Critical Success Factors for Enhancing Government Accountability in Relationship to Electronic Records Management Systems

Abstract

The New Zealand Public Records Act 2005 sets out new recordkeeping requirements for organisations in New Zealand. The legal requirement urges the organisations to maintain electronic records in a system so that these records can be accessed and retrieved in future as evidence. It is particularly important for government organisations to effectively manage the electronic records as these records are critical evidence of government accountability. Electronic Records Management Systems (ERMS) is adopted by many government organisations as a way to manage the electronic records. This research aims to identify Critical Success Factors (CSFs) of an implementation of the ERMS in three New Zealand government organisations who have already introduced ERMS. The research also analyses to what extent that age, gender, ethnicity, qualification level and working group influences the perception of the CSFs of an ERMS implementation.

Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) and idea of CSFs provided the theoretical framework for the research. The research was based on quantitative method to collect data about the CSFs. An online survey was distributed to staff member of the three government organisations. Participants were self selected and anonymous.

The research found that the overall CSFs in the three government organisations were: Reliability of the ERMS Efficient and friendly training environment and support User's willingness to use the new technology

The research also found that according to different human and social attributes, there were differences on perceptions of the CSFs. CSFs are key areas that should be focused on first and positive results are absolute necessary. As implementing an ERMS requires skills, technology, management, training time and money, this research hopes to make some contribution to those government organisations that have a plan to make the move.