Proposal on

Assessment of Readiness of Dhaka City Corporation in

providing E-governance Services

M 603: Marketing Research

Prepared for

Md. Iftekharul Amin

Lecturer

Prepared by

Shahnaj Akhter Dipu R: 23 (45D)

Poonam Barua R: 100 (45D)

Md. Qamruzzaman R: 01(45E)

M Mainul Haque R: 09 (45E)

Institute of Business Administration

University of Dhaka

October 8, 2012

October 8, 2012

Mr. Md. Iftekharul AminLecturerInstitute of Business of Administration The University of DhakaDhaka - 1000

Dear Sir:

Ref: Proposal Submission

We are here submitting our proposal for term paper on “Assessment of Readiness of Dhaka City Corporation in providing E-governance Services”, as a part of fulfilling your instruction for acquiring the learning objectives of Market Research course.

The group has chosen this time relevant issue for further study for its appropriateness in providing insight regarding the efficient and versatile application use of information system in the organizations to achieve the intended goals. Additionally, identify the loopholes of this newly implied technology as well as indicating the way of overcoming those are also the objectives of this study.

We, therefore, have great expectations that the group proposal would satisfy the set requirements of this course as well as your teaching prospect. Your knowledge and supervision regarding this exciting initiative would drive us toward reaping the full benefits of the course and contributing significantly in understanding the benefits of maximizing the application of Information System in organizations.

Sincerely yours,

Md. Qamruzzaman

45E, Roll: 01Group Leader

Table of Contents

1 BACKGROUND............................................................................................................................................ 3

2 OBJECTIVES................................................................................................................................................ 3

2.1 BROAD OBJECTIVE...........................................................................................................................................32.2 SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES........................................................................................................................................3

3 SCOPE......................................................................................................................................................... 3

4 METHODOLOGY.......................................................................................................................................... 3

4.1 POPULATION..................................................................................................................................................34.2 SAMPLE AREA.................................................................................................................................................34.3 SAMPLE.........................................................................................................................................................34.4 SAMPLING TECHNIQUE.....................................................................................................................................34.5 SAMPLE CHARACTERISTICS/ ELEMENT..................................................................................................................34.6 DATA PROCESSING AND ANALYSIS.......................................................................................................................34.7 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS................................................................................................................................3

5 ACTIVITY SCHEDULE AND BUDGET.............................................................................................................. 3

5.1 COURSE OF ACTION.........................................................................................................................................35.2 TIME LINE......................................................................................................................................................35.3 SPECIFIC KNOWLEDGE GOALS............................................................................................................................35.4 BUDGET........................................................................................................................................................3

6 RESEARCHER PROFILE................................................................................................................................. 3

7 CONCLUSION.............................................................................................................................................. 3

REFERRENCE....................................................................................................................................................... 3

1 Introduction

The advancement in Information and communication technology (ICT) has affected our relation

with people, Businesses and more recently with governments. The Introduction of ICT’s has

changed the way governments interact with its citizens and has led to development of a world

phenomenon called e government. E-government involves the use of the ICT to facilitate an

efficient, speedy and transparent process of providing information to the public and to carry out

administration activities.

The concept of e-government has been emerged in the late 1990s. But the literature on the IT in

government can be traced back at least to the beginning of the computer history in 1970s. In the

meantime, the government of Bangladesh declared its Vision 2021 regarding ‘‘the Digital

Bangladesh’’. With a commitment to facilitating easy access to, creation, preservation and

dissemination of knowledge and knowledge systems, of knowledge and better knowledge

services should be core concerns of the e-government.

In spite the mass has moved towards a revolutionary access to the world of information and

technology, the government is yet far from establish an ‘IT in government’ situation, according

to many studies, as the innovative use of ICT in the public administration is not yet detectable by

citizens.

The "Administrative and Service Reorganization Committee", formed in 1972, observes that

"Progress in science and technology and the vast amount of new knowledge have made a major

impact on the tasks of the Government and on the process of decision-making." It suggested

continuous study for the simplification and increased efficiency through establishing a

permanent organization.

Efficient ICT integrated better governance system, transparency and accountability enough to

identify and satisfy the needs of the public sector is the long-standing areas under discussion in

the field of public administration in Bangladesh.

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With the advent of Internet technology policy makers of the developing countries like

Bangladesh has started utilizing the new developments in ICT and especially the TCP/IP

protocol, in achieving the objectives of good governance.

In order to achieve ultimate goal, government has already taken some steps and few local

government organizations have already been introducing value added services through

information technology. In this research process, we would like to assess the effectiveness of e-

governance in government local authority as well as to what extent they are ready to adopt such

management practice while providing value added service to public.

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2 Objectives

The recent implementation of information technology for providing different value added service

by local government authority with a view to expedite the entire process of service delivery. It is

true such initiative reduce the expected time gap rather service provided with manual process.

Here we are trying to justify the degree of readiness by the local authority with implementation

of e-government practice as well as stakeholders perception in this regards. For doing so we

developed one broad project objectives with some specific objectives.

2.1 Broad objective

To assess the degree of readiness of Dhaka City Corporation in implementing e-

governance services.

2.2 Specific objectives

To explore the current services provided by Dhaka City Corporation

To assess the technological/ infrastructural obstacles faced by the authority in providing

e-governance services.

To asses service provider technical skills in case of implementation of e-governance.

To assess the requirement of Human Resource.

To assess the practicability of the current policy in providing e-governance services.

To assess the perception of the service holders regarding the readiness of the authority in

providing e-services.

To assess the future planning of the City Corporation authority in improving the

integration of e-services.

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3 Scope

The research will be carried out within the purview of Dhaka city. It will not cover any other part

in Bangladesh. There are two major aspects of e-governance – one is the government, the service

provider, and the other is the public, service receiver. This study will mostly focus on the former

aspect and try to assess the e-governance readiness of local government in providing public

services. However, it will try to gain some insight on the receiver side as well, particularly to

obtain feedback on the current status of e-governance services provided by local government. As

for local government, the study will cover only Dhaka City Corporation – both North and South.

The research will cover holding tax payment and birth certificate registration services provided

by the local government in order to assess the current status of e-governance in Dhaka city. The

outcome of this study should help further research into e-governance readiness of Bangladesh.

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4 Methodology

This study would be conducted following the descriptive method of research, as the research

objectives demand to gather information about the existing condition in detail.  In this study, the

descriptive research method was employed considering the objective to obtain first hand data

from the respondents to analyze the level of practice of providing service via online at Dhaka

City Corporation. The flexible nature of the descriptive method is compatible in collecting either

qualitative or quantitative data or both, as well as allows the freedom to select from a large range

of data-gathering and analyzing instruments.

This study followed the mixed method of research. A combination of both quantitative and

qualitative approach of research would be employed here. The following chart encrypts the

research instruments, planned to be employed for the study, under each approach:  

Chart: Research Design and Instrument

The entire information for the study will be collected in two ways-

1. Primary Data Collection &

2. Secondary Data Collection

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DescriptiveQuantitativeQualitativeConsumer Survey Inventory

Observation Schedule (Likert Scale)

Questionnaire (Open and Close ended)

Interview Schedule (for the employees)

Existing Policy Review(secondary sources)

Primary data will be collected through employing the quantitative and qualitative research

instruments and the secondary data will be collected in the following ways-

1. Web Sites

2. Previously collected data

3. Documents or reports

4.1 Population

Dhaka North and South City Corporations, serving the city dwellers of the capital of Bangladesh

with several local governance services, have been selected as the area of this study. Dhaka City

Corporation (DCC) is the former self-governing corporation that is associated with the task of

running the affairs of the city of Dhaka. Through the Local Government (City Corporation)

Amendment Bill 2011, former Dhaka City Corporation has made its way for two distinct North

and South City Corporations, serving Dhaka city’s 9.3 million people of 75 wards. (DSCC,

2012)

According to the study objectives, all of the service providers (government employees) and

service receivers (consumers) of North and South city corporation headquarters and zone offices,

where the majority of the e-governance services are provided as well as policies are designed and

implemented, would be considered as the population for this study.

4.2 Sample Area

Considering the convenience of the research team and the level of e-governance services’

frequency of offering, both of the city corporation headquarters (North and South) and two zone

offices (Mirpur and Bakshi Bazaar) have been primarily selected as the sample area for selecting

samples as well as collecting pertinent information.

4.3 Sample

A total of 160 respondents would be asked to participate. To attain relevant information, certain

inclusion criteria would be imposed. The employees working in e-service providing activities

would be selected as sample. In addition to, customers, visiting the corporation offices either to

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seek for e- services or manual services would be considered as target sample. 40 corporation

employees, 10 from each office and 120 students, 30 from every school would be selected as the

sample for collecting data. At least 12 office visit sessions, 3 from each office would be observed

to determine the nature of present e-service providing situation to assess the readiness of the

public sector.

Following table is showing the categories and quantity of sample:

Type Sample Area Sample

Size(employees)

Sample

Size(consumers)

Head office Dhaka North City Corporation 10 30

Dhaka South City Corporation 10 30

Zone Office Mirpur 10 30

Bakshi Bazar 10 30

4.4 Sampling Technique

Non-probability sampling method has been chosen to identify the relevant samples, as it is very

difficult to assign equal probability to gather information from the specified population and self-

judgment is well required in the case of this study. This study would follow purposive sampling

techniques in selecting samples.

In purposive sampling, one or more specific predefined groups are sought with a purpose in

mind. Purposive sampling, in this study, can be very useful to reach the targeted sample quickly

and where sampling for proportionality is not the primary concern.

This study on assessing the readiness of e-governance is looking forward to heterogeneous

sampling. Additionally, informal social networks need to be capitalized to identify specific

respondents who are hard to locate otherwise, as in snowball sampling.

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Snow-ball technique would be adopted to select the employees to be interviewed, as this

particular technique would help the research team in building rapport and expanding the sample

coverage effectively. The research team would begin by identifying some employees who meets

the criteria for inclusion in this study. Later they would be asked to recommend others who they

may know who also meet the criteria. Snowball sampling is useful in this particular situation

where difficult to access public service sector employees are related.

Proportional quota sampling would be employed to select the e-service receiver samples.

Payment for holding tax and birth certificate registration are two most frequently asked e-

services in city corporation offices. To represent these two major service providers and holders,

each of the service receiver groups would be assigned 40% quota each, where the rest 20%

weights would be assigned for the miscellaneous service receiver sample proportion.

Heterogeneity, in choosing sample from both service provider and receiver ends, would be

considered with significance, as the primary study objective requires including all opinions or

views of these diverse role playing stakeholders to get broad spectrum of ideas. Hence, the

research instruments would also be designed in reflection of this diversity.

This study considers ‘expert sampling’ as a potential technique, to share insights regarding the

research context by assembling of a sample of persons with known or demonstrable experience

and expertise in the respected area. (Trochim, 2006).

4.5 Sample Characteristics/ Element

Corporation employees capable of providing e-services as well as, corporation service seeker

city dwellers, sufficiently competent to receiving the idea of e-services, would be considered as

potential sample or respondents.

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4.6 Data processing and analysis

After completing necessary editing of raw data, data coding will be performed. Both quantitative

and qualitative techniques would be used as a safeguard for the research purpose in order to

establish adequate valid conclusion.

Descriptive (frequency and percentage) statistical techniques would be used to analyze the data

obtained from observation, survey response and interviews etc. All these data would be analyzed

along with their frequency to obtain the percentages to explain the findings under significant

themes.

4.7 Ethical Considerations

Due to the participation of human respondents, certain ethical issues are planned to be addressed

in the course of this study, for the purpose of ensuring the privacy as well as the safety of the

participants. Consent and confidentiality of the respondents would be included as significant

ethical concerns in the research course. All important details of the study, including its aim and

purpose would be relayed to the respondents to secure their consent, as well as to let them

understand the importance of their role in the study. The confidentiality of the participants would

also be ensured by not disclosing their personal information, except for the relevant details, in

the study.

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5 Activity Schedule and Budget

5.1 Course of Action

The detailed execution plan of the tasks involved to complete the report:

Course of action Activities

Preliminary stage Data collection, sorting and structuring

investigation and analysis stage Define and Analysis of data

Prior to submission Draft reporting and recommendation if necessary

5.2 Time Line

This plan yields the following time line:

Activities Number of weeks

1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th 11th

Literature

Review and

Research tools

development

Survey

Interview

Sorting and

analysis

Meeting with course

instructor for

structure approval

Report writing

Report

submission

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5.3 Specific Knowledge Goals

We will design the interviews and the surveys to find out the extent to which Digitalization is:

a. Making participants admissions and recruitments easier or harder

b. Making their admissions and recruitments processes faster

c. Making the process more or less efficient

d. Helping the relevant organizations

e. Satisfying the needs of the participants

5.4 Budget

The approximate cost will be-

Research Components Estimated Hour Cost Total Cost

Questionnaire 10 Hours BDT 5000

BDT 27000

Survey 40 Hours BDT 7000

Interview 16 Hours BDT 10000

Report Writing 96 Hours BDT 5000

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6 Researcher Profile

Shahnaj Akhter Dipu has completed under-graduation (Social Science Education; CGPA

3.73/4) and post-graduation (Curriculum and Instructional Technology; 3.88/4) from Institute of

Education and Research (IER) from University of Dhaka. With an aspiration to build a

magnificent career as a Finance Executive, she has joined the MBA program (current CGPA till

3rd semester-3.11) of IBA. She obtained the experience of conducting an M.Ed. thesis on

“Analyzing the Application of Multiple Intelligences Theory in Teaching Learning Process at

Primary Level”, which not only depicts her passion towards human beings’ learning process and

psychology, but also her ability to conduct clean and quality social research and expertise in

English language. Besides this, she won several debate tournaments and has acted as a diverse

role playing personality (research assistant, language interpreter, event organizer, etc). In both

team and individual tasks, she values her aptitude of vigorous participation and challenging self

to present the leadership quality and creativity through her work to an extent beyond her

previous experience.

Poonam Barua completed my BBA (Major in Accounting) from the Faculty of

Business Studies, University of Dhaka. Her GPA was 3.58. She worked as a part time teacher in

an English Version school for nine months. Her current CGPA in IBA is 2.98.

Md. Qamruzzaman received BBA and MBA degree from Department of Finance, University of

Dhaka. Additionally, he obtained 3.78 out of 4 in BBA and 3.87 out of 4 in MBA. Md.

Qamruzzaman worked as project associated under direct supervision Mr. Mujibul Kabir FCA for

6 months. Furthermore, he joined National Credit and Commerce Bank Limited as Management

Trainee Officer in the year of 2009. His current CGPA at IBA (MBA) is 3.85.

M Mainul Haque earned BBA degree with major in Finance and with CGPA of 3.87 out of 4.00

from North South University. He worked at Southeast Bank Limited as Probationary Officer for

five months in year 2010. He is currently doing MBA at IBA and his current CGPA there is 3.5.

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7 Conclusion

We, thereby, asking for your humble permission to let us conduct an academic study on this

issue with sheer emerging possibility in context of Bangladesh. We believe in your supervision

and our ability to generate new insights which would be beneficial for the stakeholders as well as

for conducting further research activities.

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