xli

Introductory Chapter

A Brief Introduction to the Field of E-Government

Ari-Veikko Annttiroiko
University of Tampere, Finland

Electronic government or e-government is one of the most important elements on the current public sector reform agenda. It is a global phenomenon (Jaeger, 2003; Jaeger & Thompson, 2003; Panagopoulos,
2004). It reflects the public sector organizations need to find ways to meet the challenges of modernization, globalization, and information society development (Centeno, van Bavel, & Burgelman, 2005).
E-government no longer appears to be a matter of choice, but a necessity for any country wishing to enter
the 21st century as a competitive nation in the world arena (Kumar, Mukerji, Butt, & Persaud, 2007).
E-government refers to those political-administrative structures and processes in which ICTs are
utilized. The transformative power of e-enabled practices is not only in that it streamlines existing
processes, but rather is about rethinking and reengineering all aspects of government and public governance. In this way it helps to tackle novel problems and improve organizational capacity, performance,
and innovativeness (see Felbinger & Holzer, 1999). If the transformation of governments operations
and interactive relations with stakeholders is not kept in mind, e-government remains a mere add-on
to conventional government structures and processes, and is therefore likely to provide only modest
returns on ICT investments. Thus, e-government is a tool to transform government, but to realize this
potential requires that public organizations redesign their structures and administrative processes and
also strengthen their stakeholders capacity to utilize e-government services (Song, 2004; Peristeras,
Tsekos, & Trabanis, 2002). At the same time widely applied aspects of e-government, such as Web
sites and e-mails, have gradually become government as usual, at least in the developed world, which
diminishes the novelty of this phenomenon.
Western societies have a strong belief in technology-enabled progress. The vision of a knowledgebased society and economy is appealing, but low take-up rates mean that, despite huge investment, a gap
is emerging between vision and reality (Kolsaker & Lee-Kelley, 2007). This same tension is visible in
the e-government field. Thus, if e-government no longer appears to be a matter of choice, the question
is how to make the best use of it in different contexts.
The aim of this chapter is to give an overview of e-government as a public sector reform agenda. The
discussion starts with an introduction to the core concepts and theories of e-government. The next topic
is at the very heart of e-government as it presents the e-government development policy framework with
special reference to key assessments and analyses as e-government policy tools, such as e-maturity models.
This section is followed by a brief discussion about e-government tools and technologies. The next three
sections briefly discuss utilization, organizational and social implications, and the managerial impact of
e-government. The last two sections address critical issues and emerging trends in e-government.

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Fundamental ConCepts and theories in e-Government

Definitions of E-Government
Electronic government refers to all political-administrative structures and processes of government in
which information and communication technologies (ICTs) are utilized. Even if the early discussions on
IT in public sector provided fairly sophisticated views of this then novel trend (e.g. Schumacher, 1967;
Lamb, 1973), the Internet Revolution of the first half of the 1990s fundamentally changed the conditions and conceptions of e-government. The concept of electronic government seemed to first achieve
prominence around 1993 in the US and in abbreviated form (e-government) later around 1997 (Heeks
& Bailur, 2006). This new turn is visible in the literature published since the mid-1990s (e.g. Loader,
1997; Bellamy & Taylor, 1998; Tsagarousianou, Tambini, & Bryan, 1998; Snellen & van de Donk, 1998;
Woolpert, Slaton, & Schwerin, 1998). The most widely adopted definitions of e-government emerged
around the same time as a result of active global and national development work by governments, think
tanks and development organizations such as the OECD, the World Bank, and the United Nations.
Among the most widely used definitions of e-government is the relational-functional one by the
OECD (2002): E-government provides an opportunity to develop a new relationship between governments, citizens, service users and businesses, by using new ICTs which enable the dissemination and
collection of information and services both within and outside of government (government to citizen;
government to business; government to government) for the purposes of service delivery, decision making and accountability. Fairly comprehensive definitions combining a technological view with the
operational aims and functions of e-government are provided by Fang (2002), Brown (2003) and many
other academics, who conceptualize e-government as a way for governments to exploit ICTs to provide
citizens, businesses and other stakeholders with more convenient access to government information and
services and more direct involvement in governance and democratic processes. E-government has connections to virtually all aspects of governmentadministration, participation, services, inclusion etc.
but, at least on the basis of the current literature, the core of this concept revolves around e-government
services and service delivery (Stahl, 2005b). Another important point is that e-government is neither a
homogeneous nor a static phenomenon, which renders its conceptualization challenging (Gil-Garcia &
Martinez-Moyano, 2007).
Usually the definitions of e-government include one or more of the following four elements: how,
why, for whom and in what application areas:
a.

b.

c.

d.

Technological means: The first and fundamental element of all definitions of e-government is
the reference to the adoption and utilization of ICTs, which highlights the necessary technological
dimension of this concept. It refers to that small e in the term e-government.
Aims and active role of government: The second element is the aim of adoption and utilization
of ICTs by government, usually associated with the broad goals of public sector transformation or
reforms, or with more precise objectives such as increased efficiency, better service, and enhanced
citizen participation.
Citizens, customers and stakeholders: Most of the definitions in the contemporary discussion
emphasize the key stakeholders affected by e-government adoption, most notably citizens and
businesses. This reflects the relational approach to e-government and is closely associated with
the idea of public governance.
Application areas:E-government can be defined by referring to the application or functional areas,
including administrative functions, financial management, service provision (e-health, e-education
etc.), policy making, political leadership, public governance, and democratic practices.

xliii

To sum up, e-government refers generally to those political-administrative structures and processes
in which ICTs are utilized. A more detailed definition of e-government applied here is the following:
e-government is governments use of information and communication technologies, particularly Webbased applications, to support responsive and cost-effective government by facilitating administrative
and managerial functions, providing citizens and stakeholders with convenient access to government
information and services, facilitating interaction and transactions with stakeholders, and providing
better opportunities to participate in democratic institutions and processes.
There are many more or less similar definitions available in the current literature. What is essential
in all conceptualizations is that they look at the relevant e-government activities and processes from the
point of view of government, emphasizing the role of government as initiator, enabler, coordinator and
key player in administrative, service, democratic and governance processes. In other words, e-government
emphasizes governments active role in improving its performance, in providing services, in creating
new forms of citizen participation, and in managing public governance relations.
E-government is not the only concept that has been used to refer ICT-assisted or knowledge-based
government. In fact, there is a range of concepts intended to depict the very same or slightly similar transformation as e-government, some focusing on technology and some more on the social or governmental
aspects of e-transformation. For example, digital government and online government are synonymous
with e-government. Examples of widely used novel terms are m-government, which utilizes mobile
technologies and u-government, which is used to describe a next-generation e-government utilizing
ubiquitous technologies (see e.g. Grnlund, 2007; Grabow, 2007; 6, 2004; Anttiroiko, 2005). There is a
risk that the current enthusiastic renaming of government will lead to conceptual confusion.

Key Dimensions of Electronic Government

E-government is a socio-technical system composed of people, technologies, and social and organizational structures and processes. In this the whole idea of e-government is a result of the co-evolution
of technological and organizational arrangements. What this open system creates is government that
combines organizational innovations with new ICTs to perform basic governmental functions in a constantly changing environment.
As e-government is more about government than about technology or electronic media, the basic
dimensions of e-government can be derived from the functions of government. Government is exercise
of authority in a polity. Government is needed to maintain law and order, to provide citizens with public
services, and to safeguard civic rights and democracy. In addition, it must take care of both the management of its internal organization and of its multiple relationships with stakeholders in an increasingly
complex environment. These functions of government can be used to conceptualize the basic dimensions
of e-government, which are here divided into four areas (cf. Michel, 2005):

E-administration refers basically to all those administrative and operational processes of government
in which ICTs are utilized, including both mundane office tasks and basic managerial functions
of public organizations, such as planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling (see e.g.
Klamo, Huang, Wang, & Le, 2006, p. 160). It is closely related to e-management, which refers to
the use of information technology to improve the management of government, from streamlining business processes to maintaining electronic records, to improving the flow and integration of
information (Gil-Garcia & Helbig, 2007, p. 811).
E-services or electronic public services refers to public service provision aimed at citizens and
other target groups using ICTs. E-services may include information, communication, and transac-

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tion services provided in different branches of public service, such as health care, social welfare,
and education. (see e.g. Grnlund, 2002; European Commission, 1999)
E-governance understood here in the public-sector context as public e-governance is about
managing and steering multi-sectoral stakeholder relations on a non-hierarchical basis with the
help of ICTs for the purpose of taking care of the policy, service, and development functions of
government. In practical terms it is about cooperation, networking, and partnership relations between
public organizations, corporations, NGOs, civic groups, and active citizens, utilized by public organizations to gather and coordinate effectively both local and external resources to achieve public
policy goals (see e.g. Finger & Langenberg, 2007; Kolsaker, 2006; Anttiroiko, 2004; Grnlund,
2007)
E-democracy is about democratic structures, processes, and practices in which ICTs are utilized
to improve inclusiveness, transparency, citizen participation, and democratic decision making. It
is a generic tool-oriented conception of democracy (see e.g. Becker & Slaton, 2000; Anttiroiko,
2004).

These areas are illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1 connects e-government application areas to key stakeholder groups. In fact, e-government
has often been defined in relational terms, using the basic governance relations as the constitutive elements of the concept itself (cf. Song, 2004, pp. 11-12, 53-54; OECD, 2002). Such a relational perspective
emphasizes the ways ICTs can be utilized in interaction between governments and their customers and
other stakeholders. E-government-related stakeholder relations have five basic forms:

Government-to-Citizens (G2C)
Citizens-to-Government (C2G)

Figure 1. Basic dimensions of e-government

E-government

E-administration

E-services

Employees

E-democracy
E-governance

Users
Consumers

Citizens
Electorate
Stakeholders
Partners

Politicians

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Figure 2. Basic e-government relations

G2 E
E 2G

Government

G2 G
Government

G2 C
C2 G
Citizens

Internal
e-government
Intergovernmental
e-government
External
e-government
relations

G2 B
B2G

Business

Government-to-Government (G2G)
Government-to-Business (G2B)
Business-to-Government (B2G)

In addition to these, there are the internal e-governance relations of public organizations, such as
government-to-employees (G2E) and employees-to-government (E2G) relations. There are also other
relations, such as government-to-NGOs (G2N), government-to-market (G2M) etc., but the above mentioned relations between three basic actor groups are the fundamental ones. These relations are illustrated
in Figure 2.

Functional Model of E-Government

The point of departure of the general functional e-government model is the community or polity and,
within it, individual citizens, so that whatever applications, e-services, and communication tools are
introduced, they should match the features of a territorial community in question and, when applicable,
be based as much as possible on citizens needs and their patterns of behavior. In a democratic system
the focus is on citizens, which in different rolesas constituents, taxpayers, political activists, workforce, inhabitants, and service usersform the most important stakeholder group for e-government (cf.
Michel, 2005). In a wider governance perspective institutional stakeholders also form important target
and resource groups for e-government (see Figure 2).
As a precondition of functioning e-government system, citizens need access to information networks
and to the Internet in particular. Thus, access needs to be incorporated into the e-government model as
one of its vital elements. Access has two basic dimensions, (a) physical access to usage environments,
such as home-based access and networked computers in a workplace, Internet caf, shared service center
or public access point, and (b) virtual access solutions, interfaces, and portals to online information
and services (see Lucke, 2007). Access is one of the most critical issues of e-government in developing
countries in which most of the people lack access to the networked world.
The decision making on public policies and resource allocation in most democracies is formally based
on a representative system of government, emphasizing the role of the parliament at national level and

xlvi

Figure 3. Basic functional model for e-government

E-organization / E-management
- Change management
- Reengineering
- Knowledge management

Primary target
and resource
groups within a
polity

GOVERNMENT

Electronic democratic practices

Citizens
Access

Web site/portal

Electronic service delivery

Customers
Access

Web site
Portal

E-democracy
- Representative democracy
- Participatory democracy
- Direct democracy

E-services
- Information
- Communication
- Interaction
- Transaction

E-administration
- Internal
administrative
processes
- Intergovernmental
processes
Electronic
administrative
processes

Citizens
NGOs
Business
Public
agencies

Electronic governance processes

Access

Web site/portal

E-governance
- Cooperation
- Networks
- Partnerships

local and regional councils at lower levels. Yet, when other forms of democracy gradually develop to
revitalize democratic practices, citizens may gain more direct political control and power over policymaking issues and governance processes. Beside the genuine demand for more direct citizen control,
this transformation is generally expected to strengthen citizens commitment to their communities, their
compliance with social and legal norms, and the utilization of local potentials and know-how in community development.
Requirements of e-government services based on citizens and other stakeholders needs and supported by functioning access solutions need to be met by public organization and personnel. With this in
mind, an authoritys administrative and service organizations should be capable of utilizing ICTs in their
operations and interactions, which requires the development of new ways of organizing governmental
functions and taking care of the managerial aspects of governance. This requires change management and
business process management, for the transformation towards e-organization does not take place automatically. Thus, the utilization of ICTs in any organization requires change management in which work
procedures, information flows, service systems and governance practices are properly redesigned.
These aspects form the core of the model for e-government, as presented in Figure 3.

xlvii

Generic Theories of E-Government

Theorizing e-government is essentially about determining the formation of governments strategies and
policies to apply ICTs for the purpose of performing their functions and achieving collectively set goals.
Garson (1999) divides the theoretical frameworks for e-government into four main areas: decentralization/democratization, normative/dysutopian, socio-technical systems, and global integration theories. The
major tension appears between the first two, as the first one is more optimistic and consensual approach
while the second is more like a critical or conflict theory applied to e-government (Schelin, 2003).
Another way of theorizing the paradigmatic tension is to contrast the Weberian model of bureaucracy with the reinventing government movement. The tension is between traditional and new public
management paradigms. In this picture e-government itself is seen to represent a new paradigm that
encourages transformation from the traditional bureaucracy to the new e-government paradigm, which
emphasizes coordinated network building, external collaboration, and customer orientation (Ho, 2002;
Schelin, 2003).
Another important tension is the degree of democratic control and the role of the state in building and
maintaining e-government systems. In the current discussion it is attached to two conceptions: the Digital
State Paradigm (DSP) and digital NPM doctrine. They can be supplemented by a third approach, digital
communitarianism (DC), as a more or less theoretical alternative to these two dominating paradigms (cf.
Song, 2007). These approaches emphasize respectively the role of the state, markets or communities as
a source of power and legitimation in e-government.
The Digital State Paradigm favors strong state thinking and developmentalism in its orientation. Its
point of departure is proactive government, quality service, and balanced societal development. This
is an integrative and holistic approach which attempts to maintain governments strong hold on public
policy and governance, why it characteristically favors incremental reforms, promotes public-public collaboration, and integrates market-based solutions into the wider public service palette (Song, 2007).
Digital NPM doctrine or e-NPM applies the principles of New Public Management (NPM) to egovernment. In a slightly narrow sense we could call it an e-Commerce Paradigm for Government. It
has been claimed that it is the success in e-commerce and e-business that increased the expectations of
citizens that public sector organizations should provide services similar to those in the commercial sector and with the same efficiency and user-friendly solutions (Ebrahim & Irani, 2005; Alpar & Olbrich,
2005; Stahl, 2005a; Stahl, 2005b; Eddowes, 2004; McGregor & Holman, 2001). The NPM paradigm
favors e-commerce models with a strong emphasis on business-minded solutions applied to the public
sector (cf. Song, 2007). It aims ultimately at substantial cost reductions in public service provision, cutbacks in public personnel, the utilization of consumer choice, and market-based mechanisms in service
provision. It has some common elements with discussions about reengineering government (Osborne
& Gaebler, 1993). The Digital NPM paradigm leads to a fairly fragmentary system, which seeks cost
reductions and efficiency through competition, outsourcing, Public-Private Partnership (PPP) models,
and commercialization.
Digital communitarianism is a theoretical concept in the sense that these features have only gradually found their way onto the e-government development agenda. This discussion is based on ideas of
strong democracy and participatory democracy, and thus on the conceptions of genuine citizenship and
the sense of community (Barber. 1984). This approach favors small-scale community-based e-government applications.
Another way of approaching the general nature of e-government is to create typologies on the basis
of state intervention and governance style, likewise governments approach to information and network
architecture (open vs. closed). On this basis Amoretti (2007) presents a four-fold typology of e-govern-

xlviii

ment regimes: reform-oriented e-government, authoritarian e-government, managerial e-government,

and open e-government. The previously mentioned three-fold typology is similar to Amorettis scheme,
for reform-oriented e-government is associated with digital state paradigm (e.g. many EU countries, such
as Germany and France), managerial e-government is based to a large extent on NPM doctrine (e.g. UK
and New Zealand), and open government is in some respects close to digital communitarianism (e.g.
some aspects of e-government in Sweden and Denmark). Authoritarian e-government, of which a currently much discussed case is China, is an important addition to the bigger picture of e-government, as
it reflects the fact that many governments, especially in the developing world, tend to control Internet
use and access, possibly even extending this to Internet censorship.
If we take the theorization of e-government further, we find an array of theories and models describing specific aspects of e-government. General theorizing of e-transformation in government and politics
especially is thematically very close to the abovementioned general theories of e-government (Woolpert
et al., 1998; Mlki, Anttiroiko, & Savolainen, 2004). Similarly, theories that are used to frame the IT
adoption in governments can also be seen to theorise important aspects of e-government. Examples of
such theorization are a level-based e-government model depicting the impact of technological tools on
public management and services (Markellou, Panayiotaki, & Tsakalidis, 2007) as well as theories and
models of business process redesign and IT-enabled service transformation (e.g. Venkatraman, 1994).
IT in the public sector has usually been approached on the basis of existing theories applied to e-government context, including institutional theory, stakeholder theory, network theory, diffusion-of-innovations
theory, the technology acceptance model (TAM), and the Web trust model (WTM) (Orgeron, 2007). There
is also a range of specific theories and applied models of e-government development and technological
and organizational design, such as maturity and e-readiness models. Most of these theories and models
will be discussed in detail in this book series.

E-Government Development and Design Methodologies

The e-government development agenda took shape as a part of the Internet revolution-inspired information society development since the early 1990s. Fresh views on how government should adopt ICTs
were raised even earlierin fact, as early as in the late 1960sat a high political level in countries like
Japan and France, but globally e-government policy attained new prominence after the mid-1990s. It
became a widely used development concept as a part of the agenda for public sector reform.
It is important to note that e-government development is a broad strategic issue based on a holistic
and integrative approach (Eddowes, 2004). This connects e-government to strategic planning, organization structures, e-skilling, IT project management, technological design issues, and broader governance
issues. In this chapter we draw a broad picture of e-government development policy and discuss some
prevalent e-government development models.
There is need to point out that the perspective on development and design methodologies is broader
within e-government framework than in systems development. Methodology is a documented approach
for performing activities in a coherent, consistent, accountable, and repeatable manner. In e-government
it is not only about managing IT projects or setting up information systems, but a strategic issue of etransformation in government with special reference to governments role in society, citizen involvement,
governance relations, and so forth.

E-Government Strategy and Policies

E-government strategy and development policy form a fundamental element in modernizing the public sector. Strategies are systematic approaches needed to ensure an organizations long-term success.

xlix

Governments at different institutional levels are investing in the development of strategies to guarantee
optimal utilization of ICTs in terms of broader strategic goals. (Gil-Garca & Pardo, 2005; Ebrahim &
Irani, 2005). General e-government strategy may accompany a strategic IT plan, a document in which
a public organization collects its IT-related strategies, principles and key measures. It is a way to communicate the IT vision for the entire organization and to give some guidance to departments regarding
their IT actions (Freeman, 2007). There are also various specific areas requiring special consideration
under the umbrella of e-government strategy, which may thus be presented in separate policy documents.
For example, issues such as access, security, and privacy, are vital for the adoption and functionality of
an e-government system.
The e-government strategy process starts from defining the vision and guidelines for strategic action
(for an example of such a strategy, see GovHK, 2007). A view to long term transformation is of utmost
importance here. It is also worth emphasizing that e-government must always be based on non-technological aims and objectives, which serve as the true rationale behind the introduction of new infrastructures,
generic services, and applications.
At a more concrete level there is a need to consider the social problems which government must try
to solve, thus increasing our understanding of what e-government might contribute to. E-government
reforms are expected to bring benefits that can be divided into three main categories: (a) improved
delivery of public services, in terms of availability, ease of use, and cost savings to the government,
to businesses, and to individuals, (b) improved transparency, accountability, democracy, and reduced
opportunities for corruption, and (c) broader economic and societal gains (infoDev, 2007; cf. Hughes,
Scott, & Golden, 2007; Gil-Garcia & Helbig, 2007).
Achieving such benefits entails certain preconditions. At the operational level, e-government projects
must be carefully identified, planned, and implemented. Even more importantly, the realization of the
potential of e-government requires a certain level of maturity in the stakeholders involved. This means
that, for example, citizens abilities to use computers, their access to Internet, and their motivation or
opportunities to utilize information and service systems affect the overall preconditions of e-government.
The same goes for businesses and their ability to utilize ICTs in B2B, B2C and B2G transactions and in
networking. Thus the exhaustive utilization of e-government is conditioned by the overall e-maturity of
society. This is usually assessed using e-readiness assessment tools.
In retrospect, the emerging e-government development strategies and policies of the early 1990s put
special emphasis on infrastructure and technological developments. Yet soon the overall picture of the
preconditions of successful e-government policy and its connections to other aspects of information
society became clearer, therefore more balanced and user-centric views began to prevail. Since then one
of the burning issues has been how to balance between the demand and supply side aspects of e-government development and, more precisely, what demand and supply side elements should be strengthened
in order to make cost-effective strategic choices and to create a critical mass of users in a given context
(cf. Song, 2004, p. 54).
Another policy choice is the nature of government intervention, the masterminded comprehensive
approach and the incremental approach being the two extreme options. This choice reflects the overall
role of government in society.
The third important policy decision is the financial dimension of government intervention and policy
preferences. The funding of strategic e-government projects may be based on public funding, partnership, sponsorship, or a purely commercial financial scheme.
Key aspects of e-government strategy and policy process are illustrated in Figure 4.
E-government policy is extremely sensitive to the context of government. Contextual factors that
have been widely discussed in the communities of practitioners and academics are differences between

Figure 4. E-government development policy framework.

E-government policy
o
o

Evaluation F

o
o
o

Nature of government intervention

Supply vs. demand oriented strategies
Rational comprehensive planning vs.
incrementalism
Funding: public, PPP, private
Formulation of e-government vision and
development strategy

Key assessments

Supply side

Networks,
platforms,
devices,
interfaces
and utilization
infrastructure

Demand side

E-readiness assessment
E-government development stage model
Benchmarking, SWOT analysis, Cost-Benefit
Analysis, value-added assessment, etc.

Public networks, platforms,

e-services and applications

eedback

Citizens and
customers values,
needs, motivation,
access, skills and
patterns of
behavior

User-friendliness, incentives
and added value
Vision and strategies
Business Process Redesign
Implementation

Contribution to society
Better public service
Increased competitiveness
Better quality of life, welfare, and sustainability

developed vs. developing countries; rural vs. urban communities; and levels of government: national,
regional and local governments.

Key Assessments and Analyses as E-Government Policy Tools

There is a wide range of planning, diagnosis and assessment tools for use in e-government policy process.
These tools include the following:

li

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Strategic planning and decision support

SWOT analysis
Environmental scanning and PEST analysis
Balanced Scorecard (BSC)
Scenario building
Preconditions for e-government
E-readiness assessment scheme
Gap analysis and barrier analyses
General e-government assessments and comparisons

Critical Success Factor (CSF), Best Practice, and roadmap approach to e-government

E-government development stage model or e-maturity model

Benchmarking
Value and demand assessments
Added value assessment
Demand and Value Assessment Methodology (DVAM)
Cost and resource analyses
Return On Investment (ROI) assessment, Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA), and Total Cost Ownership (TCO) assessment
Human resource (HR) and training needs assessments (TNA)
E-government evaluations
Government Web site evaluation
Performance measurement (PM), performance scorecards, e-government services reviews,
and other e-government evaluations (from both demand and supply perspectives)
Impact and risk analyses
Risk assessment
Human, health, socio-economic, and environmental impact assessments

The first set of tools on the list provides concrete support for the strategy and policy making process,
including various conventional strategic planning tools and techniques, such as environmental scanning, scenarios, Balanced Scorecard (BSC), SWOT analysis (of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats), and PEST analysis (of the Political, Economic, Social, and Technological factors of the
macro-environment).
Second, there are strategic tools that can be used to identify and assess the preconditions for e-government, such as an e-readiness assessment scheme. Transition towards a higher level of e-government
maturity has its preconditions, ranging from technological, to political-administrative, to socio-cultural,
constituting the basic elements of e-readiness (Im & Seo, 2005. On e-readiness see also As-Saber, Hossain, & Srivastava, 2007; World Economic Forum, 2002; Ciborra, 2005; Davidrajuh, 2004; bridges.
org, 2007.) A more specific e-readiness scheme has been developed by the Computer Systems Policy
Project (CSPP), which identifies five categories that need to be measured in the assessment of the ereadiness of a community: infrastructure; access; applications and services; economy; and basic enablers
(policy, privacy, security, ubiquity). Another model is provided by Information Technologies Group at
the Center for International Development at Harvard University. They define readiness as the degree
to which a community is prepared to participate in the networked world. The categories they use in
assessing e-readiness fall into five thematic groups: network access, networked learning, networked
society, networked economy, and network policy (see bridges.org, 2007). We may also include gap and
barrier analyses in this set of policy tools, as they have a close connection to e-readiness assessment.

lii

It is particularly important to pay attention to barriers to e-government, which include such factors as
lack of political commitment, administrative inertia and fragmentation, inadequacy of regulation, and
lack of skilled personnel.
Third, there are tools that policy-makers can use to identify and contextualize the strategic aspects of
e-government development, such as CSF, best practice, roadmap, maturity, and benchmarking methods.
Many of these are based on measurement that in turn allows comparisons between governments and also
learning from innovative cases. The most widely applied generic model that helps in defining appropriate
e-government development measures and in assessing e-government maturity is the e-government development stage model. As this is the most widely discussed model in e-government literature, we describe
it briefly in the next section. This model is usually also applied to another popular method, benchmarking. E-government benchmarking refers to the measurement of e-government-related conditions and/or
a governments performance according to specified standards in order to compare them and to provide
tools for improvement. It can be applied to e-government at all institutional levels. Most benchmarking
studies have been based on some modifications of an e-government maturity or development stage model
(see e.g. UNDPEPA & ASPA, 2002). The first e-government benchmarking studies were published in
the late 1990s. It is important to note that most of the reports suffer from methodological problems, for
e-government is either measured by narrow Web site evaluation criteria or the emphasis is one-sidedly
on indicators of infrastructure or the supply-side elements of e-government. In spite of such problems,
e-government benchmarkings yield interesting information for politicians, administrators, and developers
on the progress of their e-government compared with that of their peers in other countries and on areas
of potentially significant improvements (Forlano, 2004, p. 35; Ostermann & Staudinger, 2007).
Fourth, in e-government policy process there is a need to consider the anticipated value of e-government to citizens, the community, the government, and to society as a whole. This is referred to as added
value assessment. An example of a tool that can be used in this part of the e-government policy process
is the Demand and Value Assessment Methodology (DVAM), developed by the Australian Government
Information Management Office (AGIMO). It provides a model to forecast and measure the demand
for and value of e-government services (Australian Government, 2004).
The goal of all e-government services is to contribute to the overall improvement in the quality of
human and social life, which should be used as the ultimate evaluation criterion in the assessment of
the outcomes of e-government development policy, as illustrated in Figure 4 (Anttiroiko, 2005). Indeed,
added value merits a vital role in the e-government policy framework. This has sometimes been
translated in the e-government context into a public value, which as a broad concept encompasses the
various administrative, democratic, social, economic, and environmental roles of governments (Centeno
et al., 2005). In the United Nations (2003) the notion of public value is rooted in peoples preferences,
as only the public can ultimately determine what is truly of value to its members, or to a society. It also
relates to governments capability, for the outcomes of the development process that improve peoples
quality of life, laws that are necessary and just, services that meet the peoples needs, fairness, equity,
due process, trust and confidence in government that stems from perception of its overall performance,
are all things that people want and value.
The fifth group of techniques includes cost and resource assessments. ROI is a simple way of assessing
IT investment from an economic point of view and CBA relates costs to the valuation of benefits using a
common or equal unit of measurement. TCO assessment is performed for the purpose of understanding
the costs of maintaining existing IT systems. In the area of human resources HR assessment is needed
to evaluate organizations human resources capability and capacity, including such special assessments
as TNA.
Sixth, there are various evaluation methods that can be applied to Web sites, service delivery, and
the performance or effectiveness of e-government. An example of such efforts is conventional Web site

liii

evaluation in which such aspects of government Web sites are assessed as interface, navigation, content,
reliability, and technical solutions (e.g. Peters, Janssen, & van Engers, 2004; Henriksson, Yi, Frost, &
Middleton, 2007; de Jong & Lentz, 2006). Web site evaluation is an incomplete picture of e-government evaluation, though. Broader evaluations are needed to describe e-service delivery, functioning of
e-government systems, and e-government development.
So far there is only a little research available on e-government evaluation. The limitations of the currently used measurement instruments are obvious. In addition, there is a tendency to follow the traditional
ICT evaluation process dominated by economic factors. It is worth remembering that the evaluation of
public administration is always challenging due to its fragmented nature (Stowers, 2004, p. 174; Peters
et al., 2004). A general e-government evaluation challenge is to give a broader view of the benefits and
performance of e-government. Factual evaluation schemes and frameworks vary case by case depending on the nature and aims of the evaluation (Peters et al., 2004). For example, Gupta and Jana (2003)
developed a flexible framework to measure the tangible and intangible benefits of e-government. Yet, one
of their conclusions on the basis of an Indian case study of the NDMC (New Delhi Municipal Corporation) was that to have a proper evaluation of the tangible and intangible benefits of e-government, the
projects should be in a mature stage with proper information systems in place. Many of the e-government projects in developing countries are still in a nascent stage, thus complete and proper information
for evaluation cannot be obtained.
Lastly, there are various kinds of impact and risk analyses answering questions about the risks of
e-government investments, their impact on humans and their health, on socio-economic conditions,
or on the environment. Risk analysis is a technique to identify and assess factors that may jeopardize
the success of a project or achieving a goal. This technique also helps to define preventive measures to
reduce the likelihood of these factors occurring and identify countermeasures to successfully deal with
these constraints as they emerge (ICH, 2007).

Development Stages of E-Government

One way to systematize the use and development of ICTs in the public sector is to apply the model of
development phases of e-government, which highlights the steps and the order of actions to be taken
when proceeding from the present situation towards the e-government vision. A conventional development stage model of e-government, sometimes referred to as an evolution model, a maturity model or a
stage model, describes a transition from a simple Web presence via interactive and transactional phases
to a totally transformed system of government (see e.g. UNDPEPA & ASPA, 2002; Im & Seo, 2005, pp.
190-191; Al-Sebie, Irani, & Eldabi, 2005; Siau & Long, 2005; Janssen & van Veenstra, 2005).
This model is needed in designing e-government initiatives and assessing whether a community is
mature enough to move to the next stage in service provision in terms of both supply and demand side
perspectives. The general rule is that the service at the lower level should have high maturity or take-up
levels or penetration records before entering a higher level, in order to ensure cost-effectiveness and feasibility. It should be borne in mind that this model is not strictly sequential, even if in reality it expresses
a logical development order within an individual e-government application area. The development stage
model and e-readiness scheme are illustrated in Figure 5.
As to the various maturity or development stage models, the simplest is a two-stage model of e-government growth, with categories of cataloguing of information online and transactions being completed
online (Reddick, 2004). Watson and Mundy (2001) classify e-government development into three strategic phases: initiation, infusion, and customization. Another three-fold typology is the Publish-InteractTransact model developed by Howard (2001) and applied by many development organizations, such

liv

Figure 5. E-government development stage model

Maturity

e-Government
vision
Full integration of
e-services across
administrative
boundaries

Seamless

Users can pay for

services and other
transactions online

Transactional

Users can download

forms, e-mail officials and
interact through the Web

Interactive

Enhanced

Emerging

Government Web sites

increase; information
becomes more dynamic
Government Web
presence established

E-readiness assessment in each stage:

Preconditions

Technological, behavioral and institutional readiness

as infoDev (2002). Layne and Lee (2001) proposed a four-stage model for classifying e-government
initiatives or programs: catalog, transaction, vertical integration, and horizontal integration. Another
typology is presented by Elmagarmid and McIver Jr. (2001) who classify e-government services using
four consecutive levels, each of which is built upon the capability of the level beneath it. These levels
are: displaying information, collecting uncomplicated data, facilitating complex transactions, and integrating services across the entire government administration. Of the typologies with five categories we
may mention three well-known models: UNDPEPA and ASPA (2002) scheme of emerging, enhanced,
interactive, transactional and seamless e-government, Moons (2002) model with information dissemination, two-way communication, service and financial transactions, vertical and horizontal integration and
political participation; and Accentures scheme, which categorizes e-government developments as online
presence, basic capability, service availability, mature delivery, and service transformation (Al-Sebie et
al., 2005; Hu, Cui, & Sherwood, 2006; Im & Seo, 2005; Eddowes, 2004; Forlano, 2004; Janssen & van
Veenstra, 2005; Andersen & Henriksen, 2006).

Remarks on Design Methodologies

E-government is essentially composed of information and service systems. The analysis and design of
such systems is an organizational process used by a team of government officials and IT professionals
to develop and maintain computer-based information systems. As such a design must be driven from
an organizational perspective, the special nature of public organizations must be taken into account,
including dependence on political supervision and democratic control, particular legal and administrative systems, and bureaucratic organization (Rondeaux, 2007, p. 1489; cf. Raymond, Uwizeyemungu,
& Bergeron, 2006; Frye, Goulledge, Leary, Sommer, & Vincent, 2007).
In recent decades systems analysis and design were more of an art, but due to the exponential increase
in the need for information systems, people in industry and academia have developed work methods
that make it a disciplined process. There are many methodologies for the development of information

lv

Figure 6. Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) (Hoffer et al., 2002)

Project identification
and selection
Project initiation and
planning
Analysis

Logical and physical

design
Implementation

Maintenance

systems, such as the System Development Life Cycle (SDLC), Data Structure-Oriented Design, Object-Oriented Analysis and Design (OOAD), prototyping, and Joint Application Design (JAD) (Hoffer,
George, & Valacich, 2002).
The system development life cycle (SDLC) or the waterfall model is a common methodology for
systems development in many organizations, featuring several steps taken in the development of information systems, as illustrated in Figure 6. It should be noted that there are various kinds of modifications
and also special applications of this model (Hoffer et al., 2002).
Systems development environments change over time. Nowadays systems for the Internet and for an
organizations intranet and extranets have become increasingly important (Hoffer et al., 2002).

e-Government tools and teChnoloGies

Technological Paradigm Shift
The technological paradigm in public administration focused primarily on processing existing data.
Electronic systems started to replace old manual systems, the watchword being automation. In this
context automation was actually perceived as one phase in the life cycle of scientific management (see
e.g. Schumacher, 1967). It is also worth emphasizing that at that time the use of computers in public
administration was globally rather rare.
Electronic communication via an existing telephone network emerged in the 1960s followed by electronic mail and File Transfer Protocol (FTP) in the early 1970s. A few years later Transmission Control
Protocol (TCP) was developed, to which Internet Protocol (IP) was subsequently added, allowing the
interconnection of multiple networks. The use of networks started to spread to civic and university usage in 1979. This expanded exponentially in the early 1990s, largely due to the creation of the World
Wide Web (WWW), which together with the graphical Web browser marked the final breakthrough. The
core Web technologies comprise HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP), HyperText Markup Language
(HTML), Web servers, and Web browsers.

lvi

The Great Internet Explosion took place around 1993-1994 and paved the way for the information
society and e-government enthusiasm, which was in full swing in the latter half of the 1990s. This recent
history is well documented. (e.g. Relyea &Hogue, 2004; Seneviratne, 1999, pp. 44-45.) E-government
enthusiasm marked the incorporation of ICTs into public sector reform. As summarized by Hinnant and
Sawyer (2007), the increased use of ICTs by governments was in response not only to the increased use
of ICTs by government stakeholders, such as citizens or businesses, but also in response to a growing
demand for governmental reform. Just as the decision to adopt a technological innovation by a firm is
based not only on the technology, but is also dependent on the organizational and environmental contexts,
much the same can be anticipated with government agencies (Srivastava & Teo, 2007).

E-Government Technologies
The small e in e-government refers to those methodologies and tools and underlying technologies that
make it possible for public entities to solve collective problems, to implement public policies, to perform
their basic organizational functions, and to interact with various stakeholders. E-government technologies
refers to the information and communication technologies (ICTs) applied by governments. Even if ICT
includes everything from calculators, videos and CD ROMs to telephones, in practical terms e-government technologies refers to computer hardware and computer software and the related computer-based
systems and applications designed for information handling and communication.
An integrated framework for acquiring and evolving IT to achieve the strategic goals of the organization is called information technology architecture. It has both logical and technical components.
Logical components include mission, functional and information requirements, system configurations,
and information flows, whereas technical components include IT standards and rules used to implement
the logical architecture (ICH, 2007). These tools and technologies include both proprietary and open
source platforms and applications.
Descriptions of e-government technologies can be loosely connected to e-government maturity model,
as illustrated in Figure 7 (Schelin, 2003; Ho, 2002).
The Internet has been and continues to be at the heart of e-government technologies. Governments
connect to the Internet by establishing services with an Internet Service Provider (ISP), which then can

Figure 7. E-government maturity and technologies

Maturity level
Seamless Web
presence

Web, e-mail, portals, digital signature, PKI,

SSL, ubiquitous technologies etc.

Transactional
Web presence

Web, e -mail, p ortals, digital signature, P ublic Key

Infrastructure (PKI), Secure Socket Layer (SSL)

Interactive Web
presence
Enhanced Web
presence
Emerging Web
presence

Web, e-mail, portal

Web, e-mail
Web
Technological sophistication

lvii

be accessed by citizens and stakeholders via their ISP subscription. Single entry to these public services
is called a portal. As to software applications, a standard design includes a firewall server, a web server,
a transaction server, and a database server. Internet-based solutions are built on the client-server concept,
which incorporates a number of computer devices that host or serve the software application installed.
These applications and solutions are part of the global network of networks, the Internet, which carry
various services from e-mail to file transfer to the resources of WWW (Brown, 2003).
Beside the Web, many other technologies can be and have increasingly been adopted by governments
in various applications (PDA, SMS, MMS, RFID, biometric identification, smart cards, GIS, interactive
TV, etc.). In this field the Internet remains an essential component in the technological convergence in
which previously separate technologies can interact and share resources, possibly paving the way to an
artificial intelligence network on the Internet or an ubiquitous network environment. Ubiquitous technologiesincluding mobile, wireless, pervasive, and ambient technologieshave been claimed to be
the next big step in the development and adoption of new technologies by governments.

E-Government Architecture, Systems, and Tools

In a technological context architecture is the design for the arrangement and interoperation of technical
components describing in general how IT is utilized by the organization. Functionally such an architecture
describes systems and their functions and interconnections. Systems in turn are collections of components
organized to accomplish a specific function or set of functions within an organization, such as a payroll
system or an information management system (ICH, 2007). Lastly, tools refers loosely to technologyassisted functional solutions, services or components designed for and utilized by the organization. This
section briefly describes the architecture, systems, and tools associated with e-government.
Enterprise architecture (EA) or e-government architecture is a generic tool to manage IT in a public
organization (Ebrahim & Irani, 2005). It is the description of the main processes and structures that the
organization aims to create and maintain through its IT solutions. It enables a multi-level perspective on
IT management with a special view to the strategies, structures and processes of public organizations,
centering around business process management (BPM) or business process change (BPC) (Scholl, 2005).
Understanding e-government architecture framework among public sector organizations is a significant
strategic step towards reliable and effective e-government adoption, as concluded by Ebrahim and Irani
(2005). Another related idea of EA is to see government as a whole, which tends to favor top-down
e-government design (cf. Grnlund, 2007). A simple reason for the need to integrate architecture is the
fragmentation of e-government systems that have often been organized vertically around departments. This
increases the need for vertically and horizontally integrated architectures addressing the communication
between systems within and between departments and organizations (Janssen & van Veenstra, 2005).
The organizations ability to successfully adopt, implement and use technological innovations, such
as new ICTs, seems to be an interactive outcome of various socio-technical factors arising from the
technology, resources, organizational structure, and ties to the external environment. However, occasionally implementations of e-government have experienced significant difficulties because Enterprise
Resource Planning (ERP) and similar systems are often departures from existing systems and may thus
be difficult to integrate into existing governmental procedures and norms (Hinnant & Sawyer, 2007).
IT management and planning is basically fairly similar in public and private sectors. Yet public organizations face special challenges deriving from their nature as public entities. Their decision-making
environments and systems are fairly complex and the characteristic features of the public domain leave
a mark on all activities, IT management included. ERP systems belong to this framework as the basic
technological infrastructure for e-government aiming at providing seamless business process integration,

lviii

standardized business practices, better interoperability, improved order management and workflows,
and improved customer service. ERP systems were, in fact, among the largest IT investments in public
sector organizations in the 1990s (cf. Raymond et al., 2006). What is essential in ERP systems is their
business process-based design, i.e. that they integrate individual organizational functions into a series
of modules so that a single transaction occurs seamlessly within the given information system (Hoffer
et al., 2002, p. 710; Ebrahim & Irani, 2005). Even if such thinking originated in the business sector, it
can be applied mutatis mutandis to public sector organizations too (see Ross & Vitale, 2000; Raymond
et al., 2006, p. 229; Frye et al., 2007).
Current trends as well as the efforts of ERP vendors indicate that the adoption of these systems in
public organizations will increase, as has been in the case in the private sector. As the issue of e-government becomes more critical for public administration and governance, integrated systems are required
to improve the public organizations ability to manage government processes and to guarantee the quality of service to citizens. Yet, even if ERP systems may provide benefits, their realization is far from
automatic, and undoubtedly the risk of partial or total failure is still very high. Thus, ERP adoption,
implementation, usage, and evaluation issues must be better understood in the light of varying contexts
and types of public organizations (Raymond et al., 2006, p. 237).
E-government systems and tools include a range of management tools designed to serve specific
functions, such as enterprise records management system (ERMS), knowledge management (KM) tools,
customer relationship management (CRM) software, decision support system (DSS), data management
system (DMS), content management system (CMS), workflow management system (WMS), and identity management system (IMS). Such systems are typically set up by larger public organizations that
need to find solutions to critical problems in their information and knowledge processes and customer
relations.

utilization and appliCation oF e-Government

Utilization of ICTs in Major Application Areas
The utilization of e-government describes governments ability to use ICTs in managing its internal
processes and external relations for the benefit of the organization, the customers, the wider community,
and society as a whole. This ability is a context-dependent matter in the sense that it depends in part on
the e-maturity of the society. Full utilization requires that government agencies understand more than
anything the factors with bearing on citizen adoption of e-government. This again leads us to such factors as perceived ease of use, compatibility and trustworthiness, which are among the most significant
predictors of citizens intention to use e-government services (Carter & Blanger, 2005).
Utilization of ICTs in the public sector can be systematized on the basis of the basic functions of
governments, the tasks or activities of public organizations, or e-government applications and technologies. A simple way to point out how governments utilize ICTs is to refer to the four building blocks of
e-government: e-administration, e-service management, e-democracy, and e-governance.
In the field of public management and administration ICTs are used to facilitate public organizations general managerial and internal administrative functions (accounting, payroll systems, document
management systems, etc.), office work, and knowledge and information management processes. Another
application area in this field is G2G collaboration.
The most diverse set of e-government applications falls into the category of public e-services. This
includes the adoption and utilization of ICTs in specific service sectors, such as general administration,

lix

financial management, healthcare, social services, education, cultural services, libraries, environmental
protection, waste management, public utilities, public transportation, public development policy, judicial
system, police, national security, etc.
E-democracy is another area with a wide range of applications. E-democracy combines two fundamental elements: (a) technological mediation tools and (b) democratic institutional arrangements. All
this can be potentially achieved by utilizing various forms of e-democracy, from information sharing
to discussion forums to citizen consultation to e-voting (e.g. Becker & Slaton, 2000; Keskinen, 2003).
The basic requirements of e-democracy are summarized by Gross (2002) as follows: citizens need to
be able to access information and to discuss political issues, and to vote electronically. (p. 250) This
leads us to three paradigmatic application areas of e-democracy: e-information, e-participation, and
ICT-assisted decision making (e.g. e-voting).
Managerially oriented e-governance processes are facilitated through such generic technologies
and applications as groupware, intranet and extranet solutions, databases, e-mail, www sites, and other
services of the Internet. Ultimately e-governance is a constellation of social processes, which means that
e-enabled practices bear fruit only if social actors, networks and larger social settings can be restructured
so that the potential of ICTs are fully utilized. In this field there is a range of supply-side e-commerce
applications (e.g. e-procurement and e-auction) and demand-side arrangements (e.g. e-vouchers), on the
one hand, and e-networking, e-contracting and similar tools of e-governance on the other.

E-Service Applications
ICTs in services affect not only service delivery, but also the service concept, strategies, quality, cost,
and production. The potential of ICTs in service provision includes cost rationalization (as a substitute
for manpower), more effective quality control, and closer link-up with the customer. Moreover, it has
potential in creating the desired human behavior and interaction.
The form-content distinction is useful in conceptualizing e-services. The most commonly used typology of e-government services divides these services into four basic forms or types of e-services: infor-

Figure 8. Flowchart of the core e-government process (Mllner & Grimm, 2007; cf. Vassilakis, Lepouras,
Rouvas, & Georgiadis, 2004.)
Front office
Citizens and companies
Completing
the application

Back office
Public administration

Processing of
the application
E-government
systems and tools

Delivery

External

Settling of
issues
Internal

lx

Table 1. Examples of e-service delivery applications (cf. Melville, 2007, p. 729)

Policy field

Tools and applications

ICT used by consumers

of services

E-health

Medical/clinical informatics, incl. electronic medical records (EMR) and

patient records; Clinical Decision Support Systems (CDSS); virtual hospital
and consumer informatics (incl. health portals and health information on
the Internet); remote patient monitoring; teleradiology, teledermatology,
telepsychiatry, and similar applications; bioinformatics

E-social service

Web sites for information on social welfare; child care Web sites;
Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) systems; electronic claim forms and
payments; e-social services for senior citizens; pension portals; expert
systems; telemonitoring and electronic home care; helper PDAs

Information available on
the Internet, chat rooms,
e-mail discussion lists,
Weblogs, news groups,
electronic bulletin boards,
narratives on personal Web
sites, self-help and support
group resources

E-education

E-school (school management software), online enrollment; online

payments for school meals and other school fees; online degree programs
and courses; post-secondary and tertiary certificates, diplomas, and
degrees obtained online; e-portfolio tools; electronic student assessment;
e-learning applications, such as Computer-Based Training (CBT), WebBased Training (WBT), and virtual seminar rooms.

mation services, communication services, interactive services, and transaction services (see European
Commission, 1999; Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, 2004; Stowers, 2004, p. 172). Most of the e-government maturity models are based on this or similar kind of typology of public e-services (see the section
Development Stages of E-Government).
A paradigmatic interactive service process is one in which a customer completes an electronic form,
sends it to the government, which, after internal processing, delivers the service to the customer electronically. A flowchart of such a paradigmatic e-government process is presented in Figure 8.
The content of public e-services is commonly referred to as e-service applications, which belong
to the functional core of e-government. They are usually understood as a use of IT for a certain defined
function, such as payroll or billing or, as typically in public administration, for some policy fields or
service areas, such as e-health, e-social service, virtual libraries, e-education, e-enabled public utility
services, e-courts, etc. Most of these areas are in a premature phase and also fairly new as research fields.
Examples of three e-service applications in welfare services are presented in Table 1.
Typically the emphasis on application areas varies from one institutional level to another and is dependent on the political-administrative system of the country. At the local level the emphasis is on local
governance and local welfare services healthcare, social services, and education under an e-municipality or e-city umbrella. At the regional level the focus is on special services requiring a larger population base (e.g. regional hospitals and universities) as well as applications serving regional development
and governance, such as regional information systems. At the national level the emphasis is on national
systems and portals and key institutions and services, including national universities and information
and service systems of state agencies. National governments have a special responsibility to provide a
national vision and guidelines for e-government development, in developing e-government infrastructure,
and in supporting regional and local governments efforts to build their e-service palettes.
As to the international level, suffice it to say that regional institutions, such as the EU and ASEAN,
use ICTs to facilitate their macro-regional cooperation (e.g. Dai, 2007; Centeno et al., 2005), whereas
international organizations focus on e-governance and e-development issues by utilizing development
gateways and portals, e-toolkits, and various means for e-inclusion and empowerment.

lxi

Organizational and Social Implications of E-Government

E-government adoption has a profound impact on public organizations internal structures and processes
and external relations. They change power in organizations, organization culture, management practices,
human resource management, and many other aspects of public administration. Most of these changes
are a result of informatization, i.e. changes in the capacity to collect, process and transfer knowledge
and related new forms of communication and interaction. E-government has an inherent tendency to
increase plurality within the public domain through more direct communication between government
and its customers and stakeholders. The implications of e-government adoption also include improved
preconditions for good governance.
At a concrete level e-government has already proved to be a good way of helping to rethink the role
of government and to reduce the amount of red tape. It is a means to increase flexibility and efficiency
and to shift the focus onto customers. These aspects bring us to the drivers and the very rationale of
e-government.
As to public organizations, the potential of e-government cannot be realized unless the rigid structures
of the contemporary bureaucratic system change with the times. The ultimate challenge in e-government is not to achieve a technical capability, create Web sites or establish information systems, but to
overcome the entrenched organizational and political division within the government (Fountain, 2001).
This is gradually taking place in most of the developed countries, enabling a shift towards joint-up or
collaborative government.
An important organizational implication of e-government is visible in the management of the organization and administrative and office work. Bradley (2006) notes accelerated changes at work in
the Net era by identifying such changes as more flexible work processes, stakeholder role integration,
the disappearing of repetitive work, the flattening of organizations, and the convergence of work tasks
from an international perspective. One of the most important changes is the increase of network-like
organization structures in the public sector indicating a transition from hierarchies to networks and from
command-and-control to initiate-and-coordinate type of public governance.
The realization of the potential of e-government is tied to the redesign of governments organization
structures and processes, usually discussed under labels like Business Process Management (BPM) or
Business Process Redesign or in a more radical form Business Process Reengineering (BPR) (Hughes
et al., 2007). In e-government radical redesign is not always possible, because of the immaturity of its
service environment, the protection of the rights of customers, regulatory reasons, political priorities, or
internal inertia in public organizations. Anyway, it is worth recalling Venkatramans (1994) argument that
only marginal benefits will accrue from superimposing IT on existing organizational conditions. The more
significant gains a public organization intends to achieve, the more radical organizational transformation
is required. Thus, redesign of organizational processes may start from automating existing processes,
but more significant gains can be expected if the processes are transformed and ultimately when there
is end-to-end transformation of the entire service value chain. Business Process Reengineering is the
concept that is expressly associated with the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business
processes to bring about dramatic improvements in performance (Hammer & Champy, 1993).
This challenge translates into a simple organizational rule: in order to move from an evolutionary
to a revolutionary organizational transformation, a requirement to abandon existing systems in favor of
the new system has been identified. Related to this, there is some evidence to claim that greater sophistication in IT systems and management may produce greater payoffs from use (Norris, 2003, p. 141).
Venkatraman (1994) identifies five levels of IT-enabled business transformation, as illustrated in Figure
9 (see also Hughes et al., 2007; Peristeras, Tsekos, & Trabanis, 2002).

lxii

Figure 9. Approaches to government process redesign (applied from Venkatraman, 1994; cf. Peristeras
et al., 2002)
High

Paradigm shift in government

Governance network redesign

Degree
of transformation

Government process redesign

Revolutionary
levels

Internal integration
Localized exploitation

Low
Low

Evolutionary
levels

Range of potential benefits and risks

High

In spite of this potential, the evidenceat least what was collected before the turn of the millenniumsuggests that very little has changed in the structures and processes of public organizations due
to the exploitation of ICTs. This is in line with the general fact that planned organizational changes
have been difficult to achieve. (Seneviratne, 1999, pp. 49-50; cf. Norris, 2003, p. 141). There are signs,
however, of improved IT adoption and managerial efficiency and productivity gains.

Managerial Impact of E-Government

As e-government in its current form is a fairly recent and rapidly developing phenomenon, its full impact
on public management remains to be seen. This is why the body of knowledge regarding e-government
is also lacking in substance regarding the impact of e-government on public organization and management (Orgeron, 2007, p. 1536).
If some decades ago IT adoption in government used to be focused on operational systems, it has
now reached the point where the emphasis is on interaction and transaction processes, the challenge
being more and more to adopt a strategic view of IT adoption and utilization (cf. Andersen, 2006).
This reflects the overall shift in the managerial impact of e-government. Yet, even if IT has certainly
changed management practices as reflected by the move from closed in-house systems towards open
e-governance and e-networking systems, there is a counterargument that IT has largely reinforced the
existing behavior and practices of administrators and public managers (cf. Andersen, 2006). Fountain
(2001) notes how e-government changes public management but also calls for government agencies to
abandon bureaucratic tendencies in favor of a less centralized approach to service provision. They need
a completely new framework in which to consider their role and tasks in the service of government. This
managerial transformation is still in its infancy.
Public management has long been dominated by the philosophy of efficiency. This picture may acquire new aspects due to e-government. Public managers have been disposed to raise the productivity
within their organizations and reduce the costs of operation, which has compelled them to seek new
technologies to help them increase managerial control and the productivity of individual employees.

lxiii

This is how computers infiltrate into every area of government operation, i.e. computers and information
networks have become indispensable to any public agency seeking a high level of efficiency. The advent
of the Web brought a new important element to public management. Namely, it provided new tools for
reengineering and even for a shift in overall management philosophy from efficiency to service quality,
thus connecting e-transformation in the public sector with total quality management (TQM), customerdriven government, and similar concepts (Scavo, 2003, p. 303; cf. Swiss, 2003).
Swiss (2003) provides an excellent account of IT as a management facilitator in government:
Results-based management aspires to be proactive, agile, and results-oriented. IT in the form of
data mining helps agencies proactively scan the environment; IT in the form of hand-held computers
and flexible databases helps the agency agilely monitor and act; IT in the form of GIS and integrated
information systems helps the agency focus on the overall results. At every step, IT provides capabilities
that are crucial to results-based management. (p. 180)
In their study of the impact of e-government on city managers managerial effectiveness, Reddick
and Frank (2007) concluded that the primary determinant of e-government and managerial effectiveness was demand from city council, residents, and businesses. Other factors leading to a greater use
of e-government for management purposes included external pressures from other governments and
collaboration among different governments as well as such sophisticated services as online payments.
This implies that e-government adoption and related managerial effectiveness are conditioned by various internal and external factors.
E-enabled practices require expertise that can be based on a single source of expertise or a combination of in-house expertise, outsourced services, publicly owned company, or joint venture or some other
PPP-based arrangement. The latest sourcing literature in this context emphasizes a portfolio approach
combining homegrown, hybrid, and outsourced systems. E-governmentrelated sourcing mixes are
usually indispensable for any larger public organization, but they also potentially create high switching
costs and path dependency (Scholl, 2006). As noted, governments may and actually often do contract
with private consulting companies and vendors to design and implement e-government applications,
platforms, and infrastructure. IT outsourcing is the utilization of external organizations for the production and/or provision of information technology services. It poses new challenges to e-government and
IT managers, who must monitor the rising trend in best sourcing and address increases in management
and regulatory complexity. One of the key tasks appears to be to find the best combination of onshore
and offshore alternatives that provide the best quality services at the most affordable costs in the context
of sustainable and inclusive public governance (Chen & Perry, 2004).

Critical Issues in E-Government

Many factors are critical to the future of e-government. These can be grouped into three broad areas of
the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework (cf. Panagopoulos, 2004; Srivastava &
Teo, 2007; Swiss, 2003):
a.

Technology. A wide range of critical technological issues have been addressed in the e-government
discourse. These include such topics as interoperability, system integration, usability, reliability,
survivability, data protection, security, IT adoption, digital rights management (DRM), and privacy.
The importance of such topics is that most of these issues deal with fundamental elements of the
e-government system, and may impede the development if not properly addressed. For example,

lxiv

b.

c.

information sharing, interoperability and systems integration are critical factors for the functionality
of e-government (cf. dos Santos & Reinhard, 2007). Reliability, survivability, security, usability,
and privacy are crucial not only to functionality but also to our basic trust in technological solutions, thus affecting the attainment of the critical mass of users of e-government services.
Organization. The other set of issues relates to public organizations. One of the most fundamental
issues is how governments succeed in reengineering their structures and processes with the help
of ICTs. This, in turn leads to a question of barriers to e-government adoption and problems in
implementation. Another organizational issue is how to encourage personnel to adopt the most
innovative tools and how to take care of the training challenge in a transformative phase. Financial resources and investments also constitute a set of challenges that are critical to e-government
development.
Social environment. In addition to technological and organizational issues, the success of e-government initiatives depends on a range of social issues and contextual relations. Of these, e-readiness has been one of the major issues, especially when e-government is applied to developing
countries, as also have been issues of access, e-inclusion, e-literacy, and digital divide. The digital
divide represents a gap existing between info-rich and info-poor, i.e. a gap in terms of access opportunities to the networked world essentially in access to information and telecommunication
technologies and Internet utilizationcaused by diverse social and economic situations among
individuals, families, corporations, and territorial communities (Baker & Panagopoulos, 2004,
p. 101). Building capacity to narrow the digital divide is among the most important issues raised
in global e-government discourse. At a more general level, one of the strategic challenges to all
governments is to consider how to guarantee a critical mass for e-government services in a given
context within a planned time frame, in order to keep the value promise of e-government costeffectively. This relates closely to economic, political and cultural differences between countries
and regions, which have inherent connections to their ability to utilize e-government tools and to
create genuine added value from them.

As stated earlier, e-government development is highly sensitive to the context in which it is to be

designed and implemented. The most pressing global question is how developing countries are able to
utilize it and thus be capable of increasing productivity, improving public services, increasing trust in
government, and creating connections to the global economy. According to several global benchmarkings e-government leaders include the Anglo-American trio of USA, Canada and Australia, the Nordic
countries from Europe, and Singapore from Asia. From the perspective of their current challenges the
nature of the critical issues in e-government is completely different from those in most other countries, such as newly industrialized countries, including China, India and Malaysia, and especially a large
number of developing countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
As-Saber and others (2007) claim that e-government is not a viable option for most of the developing countries. Yet this issue is far from black and white. Developing countries have for long sought
tools to develop e-government with their limited resources. Many countries have achieved at least
partial success in specific areas, such as e-government development in the states of Andhra Pradesh and
Kerala in India, the Bhoomi land registry system of Karnataka in India, the Village Phone and AgriNet
in Bangladesh, the InfoDes Project in Cajamarca in Peru, the e-procurement system in Chile, Citizen
Assistance Service Centers in the Brazilian state of Bahia, and many other cases (As-Saber et al., 2007,
p. 170; Wagner, Cheung, Lee, & Ip, 2003; Forlano, 2004; infoDev, 2002). When e-government leaders
are puzzled by interoperability, seamless service systems, authentication, and increased ubiquity, most
countries in the world see access to information networks and the establishment of Web sites and basic

lxv

information systems as the major challenges. Similarly, the added value of e-government applications
differs considerably due to peoples ability to utilize e-government services or chances for wider participation in the networked world.

Emerging Trends in E-Government

The megatrends that continue to condition the development of e-government include globalization,
information society development, new forms of social organization, and postmodern cultural trends.
Such contextual trends change both the political and the administrative dimension of government (Figure 10).
As to the trends in the public sector, there is a continuous tendency towards streamlining administrative machinery. Public organizations are becoming nodal points and coordinators in the multi-sectoral
governance field. ICTs can be used in making the transition towards more competitive and contractual
models of public governance and service delivery. Yet at the same time there is constant pressure to increase
transparency, inclusiveness and responsiveness in government, which, together with civic movements
and community-oriented governance strategies, constitute a counterforce to neo-liberal or NPM-oriented
e-government trend (see e.g. Felbinger & Holzer, 1999; Mlki et al., 2004; Argyriades, 2002).
Trends apparently affecting e-government include the increased importance of knowledge sharing
and interoperability, service transformation and integration, flexible organization, and ubiquity. If these
are applied to the four e-government content categories, we get the following picture of the emerging
trends (cf. Centeno et al., 2005):

E-administration. IT is becoming a strategic issue for public sector organizations. E-administration will be based increasingly on integrated systems with higher interoperability and flexibility.
Integration and the large-scale adoption of service-oriented architectures (SOAs) are generally

Figure 10. Contextual factors shaping e-government

GLOBALIZATION AND
NETWORK SOCIETY

Global interdependency and

global and multi-level governance

PARTNERSHIP
GOVERNANCE

Networking,
partnerships and
contracting
out

E-GOVERNMENT

Technological
mediation
and
knowledge
intensitivity

Seeking value for money and

sensitivity to individual preferences
and lifestyles

INDIVIDUALIZATION AND
POSTMODERN CULTURE

KNOWLEDGEBASED
SOCIETY

lxvi

among the most significant technological trends on the horizon, implying simpler systems, reliability, flexibility, and maintainability (Accenture, 2007). Knowledge management is becoming
an increasingly important function in the constantly changing environment with the sheer growth
in the volume of information. Organization structures will be made more flexible and business
process redesign will become a common practice in public organizations. Work methods seem to
be developing towards flexible work, which, together with e-work, will affect work practices in
public organizations.
E-service. There is a need to incorporate in the delivery chain a growing number of intermediary
private, social and public partners, which play an increasing role in the delivery of public services.
The involvement of stakeholders as well as increased fragmentation of e-services will increase
needs to integrate or reintegrate e-services. Another trend is increased user-centricity: the needs
of citizens and businesses will have a greater and more direct impact on e-government services. It
goes without saying that emerging trends also include seamless and ubiquitous service systems.
E-democracy. New participatory, deliberative and direct forms of democracy are slowly advancing as elements of the democratic system. New forms of network democracy may appear in due
course. Democracy may develop towards hybrid democracy, in which the role of e-democracy is
to serve as a kind of integrative form of democracy that helps to facilitate and integrate different
forms and mechanisms of democratic governance.
E-governance. The overall significance of e-governance will increase in the years to come. Knowledge management (KM) and governments capability to take care of networking, coordination and
collaboration are crucial for successful public governance. This will be supported by a virtualization trend as business and governance processes are dynamically provisioned or outsourced with
the help of networks and collaboration technologies (Accenture, 2007). The need for e-commerce
competence is likely to become crucial in public organizations that outsource a large proportion
of their public service provision.

A trend that may profoundly affect e-government in the long run is open source revolution. At the
heart of this change is the availability of source code of software subject to General Public License
(GPL) or other license agreements. Freely available open source software (OSS) is sometimes referred

Figure 11. Evolution of technology-assisted government model

High

Degree of
integration

Low

Place-bound
government:
separate walkin offices
Tight L

Wired
government:
shared service
centers, call
centers and
Web portals

Physical constraints

Ubiquitous
government:
integrated
multi-channel
access and
integrated
service centers

oose

lxvii

to as Free/Libre/Open-Source Software (FLOSS). The idea is to allow users to create user-generated

software content through incremental individual effort or through collaboration, contributing to cost
savings, standards compliance, and transparency to validation. An increasing number of national and
local governments are adopting open source solutions notably uptake of the Linux operating system
by governmentsin different parts of the world as an affordable alternative to proprietary or closed
software. (See e.g. Berry, 2007; Hahn, 2002.)
From a technological point of view the most radical change to be experienced in the public sector in
the foreseeable future is likely to be a gradual transition towards ubiquitous society (Blanger, Carter, &
Schaupp, 2005, p. 432). A simplified evolutionary view of this transition is presented in Figure 11, which
depicts the big picture of the transition from separate walk-in offices towards integrated ubiquity.
The ubiquity of network access and connections has become one of the key drivers of change in
e-government (Rehrl, Bortenschlager, Reich, Rieser, & Westenthaler, 2005; Murakami, 2003, pp. 7-8;
Sharma & Gupta, 2004, p. 464; Anttiroiko, 2005). This relates to a paradigm shift usually associated
with the third-generation Internet and with a critical mass of users having always-on high-speed Internet
access. This trend is currently most apparent in the strategies of East Asian developmentalist governments such as South Korea (ITU, 2005b), Taiwan (NICI, 2005), and Japan (ITU, 2005a), but in some
forms also in such leading e-governments as the US (NECCC, 2005), Singapore (ITU, 2005c), and the
UK, and in Nordic countries like Finland and Sweden (Anttiroiko, 2005). Similar developments are also
taking place in developing countries on all continents (Heeks & Lallana, 2004), which are in some cases
expected to leapfrog technology by the cost-effective use of innovative technology without necessarily
having experience of the previous generations of technologies.
The most important aspect of emerging u-society is the new form of interaction and transaction
that is possible anywhere and at any time due to the utilization of networks and applications based on
ubiquitous technologies. Thus, such networks extend the use of a computer in a workroom or an office
to other terminals and to other usage situations, from living rooms to public space and from streets to
moving cars or trains. In addition, a ubiquitous network environment makes it possible to transmit almost anything via the network (cf. Murakami, 2003, p. 7). Related to this, applications in location-based
services and of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) are also likely to increase in the public sector
in the coming years.

A Brief Conclusion on the Field of E-Government

In the first half of the 1990s the Great Internet Explosion paved the way for the information society
enthusiasm which spread throughout the world. As a part of this agenda e-government became a global
phenomenon. It has become one of the most important elements of the public sector reform agenda in
most countries in the world, simply because the development of Internet opened up a completely new
horizon to the potential benefits of the utilization of ICTs in the public sector. During this process the
development of e-government has became an increasingly relational and contextual issue in the sense
that significant gains can be expected only if the public organizations administrative, governance, and
service processes are redesigned or transformed, which in turn requires wide-spread IT adoption by
customers and key stakeholders of public organizations and more generally a certain level of e-maturity
in society as a whole. This is one of the reasons why e-readiness, e-development and digital divide have
become some of the most widely discussed topics on the global e-government agenda.
There are different approaches to e-government, which is a constantly evolving phenomenon due to
rapid technological and organizational changes. Some see e-government as e-NPM or e-commerce applied

lxviii

to the public sector, whereas others emphasize e-governments potential to streamline and reorganize
public service provision or to revitalize the democratic system. Technological developments and new
applications have also increased the temptation to relabel e-government with various new terms, such as
mobile government or ubiquitous government. E-government has nevertheless become the most widely
used umbrella concept in this field, which includes all aspects of electronic government.
E-government in its present form is still a novel phenomenon. Thus we know quite a little about its
organizational and social implications, managerial impacts, and the utilization of its potential. It is in
any case an integral part of the everyday work of government and will continue to evolve towards more
sophisticated forms. One of the projections of the future of e-government attaches its new shape to the
utilization of pervasive and ubiquitous technologies. In such a future e-government-related interaction
and transaction will be possible anywhere and at any time thanks to the utilization of networks and applications based on the cutting-edge information and communication technologies.

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