Supporting Public Policy Making Processes with Workflow Technology: Lessons Learned From Cases in Four European Countries

Workflow technology has been proven as an enabler for numerous benefits for private and public organizations. Including: cost reduction, efficiency savings in terms of time and cost, increased capability, faster processing, reductions in errors, and work iterations, service quality and customer satisfaction. Public sector has endorsed these benefits by adopting workflow management systems to support administrative processes, such as human resources management or claims processing. This technology is yet to be utilized to support the formulation of policy making processes to facilitate the participation of citizens in the policy making processes and increase their awareness on political issues. This paper Investigates the feasibility of adopting workflow tools for the support of decision making processes that lead to development of public policies, despite the variant institutional settings. To do so, public policy making processes from four countries were examined and analyzed. The results are explored further in the article. DOI: 10.4018/jegr.2012070104 64 International Journal of Electronic Government Research, 8(3), 63-77, July-September 2012 Copyright © 2012, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.