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Virtual Platforms for Government Services in COVID-19 and Beyond: A Sociomaterial Case Study of Passport Service in Ghana

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Re-imagining Diffusion and Adoption of Information Technology and Systems: A Continuing Conversation (TDIT 2020)

Part of the book series: IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology ((IFIPAICT,volume 618))

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Abstract

In the COVID-19 era, the use of virtual platforms to meet social and physical distancing requirements has become more important across the world. Before COVID-19, information systems research on virtual platforms had focused on born-digital organizations and virtual platformization of pre-digital organizations in the private sector. Not much research therefore exists on virtual platformization of government services, especially from the developing world. This study therefore investigates a virtual platformization initiative for passport service in Ghana and its performance under the COVID-19 lockdown and beyond. The findings show that the service could not be fully platformized to meet physical distancing requirements due to activities related to physical materials such as signature, stamps, and documents as well as non-platformized systems of collaborating institutions. The paper discusses these constraints and how they can be addressed to enable end-to-end virtual platformization of government services in COVID-19 and beyond.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Operations and Management Information Systems, University of Ghana Business School, Accra, Ghana

    John Effah

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  1. John Effah
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Correspondence to John Effah .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Indian Institute of Management Tiruchirappalli, Tiruchirappalli, India

    Sujeet K. Sharma

  2. Swansea University, Swansea, UK

    Yogesh K. Dwivedi

  3. Indian Institute of Management Nagpur, Nagpur, India

    Bhimaraya Metri

  4. University of Bradford, Bradford, UK

    Nripendra P. Rana

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Effah, J. (2020). Virtual Platforms for Government Services in COVID-19 and Beyond: A Sociomaterial Case Study of Passport Service in Ghana. In: Sharma, S.K., Dwivedi, Y.K., Metri, B., Rana, N.P. (eds) Re-imagining Diffusion and Adoption of Information Technology and Systems: A Continuing Conversation. TDIT 2020. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, vol 618. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64861-9_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64861-9_14

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-64860-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-64861-9

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