The top management support for e-governement project implementation: Case study of Khadamat’s portal in Algeria

The implementation of e-government projects requires support from top management. Our research seeks to examine the quality of top management support in the case of innovative public services, delivered through Khadamat ’s portal, a specialized platform of the Water Resources Ministry in Algeria. Before the qualitative research, we conducted an analytical diagnosis of the platform using the web professional tools "Get-ranking, Dare-boost and Semrush". Our initial investigation was necessary to explore the G to C of Khad-amat ’s portal, to understand the functionality before organizing interviews with senior executives. The qualitative study shows that there is political will for e-government projects in the Water resources sector , but there are some functional limitations in the progress of Khadama t’s portal, such as: Lack of interoperability , unsuitable legislation, lack of social networking supports of that e-government service , limited cellphone using of platform , lack of technological expertise related to e-government projects, fear of change under public administration framework, and other marginal factors that explain delays in the effective development of that useful e-government service .


Introduction
With the increasing importance of digitalization in public administration, e-government projects have become a priority for many governments around the world, including Algeria. The Khadamat's portal, a specialized platform of the Water Resources Ministry in Algeria, was launched on 12/01/2020 to provide citizens with innovative public services and bring the administration closer to them. The portal aims to improve the quality and efficiency of public services by providing information and reactivity, allowing users to effectively follow up on their requests during all stages of processing. However, the success of e-government projects such as Khadamat's portal depends on the quality of top management support. Top management support is crucial for successful e-government projects. Without the full commitment of senior government officials, e-government projects may fail to meet their objectives. Top management support helps to ensure adequate resources are allocated and efforts converged towards the achievement of the objectives. It also helps to ensure that the project is adequately funded and that the necessary political and organizational changes are implemented. Additionally, senior leadership can provide guidance on potential risks and ensure that the project is managed in accordance with best practices. Finally, top management support can help to ensure that the project is completed on time and on budget and that it meets the needs of all stakeholders. To ensure effective implementation, a vigilance cell was established on 03/10/2021, whose main task is to make sure that everything is performed according to plans as well as to evaluate activities and suggest improvements. Our research aims to examine the quality of top management support in the case of Khadamat's portal, focusing on the challenges and opportunities of implementing e-government projects in the water resources sector in Algeria. Despite the growing importance of e-government projects, research on this topic remains limited, particularly in the North African region. This can be attributed to the limited use of digital tools in public administration, which is still in its early stages of development in Algeria. As Ferroukhi (2022) notes that the subject is gaining importance in professional circles, which are facing the challenge of transitioning from traditional systems to modernized ones. First of all, to address this gap in knowledge, we conducted an analytical diagnosis of the Khadamat's portal using web professional tools such as "Get-ranking, Dareboost, and Semrush." Our initial investigation was necessary to explore the portal's functionality before organizing interviews with senior executives to gain insights into top management support for the project. In this paper, we present our findings on the quality of top management support for egovernment projects in Algeria, based on the case study of Khadamat's portal. We also discuss the challenges and opportunities of implementing e-government projects in the water resources sector and provide recommendations for future research.

Literature review
In developing countries, E-government projects evolve in a constraining context, which determines the possibilities of their effective implementation. The regulations and political context, the demographic caracteristics and aspirations of young populations, distinguish developing countries from so -called developed ones. In the context of African public administration, especially in the African poor countries, internet is available only for top managers and employees do not have access, some of them do not even have a shared computer for their working team. In the age of communication technologies, the civil servant wonders how to face this challenge without the necessary tools. On the other hand, ICT investment is considered to be one of the five necessary pillars for development according to (Piaggesi, 2011) , who also gives importance to other investment pillars : (1) Strong property rights systems (2) Education (3) Innovation (4) Social inclusion . For developing countries, we need to be aware of the available resources or likely to be available and to understand the organizational capacity of underequipped public administration. Different approaches are used in the study of e-government projects. First, we have the holistic approach which considers the public administration as a combined system of social and technological factors. In the researchers' conception of that approach, the system includes citizens, employees in public sector, groups of people (social groups) , laws and restrictions , social and cultural policies , national identity , ethics and environmental issues (Wimmer & Tambouris , 2002). Other researchers give priority to citizen/consumer, considered as central life-giving element for the e-government projects. That approach focuses on public service delivery and citizen satisfaction (Flak et al, 2009). Government in developing countries face a huge challenge on how E-government projects contribute to the social and economic development, and how E-government projects could empower citizens through better and inclusive ways of communication. Gichoya (2005) argues that "ICT causes a "paradigm shift" introducing "the age of network intelligence", reinventing businesses, government, society, and individuals". Gichoya (2005) precises that the ICT added value lies in its ability to assist the government in finding solutions to its problems. Otherwise, the implementation remains dependent on endogenous and exogenous factors of the projects, the quality of the ecosystems and institutional capacities. The organizational support of top management is a determining factor in the quality of project implementation, without the support of top management and its clear vision, implementation becomes ineffective, and projects can deviate from the strategic objective. Several previous studies (McAfee,2006) and (Welch & Pandey,2005) highlight the importance of organizational factors in successful implementation, such as human resource management and top management support, standardization department, legal and human resource issues , and efficiency in the dissemination of best practices.

Methodology
For the present research we adopted qualitative research by mobilizing interpretative case study as the most qualitative research method for information system (Myers, 1997). We combined the digital content analysis and interviews with the executives of the Water ressource Ministry. Our objective through this methodology is to observe the Khadamet's platform implementation before questioning the top management about their support to khadamat project. Unlike quantitative research, qualitative research is a method for analyzing and understanding phenomena, behaviors, facts, or subjects, that cannot be easly explained by quantitative data. The goal is not to obtain a large amount of data, but to obtain quality lighting for complex research field. That action research method (Baskerville & Myers, 2004) gives us the possibility to analyze the top management support in the specific context of e-government project in Algeria. Our proposed questions relate to several areas of top management: the dissemination of a clear vision of e-government projects, the importance of priorities, the importance of political will to establish e-government project, dealing with the resistance to the e-government project, the design of e-government projects. The study aims to understand the support of the top management to structures that carriy Khadamate's portal.

Results
The results of our study are presented under two categories, the analysis of the portal by the analytical websites and qualitative analysis. The first analysis gives us the broad understanding of the portal functionalities, facilitating the design of our semi-directive questionnaire, which is the principal research tool for the second step.

Indicators of Khadamat's portal
Through professional websites, we conducted an analysis of the content of the Khadamate's portal. For that purpose, we used three professional and analysis websites:

Dareboost
Dareboost allows us to rate the quality of the website, to note our deviations from good practices and to have a simple and easy reporting, and a user-friendly and convenient interface. Dareboost informs us about the performance and quality of online website. For Khadamate's platform, dareboost (Appendix 01) indicates 15 problems, 13 improvements and 62 successes.

Get-Ranking
Get Ranking (see Appendix 2) allows us to audit the website. By using Get Ranking, you will be able to know your strengths and weaknesses , and you can boost your website or portal . The analysis report ranks your portal or website based on the following elements : page optimization , page backlinks , social media , performance and security . Get Ranking gives us the possibility to see the keywords that attract the most traffic to your site (see Appendix 2.1). Otherwise, there are 22 recommendations (see Appendix 02.2) that the website has extracted to improve the visibility of Khadamate platform.

Semrush
Semrush provides analytic data, including site traffic, the amount of cost-per-click , keywords , site review, topic research, lead generation, and a special reporting process. We analyzed khadamat'portal through Semrush, which gives several indicators, including the number of citizens' visits to the portal and their interaction , as well as the most searched words in Google , the results are shown in the appendix as follows (Appendix 03).
• The portal contains two main sections: • The first concerns the requests of citizens regarding both services, drinking water and waste water. • The second concern the business community ; firm contractors and farmers , under water supply contract with the Ministry of Water Resource .  The statistics show a disparity between administrative districts wilayas, some wilayas record more uses than others, this could be the result of successful local communication.

Qualitative analysis
In order to describe the implementation and support of top management for Khadamate's portal project, we have conducted six interviews, from 16/05/2022 to 19/05/2022, our interviews were scheduled in the offices of the Ministry . The gathered qualitative information comes from six senior executives, all of them have relevant experience in the water resources sector. They had to deal with aspects related to the development of Khadamate's portal and can describe their contribution in terms of supporting the structure in charge of Khadamate's portal. The interviewers revealed the specific public administration framework, formal and centralized system, which could hinder the implementation of innovative projects such as Khadamate's portal. Central directors and senior civil servants evolve in a formal framework, but subject to informal political influences. Generally, they work to support the various e-government projects, carried out by the decentralized structures of the ministry. The interviewees provided us with ample information on the main difficulties in terms of the support processes. The main information is summarized in five essential lessons: E-governement projects require the mobilization of fine skills, human specific assets, mastering computing and technical content of project, and having a deep knowledge of public service delivery. In Algeria, different ministries are trying to create units in charge of these projects ,but find great difficulties in ensuring the interoperability of digital solutions, which need a unique public agency for policy coherence. It would be desirable to monitor e-government project implementation by a unique public agency with the institutional and human capacities, and which can be supported by a specialized working group at the ministry level. In addition, the main constraint for support is the lack of technical and managerial skills, adapted to the project needs at the local level. That situation confirms the difficulty of decentralization option in the project implementation. Top management support for Khadamate's portal remains ineffective facing technical infrastructure problems, lack of connectivity and bad quality of networking are serious constraints,about which the senior management of the ministry can do nothing. This kind of problem is the responsibility of Telecommunication ministry, most often, do not intervene in synchronization with Water Resources ministry. In addition, the Ministry of Water Resources constantly calls upon the Ministry of Telecommunications to ensure rapid and appropriate solutions, in the difficult context of a vast country.
The top management intervenes to support the actions of communication and awareness of the stakeholders, particularly civil servants in central and decentralized administrations, that might consider Khadamate's portal as a competing solution, which could lead to downsizing. To this end, the ministry maintains a sustained dialogue with the trade unions and tries to explain the multiple opportunities for the development of digital solutions such as Khadamate's portal.
The top management remains aware of the inevitable consequences of the digital divide, a public service must be accessible to all citizens. Unfortunately, several citizens are not able to use khadamate's portal, this requires adapted and targeted communication for people in difficulty. In addition, the platform is not operational on cellphones. The interviewees recognize the limits of the ministry to provide this kind of support, which should be delivered in collaboration with the local authorities. A significant delay is recorded and aggravated, especially by the advent of COVID 19 crisis. Support for Social Networking strategy: The support of the ministry should be more consistent in the promotion of Khadamate's portal, through an omnichannel communication strategy, mobilizing several media and particularly social networking. Khadamate's portal remains unknown for the stakeholders, the advertising support was not enough to value a very useful intermediation platform. The top management remains aware of the limits of public action in terms of promoting the platform, which could also be explained by doubts about its ability to react with the crowd.

Conclusion
In conclusion, our research examined the quality of top management support in the case of innovative public services delivered through Khadamat's portal, a specialized platform of the Water Resources Ministry in Algeria. Our study shows that while there is political will for e-government projects in the water resources sector, there are several functional limitations that have slowed the progress of Khadamat's portal. These include the lack of interoperability, unsuitable legislation, lack of social networking support for the e-government service, limited cellphone usage of the platform, lack of technological expertise related to e-government projects, fear of change under the public administration framework, and other marginal factors that explain delays in the effective development of this useful e-government service. Unfortunately, the top management did not have a significant intervention facing these functional limitations.
The lack of leadership in e-government project implementation can have a significant impact on the successful implementation of the project. Without leadership, it is indeed difficult to coordinate the different institutional actors and stakeholders involved in the project, leading to delays and cost overruns. Additionally, without a clear leader to provide direction and oversight, the project may not reach its full potential or have the desired impact. A lack of leadership can also lead to a lack of accountability, which can lead to a lack of commitment from stakeholders, resulting in a lack of progress implementation on the project. Our findings suggest that top management support is crucial for the success of e-government projects. Without adequate support, functional limitations and other challenges can hinder the progress of these projects. We recommend that the Water Resources Ministry and other government agencies prioritize top management support when implementing e-government projects. This includes ensuring not only adequate funding but also providing specific human assets for decision-making system at the top management level. Our research can be extended by addressing related topics such as: (1) What is the role of top management in developing sustainable long-term e-government projects ? (2) how can top management develop effective strategies for successful implementation of e-government projects ? (3) What is the impact of top management on the adoption of e-government by citizens? (4) What is the role of top management in developing governance structures for e-government projects? (5) What is the impact of top management on the scalability and sustainability of e-government projects? •

N°
Add "ALT TEXT " to all images 01 Install the Robots.txt file 02 Work on search Engine optimization (SEO) for a good page indexing 03 Provide meta description tag 04 Use tags more effectively 05 Add a tag for the title (ideally between 10 to 70 characters) of high importance 06 Use keywords with important HTML tags 07 Enrich the page text content 08 Adding a title tag (ideally between 10 to 70 characters) is of high importance . 09 Provide a meta description tag. 10 Determine URLs of links to be more readable by citizens and search engines 11 Implement some statistic tools 12 Check the font size and increase it on different bookings 13 Add coding scheme 14 Please add face book tags ,Open GRAPH 15 Install and configure Face book Pixel 16 Delete inline styles 17 Create Instagram profile link 18 Source: Get Ranking