The Impact Of Information Technology On The Government Environmental Decision Making

The quality and efficiency of government decision making is directly related to the effectiveness of management activities. Environmental decision making, as an important branch of government decision making, is particularly important in light of increasing the explosive environmental problems and the deteriorating ecology. Recently public administration scholars have documented the positive relationship between information technology and public decision making. However, as new communication technologies are developed, it is important to review the effects of these technologies on the public organizations and public decision making. In doing so, researchers should explore the degree to which information technology influences government environmental decision-making, how IT can be most effectively applied to the environmental decision-making process, whether the application of information technology can improve the quality of decision making, and how to effectively use the information technology and decrease the decision-making errors.This dissertation focuses on the effect of information technology on the perceived-performance of governmental decision making. In particular, this study is used the adaptive structuration theory (AST) of information technology, organization structure, and the external environment. In order to test hypotheses regarding information technology and environmental decision making, this dissertation surveys seventeen environmental protection agencies in Hubei Province using the method of survey study and content analysis to collect data. After collecting the research data, the author uses correlation analysis and multiple regression to examine relationships between information technology and government environmental decision making. From a policy perspective, this objective of this dissertation hopes to contribute to the improvement public organization performance. On the theoretical side, this research will enrich the public management of governance model by providing a comprehensive and in-depth study of IT's impact on government decision-making in the environment domain. Ideally, these findings will be used by officials in actual decision-making to aid in can finally improve the information technology application in the government decision making.This dissertation first reviews the literature of the relationship of information technology and organization decision-making, and then analyzes the theory basis of information technology and the governments' environmental decision making. Through the framework of adaptive structuration theory, this research examines the relationship among the actual application of information technology, the structure of organization, the application skill, the superior support of information technology, and the perceived performance of environmental decision making. According to the theoretical framework of AST, this dissertation illustrates the hypothesis as follows:There is a significant relationship between the actual applications of IT and perceived performance of government environmental decision making. There is a relationship between IT application skills and perceived performance of government environmental decision making, as well as the superior support of IT and perceived performance of government environmental decision making.In order to verify these theoretical hypotheses, this dissertation surveys in the environmental protection agencies in Hubei Province. The author collects 126 valid questionnaires, and then analyzes these data by the statistical software. Through description, correlation analysis, and multiple regression, we can verify the hypothesis. On the basis of quantitative analysis, this dissertation focuses on the environmental information disclosure, public participation, information technology innovation, and environmental information databases sharing, as well as to improve the global governance and cooperation in the field of environmental protection.By model construction and empirical analysis, conclusions can be drawn as follows: The actual application of IT, application skills, and superior support, were significantly associated with perceived performance of government environmental decision making. The actual application of IT, superior support, and application skills of information technology can greatly assist the access to environmental decision-making information. The more superior support and application skills in information technology are, the more helpful for the public participate in environmental decision-making. Meanwhile, according to correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis, IT actual application has no relationship with environmental decision making process improvement, as well as no relationship with participation in environmental decision making. Besides, the application skill of information technology will do not promote the environmental decision making process. Therefore, the application of IT is a complicated system. It is an integration of social and technical systems. In improving the decision making performance IT is not only affected by the technology itself but also by the organizational structure and external environment. To maximize the role of IT in public organizations, the difficulty lies not in the technical construction but on the preparation of process reengineering, rules and regulations, and skills training. The organization derives the enormous benefits of IT by way of its own capacity, actual use, and the superior support.