Value Sensitive Transfer (VST) of Systems Among Countries: Towards a Framework

Systems like large technical and operational networks are necessary in modern societies, yet they are costly and time-consuming to develop. Instead of countries and organizations having to build systems from scratch, the transfer of systems is becoming more common. Yet systems reflect the values of the societies in which they are built and of the designers who develop them. Public values differ among cultures and countries; this not only hinders the transfer of systems but results in a lack of their adoption and acceptance by the receiving country. This article investigates the case of the transfer of parliamentary webcasting/telecasting systems from the US to Pakistan to better understand the international transfer of e-government systems. Although the concept of systems transfer is simple, implementing the system within a different cultural setting was more complicated than initially anticipated. The transfer of the system was influenced by the political objectives and cultural differences. Value tensions were found, especially surrounding openness, transparency, and accountability. Hence, the authors propose broadening the perspective on the transfer and development of systems by taking value differences into consideration. Toward this purpose, a framework for designing Value Sensitive Transfers (VST) is proposed.