Relations Among Governmental Project Actors: The case of Paraná mGov

This paper aims to study an eleven-year project of mGov in the state of Paraná, Brazil. From 2000 to 2010, Paraná State Government introduced the cell phone as a means of service provided to the citizen. The precocious experience in Brazil in Mobile Government (mGov) and the number of cell phones used in the country (over 224 million in 2011) are not arguments for these to be used in providing mass public services. The reason may be the difficulty of establishing relations among multiple mGov actors. The study of such relations motivated this research. Mason‟s Historical Method was used to get to know those eleven years of the project, raising available information and retrieving happenings and results. To identify events, relevant actors, their roles, aspects in collaboration, setting and density of the relations among these actors, Network Theory was used. The study of the relations among actors concluded that the organizations involved only with the aim to experiment in mGov remained for a short time, normally only one of the phases. Those visualizing opportunities in fulfilling their role as an organization using mobile technology remained longer in the project. Interactions indicate that relationship dynamics among actors contributed to develop the idea, in the initial exploration phase, using technology for the maturity and survival of the project.