Facilitating administrative decision-making using Decision Support Systems

Governments in developing countries (DC) are constantly under pressure to achieve participatory governance using Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Although many articles have appeared that clearly underscore the potential of ICT to achieve participatory governance, e-governance, most are focused on how e-governance will lead to democratic reforms. It is hard to find articles that consider how e-governance makes administrative decision-making more efficient. Administrative decision-making refers to the continual process through which government administrators make fair, impartial and just decisions. This paper based on interpretive field research experiences from South Africa proposes an ICT facilitated decision-making approach between government administrators and DC communities for participatory e-governance. The findings make a contribution to government practice and to the Information Systems field of e-governance. For government practice, the theoretically informed approach indicates encouraging results for participatory feedback on existing government services and for strengthening communication channels and capabilities during the process of reaching mutually agreeable decisions with DC communities. For e-governance, the paper proposes an approach that considers the greater antecedents of the occasional democratic participation, the essential day-to-day necessity of administrative decision-making using ICT.