TOP-DOWN APPROACH, BOTTOM-UP SOLUTIONS: OVERCOMING PERCEIVED CHALLENGES OF AN INDONESIAN E-GOVERNMENT-BASED SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM

Abstract

The optimism surrounding e-government to improve government services has been widely documented and supported in public administration literature. This study looks at a long-standing government scholarship program in Indonesia, which shifted from traditional offline to solely online for its application process. This e-government initiative was imposed top-down to follow the larger government agenda in accelerating development through ICTs. Despite the promise of e-government, many initiatives failed. At the same time, as demonstrated in this study, there have been successes where users can conduct workarounds to achieve their goals rather than follow the previously designed pathways that did not work. These bottom-up solutions are sources of resilience that enabled the initiatives to work. This study identifies and categorizes perceived challenges to the e-government program into four overarching themes: bureaucratic, cultural, financial, and technical. Additionally, it delineates four themes of the workarounds employed in response to the challenges: workarounds conducted at the individual level, workarounds conducted with others, workarounds facilitated or conducted by others, and workarounds through public pressure. Acquiring these workarounds is attributed to the three primary learning strategies: drawing upon past learning experiences, obtaining professional guidance, and working with peers.