be used to assist the government decision-making process for EAI adoption in an electronic Government (e-Government) environment.