# Making e-Government Work: Learning from the Netherlands and Estonia

Nitesh Bharosa, Silvia Lips, Dirk Draheim

► To cite this version:

Nitesh Bharosa, Silvia Lips, Dirk Draheim. Making e-Government Work: Learning from the Netherlands and Estonia. 12th International Conference on Electronic Participation (ePart), Aug 2020, Linköping, Sweden. pp.41-53, 10.1007/978-3-030-58141-1_4. hal-03201956

HAL Id: hal-03201956

https://inria.hal.science/hal-03201956

Submitted on 19 Apr 2021

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access
archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci-
entific research documents, whether they are pub-
lished or not. The documents may come from
teaching and research institutions in France or
abroad, or from public or private research centers.

L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est
destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents
scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non,
émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de
recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires
publics ou privés.

<figure><img src="image_1.png" /></figure>
Making e-Government Work:
Learning from the Netherlands and Estonia

Nitesh Bharosa¹[0000-0002-3919-6413], Silvia Lips²[0000-0001-7352-5965], and Dirk Draheim²[0000-0003-3376-7489]

¹ Digicampus, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
n.bharosa@tudelft.nl

² Information Systems Group, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia
{silvia.lips,dirk.draheim}@taltech.ee

**Abstract.** Countries are struggling to develop data exchange infrastruc-
tures needed to reap the benefits of e-government. Understanding the de-
velopment of infrastructures can only be achieved by combining insights
from institutional, technical and process perspectives. This paper con-
tributes by analysing data exchange infrastructures in the Netherlands
and Estonia from an integral perspective. The institutional design frame-
work of Koppenjan and Groenewegen is used to analyse the developments
in both countries. The analysis shows that the starting points, cultures,
path dependencies and institutional structure result in different gover-
nance models for data exchange infrastructures. Estonia has a single –
centrally governed – data-exchange infrastructure that is used by public
and private parties for all kinds of data exchanges (including citizen-to-
business and business-to-business). In contrast, the institutional struc-
ture in the Netherlands demands a strict demarcation between public and
private infrastructures, resulting in several data exchange infrastructures.
While there are examples of sharing infrastructure components across
various levels of the Dutch government, public infrastructures cannot be
used for business-to-business or citizen-to-business data exchange due
to the potential for market distortion by government. Both the centrally
governed Estonian model and the decentrally governed Dutch model have
pros and cons on multiple levels.

**Keywords:** E-government, data-exchange infrastructures, institutional design.

# 1 Introduction

Across the globe, demands on public services are increasing at a fast pace, partly
due to the widespread availability of new technologies and higher expectations
from digitally-savvy citizens. Citizens expect personalized customer journeys
at all levels of government, as they have become accustomed to smartphone-
empowered lives [1]. New digital data exchange infrastructure are essential for
broader service access as well as the provision of significant benefits to service
users at a reduced cost. However, even large budgets are no guarantee for suc-
cessful digital government transformations [2,3]. From a purely technological
perspective, all of this is hard to explain.

This paper argues that, in order to understand what contributes to the success of e-government, we also need to consider the institutional design as well as the design process of developing data-exchange infrastructure. Aiming to learn from successful examples, this paper conducts a comparative case study on two leading countries in e-government: the Netherlands and Estonia. Both the Netherlands and Estonia are in the group of high performers in the e-Government Development Index [4], and both countries have widely adopted data exchange infrastructures [5, 6], enabling for instance a pre-filled tax return form that takes minutes to electronically check and submit. For the sake of this paper, a data exchange infrastructure is defined as *the whole of standards, technical components, services and governance framework in place for data exchange*. These are by nature socio-technical constructs [7, 8], which makes them hard to understand from a single point of view. Data exchange infrastructures are essential when it comes to the successful delivery of e-government services, since they facilitate process, application and data integration across the various government silos. Therefore, the maturity of data exchange infrastructure can be used as a proxy for e-government maturity.

While there is a growing body of knowledge on the technical design and the
governance of data exchange infrastructures, we lack insights from a combined
institutional, technical and process perspective. The goal of this paper is to
analyse the development of data exchange infrastructures from such a combined
design perspective. We conduct the comparative case study by adopting the
theoretical framework for multi-facet design of socio-technical systems by Kop-
penjan and Groenewegen [9]. Koppenjan and Groenewegen state: “Institutions
concern different levels of analysis like laws and regulations as well as contracts
and organisations which regulate and coordinate the behaviour of actors in com-
plex networks” [9]. Therefore, the framework is suitable for analysing complex
socio-technical situations for policy making.

This paper proceeds as follows. Section 2 describes the research approach,
which centres around a four day workshop in Estonia. Section 3 discusses the
theoretical analysis framework of Koppenjan and Groenewegen that we use to
compare data exchange infrastructure policies in the Netherlands and Estonia.
Section 4 provides a high-level description of the selected cases the Netherlands
and Estonia with respect to their e-government background. The findings of
this paper are discussed in Sect. 5. Section 6 concludes the paper and provides
recommendations for policy makers.

## 2 Research Approach

To analyse the development of data exchange infrastructures, we conduct a com-
parative case-study on the design of the data exchange infrastructures in the
Netherlands and Estonia. The research draws on an international collaboration
<table><caption>**Table 1.** Overview of the workshop in Tallinn, Estonia.</caption><thead><tr><td>Aspect</td><td>Details</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Date</td><td>18-21 November 2019</td></tr><tr><td>Location</td><td>Tallinn University of Technology</td></tr><tr><td>Participants</td><td>The Netherlands: 14 participants (8 policy makers, 3 researchers, 3 software providers) Estonia: 11 participants (4 policy makers, 5 researchers, 2 software providers)</td></tr><tr><td>Agenda (high level)</td><td>Day 1: Presentations on the current e-government designs and future challenges in both countries.<br/>Day 2: Working sessions on the challenges surrounding digital identities and e-government.<br/>Day 3: Working sessions on the countries' data exchange infrastructures. Role playing game on self-sovereign identities in the future.<br/>Day 4: Reflection, updating the common collaboration agenda, prioritizing collaborative research questions.</td></tr><tr><td>Data collection methods</td><td>Workshop notes, role playing game, Mentimeter, collective agenda writing.</td></tr></tbody></table>

facilitated by Digicampus<fnref n="3" />, a quadruple-helix-based innovation partnership for public service innovation in the Netherlands. One of the missions of Digicampus is to facilitate international collaboration on designing the next generation of public services. One of the vehicles for realizing this is an international collaboration agenda, focusing on current issues in e-government, learning from each other's e-government agendas and pinpointing topics that are suited for collaborative research and prototyping. The first concrete research activity as part of this agenda was a four-day workshop in Tallinn from November 18 to 21, 2019. Table 1 provides an overview of this workshop.

## 3 The Theoretical Analysis Framework

Koppenjan and Groenwegen [9] introduce an analysis framework for a certain class of large-scale technological systems that do not consist merely out of technological assets, but involve institutions as part of their solutions. Institutions regulate behaviour and are essential components of socio-technical systems. Socio-technical systems are characterized by their complexity due to the many dependencies between the institutional and technology parts shaped by change processes. Koppenjan and Groenwegen suggested to analyze such system as a technological design that is teamed together with an institutional design [10], see Fig. 1 (“co-design perspective”). Moreover, they suggest to make the design of the design process (*process design*) explicit in the analysis of such system (the

<footnote n="3">³ www.digicampus.tech</footnote>
*design process* in Fig. 1 is simply the process that yields the technological design and the institutional design, the *process design* is actually a ‘*design process*’ design). For our purposes, it is important to understand all designs (technological design, institutional design and process design) as continuously recurring en-deavours that evolve and improve over time. Now, technological design is about “demarcation, components, relations, processes” [9] of/in the technological system; institutional design is about “arrangements between actors that regulate their relations: tasks, responsibilities, allocation of costs, benefits and risks” [9]; process design is about “who participates in the design process; what are the conditions, rules, roles, items, steps, etc.” [9].

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 1.** A Institutional design model by Koppenjan and Groenewegen [9].</figcaption></figure>

In order to adequately grasp institutional design, Koppenjan and Groenewegen introduce a second perspective that adapts Williamson’s four-layer model of economics of institutions [11], see again Fig. 1 (“institutional analysis perspective”). Layer 4 is the layer of the “*informal* institutional environment of socio-technical systems”, which is about “norms, values, orientation, codes (informal institutions, culture)” [9], see also [12], compare with [13]. Layer 3 is the layer of the “*formal* institutional environment” [9], which is about “formal rules, laws and regulations, constitutions (formal institutions)” [9], see also [14], compare with [15]. Layer 2 is the layer of the “*formal and informal* institutional arrangements” [9], which is about “gentleman agreements, covenants, contracts, alliances, joint-ventures, merges, etc.” [9] and informal “rules, codes, norms, orientation, relations” [9], see also [16], compare with [17]. Layer 1 is the layer of the “actors and games” [9], which is about “actors/agents and their interactions aimed at creating and influencing (infrastructural) provisions, services, outcomes” [9], compare with [18]. The systems that Koppenjan and Groenewegen address are large-scale systems: “energy networks, water management services [...], waste treatment, transport systems (rail, road, water, tube), industrial networks, information systems and telecommunication networks, city service” [9]. Information systems are among those systems, however, the model becomes actually relevant only if an information system is beyond the scope of usual enterprise architecture [19], i.e., involves an ultra-large-scale software sys-
tem [20]. Therefore, e-government systems are typical instances of the system class characterized by the model of Koppenjan and Groenewegen [9], the model is a suitable candidate as an analysis framework for e-government systems, e-government ecosystems and interoperability solutions alike. This is why we have chosen the model as the theoretical basis of our comparative case study. In our analysis, we exploit both the perspective of relationships between technological/institutional/process design (that we call “co-design perspective” for short) and the four-layered model of institutional design (that we call “institutional analysis perspective” for short).

# 4 Background in the Netherlands and Estonia

## 4.1 The Netherlands

The Netherlands consistently performs well in e-government rankings [4]. The country has a high level of decentralized governance and public private collaboration in public service delivery. This decentralization results into various government agencies that use different infrastructures. For instance, the Tax administration uses a different data exchange infrastructure with the private sector and other government agencies (called Digipoort) [21] than the customs authority (called Single Window for Maritime and Aviation) [22]. Across different sectors such as health, energy and education, different data exchange infrastructures are used. Table 2 provides an (incomplete) overview of the main data exchange infrastructures in the Netherlands.

Table 2 is by no means exhaustive, but does highlight the variety in data exchange infrastructures. While some are only web-portal based, most infrastructures support application-to-application data exchange. Municipalities also have different infrastructures, which provides autonomy, but is not cheap to operate and maintain. On a municipal level, there is a growing tendency to combine forces and to develop and use a shared infrastructure. Inspired by the X-Road approach in Estonia, municipalities are currently piloting with the “common ground”.

## 4.2 Estonia

Estonia is signee of the D9 (Digital Nine) charter, i.e., a member of the “Digital Nations” network, also known as D9 or “Leading Digital Governments”. In media, on international conventions on digital transformation as well as in policy maker circles it is often perceived or presents itself as leader when it comes to e-government; actually, stakeholder from many countries, as from the Netherlands, have visited Estonia with the aim to learn from their success. The perception of Estonia as a digital leader might be, in large parts, due to communication strategy [23] and nation branding [24]; still: the technological, legal and organizational assets in Estonia have been designed with and for each other and evolved over time into a particularly stable e-government ecosystem. At the centre of the Estonian e-government ecosystem lies the interoperability framework
<table><caption>**Table 2.** Overview of various data exchange infrastructures in the Netherlands.</caption><thead><tr><td>Sector</td><td>Data Exchange Infrastructure</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Citizen-to-government interaction</td><td>MijnOverheid (mijn.overheid.nl, also available as an app) is the national citizen portal with access to the online citizen message box + rerouting to multiple agency specific portals (e.g. social services, unemployment services, tax, municipal portal). With the exception of pension funds, businesses cannot use this portal (or the app) for data exchange with citizens.</td></tr><tr><td>Government to government data exchange (G2G)</td><td>Diginetwerk (logius.nl/diensten/diginetwerk) includes multiple networks, including municipal data exchange, base registers access and social services</td></tr><tr><td>Financial reporting: B2G (business-to-government) and G2G</td><td>Digipoort (logius.nl/diensten/digipoort) is the government data exchange gateway including multiple services (i.e. authentication, authorisation, validation and archiving). Since Digipoort may not be used for B2B data exchange, there is private sector counterpart (Bancaire Infrastructurele Voorziening) with similar functionalities.</td></tr><tr><td>Trade & transport</td><td>Single Window for Maritime and Aviation (kvnr.nl/en/msw) for all communications intended for Customs and the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee / Seaport Police can be communicated electronically</td></tr><tr><td>Public health services</td><td>Landelijk Schakelpunt (vzvz.nl/over-het-lsp) for data exchange in the medical domain.</td></tr><tr><td>Mortgages</td><td>Mortgages Data Network (HDN.nl) for data exchange in the mortgages domain.</td></tr></tbody></table>

X-Road [5, 25]. Estonia created X-Road – an application network for exchanging data among agency systems so that all government services are effectively available in one spot. In addition to offering querying mechanisms across multiple databases and supporting the secure exchange of documents [26], X-Road seamlessly integrates different government portals and applications. Also the private sector can also connect with X-Road to make queries and benefit from access to a secure data exchange layer [27].

## 5 Findings

The main objective of the workshop in Estonia was to learn from each other's approaches to e-government design and look ahead which challenges could be dealt with in a collaborative manner. Table 3 outlines the comparison based on the layered institutional analysis of the institutional design model of Koppenjan and Groenewegen [9].

During the workshops, multiple user/citizen oriented contexts were used to compare the e-governments in Estonia and the Netherlands: using the life
<table><caption>**Table 3.** Institutional analysis based on the Koppenjan and Groenewegen model [9].</caption><thead><tr><th>Layer</th><th>The Netherlands</th><th>Estonia</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Layer 4: Informal institutional environment</td><td>Government is trusted and consist of reliable institutions to meet performance expectations. Strong boundaries between public agencies and the private sector, yet long tradition in public-private collaboration.</td><td>Government is trusted [28, 29] and consist of reliable institutions to meet performance expectations. Open interaction between public agencies and the private sector.</td></tr><tr><td>Layer 3: Formal institutional environment</td><td>Legislation focused on public agency tasks (e.g. tax and customs laws) as well as laws on interactions with public agencies. No law on e-government in place yet (although a draft)</td><td>Exhaustive set of stable legal assets that are designed with respect to (resp. co-designed with) the technological assets of the e-government ecosystem.</td></tr><tr><td>Layer 2: Formal and informal institutional agreements</td><td>Decentralized steering of e-government. High level of autonomy across various levels of government. Moderate focus on economies of scale (e.g., the use of Digipoort by four government agencies, but not by banks for business-to-business data exchange), focus on administrative reduction by citizens and the public.</td><td>Centralized steering of e-government. Whole-of-government approach to modernize service delivery in a joined-up manner. Strong focus on economies of scale: the use of state eID, national registries and X-Road for both public and private services. Focus on creating transparency by showing all transactions.</td></tr><tr><td>Layer 1: Actors and games</td><td>Innovation is largely left to the market, strong emphasis on innovation by the private sector through outsourcing and grants (e.g., startups). Large enterprises are incentivized by the business potential when winning a multi-year service delivery tender. Innovation in the private sector is stimulated, but government is risk-averse and no knowledge and capacity building at the government.</td><td>Innovation by government for the entire society. Central government carries risks of innovation, strong emphasis on innovation and service delivery by government agencies. Experimentation by the government is stimulated and in this way knowledge and understanding of the public and technology is created.</td></tr></tbody></table>

event approach [30], user-centred scenarios were discussed in depth, specifically comparing the steps users need to take in order to achieve their goals. This provided rich case descriptions as substance for the institutional analysis frameworks. Next, Table 4 outlines the comparison based on the technologi-
<table><caption>**Table 4.** Institutional comparison from the co-design perspective (Koppenjan and Groenewegen, [9]).</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>The Netherlands</th><th>Estonia</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Technological design</td><td>Multiple digital infrastructures (mix of state-owned and -sourced as a service from the market).<br>State-owned or -sourced infrastructures cannot be used for citizen-to-business or business-to-business data exchange.</td><td>Single, state-owned and -operated digital infrastructure (X-Road), which can be used for all kinds of e-services, including citizen-to-business and business-to-business data exchange.<br>Strong focus on economies of scale: the use of state eID, national registries and X-Road for both public and private services.</td></tr><tr><td>Process design</td><td>Fragmented and loosely coordinated agency and sector-specific resource allocation and decision-making.<br>Various national and local e-government and digital innovation agendas. Strong emphasis on the consultation of the private sector (i.e., software vendors) in the design and pre-procurement process. Coordination by having a standardization list and government architecture.</td><td>Tightly coordinated decision-making and resource allocation for e-government (CIO office) based on a whole-of-government approach for achieving synergies. Focus on implementing shared design principles, including once-only and full transparency in data usage.</td></tr><tr><td>Institutional design</td><td>Highly autonomous government institutions. Separation of government agencies that create policy, deliver services and supervision agencies. Government agencies cannot compete with private enterprises in service delivery. There is a law that prohibits government agencies from developing digital technologies or services that are already available in the market.</td><td>Well-orchestrated government institutions. Regulated interplay of government agencies that create policy, deliver services and supervision agencies. Service provisioning is streamlined by a central authority. Government prototypes architectures for emerging challenges itself.</td></tr></tbody></table>

cal/institutional/process co-design perspective of the institutional design model of Koppenjan and Groenewegen [9].

The high-level technical design of the Dutch data exchange infrastructures is sketched in Fig. 2.

In accordance with Table 2, citizens work with multiple data exchange infrastructures in the Netherlands. The demarcation is clear for public services and private services. When consuming public services, citizens can use the state-
<figure><img src="image_3.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 2.** High-level technical design of the Dutch data exchange infrastructures (please note that not all the different infrastructures outlined in Table 2 are displayed).</figcaption></figure>

issued eID called DigID (digid.nl/en). The ‘MijnOverheid’ portal and app provides data access to public agency messages (pdf files). This is a one-way data flow; for service consumption or data entry users need to go to the website/portal of the respective public agency. Here, they can use DigiD. Since law dictates that DigiD (as well as other public sector data exchange infrastructure components such as the ‘MijnOverheid’ portal and app, the citizen message box and the Digipoort) can only be used by public organizations, private organizations have to use their own infrastructure or use sector-specific infrastructures (see Table 2 for an overview).

The high-level technical design of the Estonian data exchange infrastructure is sketched in Fig. 3. Estonia embraces an integrated design, which extends the technology. X-Road consists of technical, legal and organizational assets that are teamed together as described in the sequel. In a narrow sense, the data exchange infrastructure is nothing but the data exchange layer X-Road (dark grey in Fig. 2); in a broader sense, it encompasses also crosscutting services that are built on top of X-Road such as the document exchange center [26]. The data exchange layer relies on a PKI (public key infrastructure) and a time stamping service. A PKI is itself a combination of technological assets (such as the certification server) and an institution, i.e., the CA (certification authority). Next, the X-Road consists of security servers, which are software components. Each organization (public agency or private company) that wants to exchange
messages over X-Road must become an X-Road member first, by application and registration at the Estonian IT Authority RIA (Riigi Infossteemi Amet). Then, each X-Road member needs to install the security server. The basic task of the security server is to encrypt and decrypt the data exchange messages sent among the X-Road members. For this, the security server teams together with a signature device, which must be obtained from the CA by each X-Road member. Furthermore, the security server allows for access rights management: each X-Road member can determine itself, which other X-Road members can access its services. It is regulated that each X-Road member announces its information systems and services to RIA before it is allowed to launch them. This way, RIA has the chance to streamline the service offering, in particular, to enforce the once-only principle [31]. Similarly, timestamping by the installed security servers as well as timestamping service provision are subject to regulations. All citizens can see all communications about them. This creates transparency and ensures that mistakes or fraud can be detected immediately.

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 3.** High level, integrated technical design of the Estonian data exchange infrastructure.</figcaption></figure>

The Estonian e-government ecosystem is a network consisting of different players with well-defined roles. As a fundamental task, the e-government ecosystem implements the Estonian eID [28, 32], which provides also the basis for any system interoperability, compare again with Fig. 2. The Information System Authority (RIA) and the Estonian Police and Border Guard Board (PBGB) are the main authorities in the e-government ecosystem. RIA<fnref n="4" /> operates on behalf of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications<fnref n="5" />. RIA coordinates the development and administration of the state’s information system. It oversees

<footnote n="4">⁴ https://www.ria.ee/en/</footnote>

<footnote n="5">⁵ https://www.mkm.ee/en</footnote>
the functioning of the Estonian PKI, organizes activities related to information security, handles security incidents that occur in Estonian computer networks, and serves as the technical eID competence centre.

# 6 Conclusions and Policy Recommendations

Estonia and the Netherlands had different starting points and used different paths in developing their e-government. The main differences in approaching e-government boil down in the following categories:

- Strong centralized government institutions in Estonia versus decentralized and market-oriented institutions in the Netherlands.

- Institutional boundaries in the Netherlands between the use of state-owned digital infrastructures (or components) for public services (only allowed for citizen-to-government interactions) and semi/non-public services (not allowed for citizen-to-business and business-to-business interactions) versus no boundary in Estonia (single infrastructure, seamless use across public and private services).

- Focus on experimenting and learning by doing in Estonia, whereas the Netherlands is risk-averse and leaves innovation to the market.

These differences make it difficult to copy each other best practices as the institutional settings are different, and due to the different data exchange infrastructures that are currently in place. Nevertheless, both countries can learn from each other's approaches. The capacity of reliable institutions to meet performance expectations, perceptions of competence and effective public service delivery for all, along with public accountability, should be among the leading concerns in developing e-government further. It is recommended that governments exploit the potential of digital technologies through coherent national policies that are closely aligned with the knowledge of user needs that is available at the respective public agencies. Being successful requires a whole-of-government approach across ministries and agencies and between levels, as well as partnerships with non-government actors. Such an approach needs to be supported by a high-level political will, an example of which is an effective cross-government institution with clearly earmarked financial resources and decision-making powers. This demands a shift from inward, disjointed and process-oriented organizational structures to highly collaborative frameworks for seamless delivery of services towards citizens and entrepreneurs. Maximizing the potential of digital technologies also demands appropriate data exchange infrastructures for interoperability and digital transactions across the public sector, dependent on common standards, data sharing, highly skilled staff, as well as knowledgeable organizational capacity.

# References

1. Lemke, F., Taveter, K., Erlenheim, R., Pappel, I., Draheim, D., Janssen, M.: Stage models for moving from E-Government to Smart Government. In: Proceedings of
EGOSE'2019 – the 6xt Intl. Conf. on Electronic Governance and Open Society: Challenges in Eurasia. CCIS 1135, Springer (2020) 152–164

2. Wonglimpiyarat, J.: Innovative policies to support technology and ICT development. Government Information Quarterly 31(3) (2014) 466 – 475

3. OECD: Building organisational capacity for public sector innovation – background paper. In: Proceedings of the OECD Conference “Innovating the Public Sector: from Ideas to Impact” (2014)

4. European Commission: Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) Report on Digital Public Services 2019 (2019)

5. Kalja, A.: The first ten years of X-Road. In Kastehein, K., ed.: Estonian Information Society Yearbook 2011/2012. Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications of Estonia (2012) 78–80

6. Robles, G., Gamalielsson, J., Lundell, B.: Setting up Government 3.0 solutions based on open source software: The case of X-Road. In: Proceedings of EGOV'2019 – the 18th IFIP WG 8.5 Intl. Conf. on Electronic Government. LNCS 11685, Springer (2019) 69–81

7. Tilson, D., Lyytinen, K., Sørensen, C.: Digital infrastructures: The missing IS research agenda. Information Systems Research 21(4) (2010) 748–759

8. Thurnay, L., Klasche, B., Nyman-Metcalf, K., Pappel, I., Draheim, D.: The potential of the Estonian e-governance infrastructure in supporting displaced Estonian residents. In: Proceedings of EGOVIS 2017 – the 6th Intl. Conf. on Electronic Government and the Information Systems Perspective. LNCS 10441, Springer (2017) 236–250

9. Koppenjan, J., Groenewegen, J.: Institutional design for complex technological systems. International Journal of Technology, Policy and Management 5(3) (2005) 240–257

10. Goodin, R.: The Theory of Institutional Design. Cambridge University Press (1996)

11. Williamson, O.: Transaction cost economics: How it works; where it is headed. De Economist **146** (1998) 23–58

12. Groenewegen, J.: Who should control the firm? Insights from new and original institutional economics. Journal of Economic Issues 38(2) (2004) 353–361

13. Denzau, A., North, D.: Shared mental models: ideologies and institutions. Kyklos – International Review for Social Sciences 47(1) (1994) 3–31

14. Groenewegen, J.: Transaction Cost Economics and Beyond. Kluwer Academic Publishers (1996)

15. Olson, M.: The Logic of Collective Action. Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. Harvard University Press (1965)

16. Kickert, W., Klijn, E., Koppenjan, J.: Managing Complex Networks: Strategies for the Public Sector. Sage (1997)

17. Williamson, O.E.: Transaction cost economics: the governance of contractual relations. The Journal of Law & Economics 22(2) (1979) 233–261

18. Coase, R.H.: The Nature of the Firm. Economica 4(16) (1937) 86–405

19. Zachman, J.: A framework for information systems architecture. IBM Systems Journal 26(3) (1987) 276–292

20. L. Northrop et al.: Ultra-Large-Scale Systems: The Software Challenge of the Future. Carnegie Mellon University, Software Engineering Institute (2006)

21. Bharosa, N., Wijk, R.V., Winne, N.D., Janssen, M.: Challenging the Chain – Governing the Automated Exchange and Processing of Business Information. IOS Press (2015)
22. Klievink, B., Bharosa, N., Tan, Y.: The collaborative realization of public values and business goals: Governance and infrastructure of public-private information platforms. Government Information Quaterly **33**(1) (2016) 67–79

23. Drechsler, W.: Pathfinder: e-Estonia as the β-version. JeDEM – eJournal of eDemocracy and Open Government **10**(2) (2018) 1–22

24. Kimmo, M., Pappel, I., Draheim, D.: E-residency as a nation branding case. In: Proceedings of ICEGOV’2018: the 11th Intl. Conf. on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance, ACM (2018) 419–428

25. Mcbride, K., Ktt, A., Yahia, S.B., Draheim, D.: On positive feedback loops in digital government architecture. In: Proceedings of MEDES’2019 – the 11th Intl. Conf. on Management of Digital EcoSystems, ACM (2019)

26. Draheim, D., Koosapoeg, K., Lauk, M., Pappel, I., Pappel, I., Tepandi, J.: The design of the Estonian governmental document exchange classification framework. In: Proceedings of EGOVIS’16 – the 5th Conference on Electronic Government and the Information Systems Perspective. LNCS 9831, Springer (2016) 33–47

27. Paide, K., Pappel, I., Vainsalu, H., Draheim, D.: On the systematic exploitation of the Estonian data exchange layer X-Road for strengthening public private partnerships. In: Proceedings of ICEGOV’2018 – the 11th Intl. Conf. on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance, ACM (2018) 34–41

28. Muldme, A., Pappel, I., Lauk, M., Draheim, D.: A survey on customer satisfaction in national Electronic ID user support. In: Proceedings of ICEDEG 2018 – the 5th International Conference on eDemocracy & eGovernment, IEEE (2018) 31–37

29. Lips, S., Tsap, V., Pappel, I., Draheim, D.: Key factors in coping with large-scale security vulnerabilities in the eID field. In: Proceedings of EGOVIS’2018 – the 7th Intl. Conf. on Electronic Government and the Information Systems Perspective. LNCS 11032, Springer (2018)

30. Wimmer, M.: A European perspective towards online one-stop government: the eGOV project. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications **1**(1) (2002) 92–103

31. Wimmer, M., Tambouris, E., Krimmer, R., Gil-Garcia, J., Chatfield, A.T.: Once only principle: Benefits, barriers & next steps. In: Proceedings of dg.o’17 – the 18th Annual Intl. Conf. on Digital Government, ACM (2017) 602–603

32. Tsap, V., Pappel, I., Draheim, D.: Key success factors in introducing national e-Identification systems. In: Proceedings of FDSE’2107 – the 4th Intl. Conf. on Future Data and Security Engineering. LNCS 10646, Springer (2017) 455–471