Understanding successful e-government adoption: a review of the literature

Understanding successful e-government adoption: a review of the literature

Abstract: Initiatives in place for e-government are universal and form a crucial factor in government investment, operations and service delivery plans. The making and implementation of e-government plans are varied and, most of the time, difficult to monitor and make comparisons with the other successful applications. E-government initiatives, however, have not been fully achieved in terms of their desired outcomes and expectations. A number of factors challenge e-government success. Having little knowledge of online service components, internet users, human component requirements, and infrastructure components for e-governments are among the global challenges in adopting successful services. This study aims to investigate the main obstacles in the creation and implementation of successful e-government practices and prescribes a way forward for successful e-government adoption. The paper reviews the literature examines the global best practice examples of e-government applications, and in the light of the findings proposes an innovative framework for successful e-government adoption.

Keywords: e-government; e-governance; e-government model; indicators of e-government development; information and communication technology; success factors; technology adoption

1. Introduction

The concept of electronic government (e-government) has drawn extensive interest for decades among citizens, policymakers, and politicians all over the world, leading to a maturing phase [1,2]. With the advent of new communication technology and the high explosion of its use as an infrastructure for communication, transparency, service utility and efficiency [2,3] governments all around the world are trying to  establish e-governments [4,5] in the aim to enhance efficiency, effectiveness, accountability and transparency, improving communication and access to information of stakeholders, reduce administrative bureaucracy [2]. Governments are making extensive investments in the telecommunication infrastructure and personnel that are required to handle and administer e-governments [6-9]. The use of the Internet and technology has an impact on all areas of the economy. However, implementing e-government is more than a technology or internet concept [10,11]. It involves institutional and organizational, social and cultural, economic, as well as legal and political [4, 12]. Most importantly, ICT skills and competencies of the human capital, the level of education, are organizational parameters that influence e-government implementation [13-15].

Research on e-government has grown within the last two decades [13-15] and has become a recognized research domain and public policy [15]. A rich literature has been developed, and many terms on e-governments have been developed over this period. Through the literature, the characteristics of e-governments can be identified [6-15]. It is characterized by the use of ICTs, such as the Internet, telephones, and computer networks [16]. The other characteristic of the concept is that these activities aim at supporting the activities of the governments, including the provision of products, information, and administration functions [17,18]. The other function of e-governments is to ensure there is an improvement in the relationship between the government and its citizens through the right communication channels [19]. It also adds value by ensuring that there is the participation of all individuals in the process [20,21].

This paper examines the case of e-governance longitudinally. There is also a proposal on successful pathways that can be used in the comparison of e-governments in terms of their agendas, visions, and application initiatives [13-18]. The critical question that is tackled in this paper is that ‘how can we best assess, categorize, and discuss the e-government concept and practice given the wide-range of e-government definitions?’ The lessons from the paper will consolidate the understanding of the efficiency and effectiveness of e-government services and contribute to the long-term sustainability of the programs. The analysis in this paper shows that e-governments aim at building resilient societies despite the process being complex [22,23]. For example, through e-governments, also sustainable development efforts can be supported. The paper describes the challenges, risks, and vulnerabilities that any government aspiring state-of-the-art e-government systems are likely to face.

The structure of the paper is as follows: The first section of the paper provides a literature overview and provides the starting point for the paper. Section 2 presents opportunities and success factors for e-government adoption. In Section 3, there is a representation of the research methodology and framework for the study. Section 4 provides a discussion of the results and critical success factors. In the fifth section summarizes the research findings and concludes the paper.

2. Literature review

2.1. Fundamentals of e-government

E-government is defined as the use of a set of technologies to enhance the functions of the government [4-23] including its effects on public service delivery, citizens’ satisfaction and democratic standards [2].

E-government provides both new tools and new capability needs for policymaking and practical implementation of governance to offer better services to citizens and to increase efficiency by streamlining internal processes [24,25]. E-government also requires new mindsets and understanding of technological implications when formulating the policies and strategies in order to improve the practice of governance.  A meaningful way to assess the e-government is to combine online service use with national statistics depicting traditional definitions of development (e.g. economic, political, and social indicators) [26-28]. The formulation of e-government would ensure that there is a look at the information on the governmental policies and indicators of the administrative policy [13,29,30].

Implementation of e-government requires identification of the appropriate steps [25] that would steer the successful implementation models and forms of interaction. These interaction models include Government-to-Government (G2G), Government-to-Citizens (G2C), Government-to-Employee (G2E) and Government-to-Business (G2B). Their descriptions and key-features are summarized in Table 1.

Government-to-citizens is the first and foremost form of e-government interaction. Government to citizens consist on providing customers with instant access to government information and services instantly, from everywhere, by use of multiple devices and channels (P.C., Web T.V., mobile phone or wireless devices) [Ndou, 2004]. It involves practices such as the eservices, online consultation with citizens, feedback by e-service users, digital e-services co-creation, participation on governments decision-making process, e-elections [1-2].

It is evident that citizens have developed increased ICT skills and access, governments are heavily investing in the development of e-services for citizen’s (such as passport, driving license, other I.D. documentation, citizenship certificates, registration in schools, presentation of official documents or payment of different public services) [16-22].

Table 1. E-government interaction models [31]

The second model is G2B. This model mainly looks at the business community. It involves creating a platform for direct interaction between the business owners and multiple layers of government, e.g. national government, regional authorities, or municipalities. Such a platform aims to reduce the cases of red tape and, at the same time, eliminate bottlenecks for the business owners. In such governments, the business community has the places where they can get to have direct engagement and interaction with the governments when it comes to new policies, credit schemes, regulations, and taxes. The strategy allows for a regular flow of information between the business community and the lawmakers while at the same time, encouraging the most significant levels of efficiency.

G2G involves online platforms that increase the interactions within and between governments. The communication between the governments is encouraged through the platforms. European Commission (E.C.) gave a directive in order to increase governmental communications through such platforms. This enables, for example, learning processes and dissemination of best practices identified in different European cities.

G2E mainly considers using online platforms and software to make governance simplified. Some of the activities that could be done through the platforms include the provision of funding, medical compensation, pension schemes, and bank information. The practice saves on resources that could have been used in employing individuals to carry out particular tasks.

2.2. Implementing e-government

E-government is defined as the use of a set of technologies to enhance the functions of the government [32]. Governmental agencies operating in different parts of the world are in various phases of developing e-government to make them move from the traditional systems [33, 34]. Nevertheless, the description of e-governments has been challenging. Some of the barriers include cultural, organizational, technological, and social issues [35,36]. These factors have been taken into consideration by the governments who are trying to develop e-governments [35,36]. Previous research has determined that some of the e-government would experience failures in the later phases despite success in the initial phases [37-40]. They give the reason that the adoption of e-governments is complex and also dimensional. However, again, the implementation of e-governments is not only about having the existing government services online. It is about the re-conceptualization of the services that are offered by the governments while focusing on the needs of the citizens [41].

The past two decades have witnessed different initiatives to implement e-governments, but the rate of adoption is still low [42-44]. The low adoption is from the fact that there is a lack of strategic framework there are theories that have been formulated in the past papers, but they do not adequately help in understating the failures in e-government projects [45-47]. The second element is that the e-government elements have been unsuccessful for an extended period since the deployment of the strategies has mainly concentrated on the technological and operational issues [48,49]. There is little that has been given to factors such as the availability of internet users, the components of online services, components of the infrastructure, and human capital components [50,51]. E-government, in such cases, needs to be addressed not only from the technological perspective but also consider the organizational, cultural, and social perspectives [52]. Hence, the success of e-governments would only be achieved when there is a look at whether the services have significance to the citizens [53]. There are those citizens who will be reluctant to involve in the implementation of e-government as they might be concerned about their security [54]. Security of information is one of the elements that has impacted the implementation of e-governments as many public authorities do not have the security strategies [55,56]. In this study, there will be filling the gap of the security strategies needed in the implementation of e-governments. This study will give examples of the factors that are required for security in implementation by making international comparisons.

2.3. Global ranking experiences of e-government

Most of the comparisons that have been done before focusing on a level of administration, e.g., the European countries, have attention put on their local government [57,58]. In contrast, the U.S. has a focus on the federal government [59,60]. A handful of publications compare the progress made by various national governments. This section will review of this topic based on the implementations that have been done before. They include some European countries, the U.S., and those countries in Asia that have shown leadership in e-government initiatives [61]. The three are chosen because other developing countries follow the precedence set by them [62-64]. It has been argued that longitudinal and multi-country analyses are crucial for advancing the research on e-government.

Digital States Survey by the Centre for Digital Government is the most reputable e-government study compilation in the U.S. [65]. It surveys the work done by all the 50 states in developing and implementing this project [66]. The sectors concentrated on include e-commerce, revenue, taxation, digital democracy, and social services [66]. In the country, about $200 million is spent on ICT innovation and interagency initiatives through e-government funding [67]. Firstgov, used by the U.S., is the most cutting-edge e-government portal. About 34% of sites are equipped with inline services, which can facilitate online transactions. Firstgov is the only platform of its kind in the world that allows remittance of fees online. Through Firstgov.com, the U.S. citizens can search, review, and report back on operations and guidelines of the government agencies. The portal is also equipped with a tool called ‘Chat’ through which citizens can inquire about programs, federal agencies, services, or benefits [68].

A recent United Nations (U.N.) report has placed countries in the E.U. second after the U.S. in e-government efficiency. The 2018 e-government readiness index correctly, highly ranks EU countries the report: Denmark (#1), Sweden (#5), Finland (#6), France (#9), the UK (#11), Germany (#12), the Netherlands (#13), Spain (#17), Luxemburg (#18), Austria (#20), Ireland (#22), Italy (#24), Belgium (#27), Portugal (#29) and Greece (#35) [56]. Accenture reports [69-74], released recently, have seen some countries fare relatively well. They include Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Ireland, Italy, Denmark, Finland, France, and the U.K.

One could say that the e-government platform used in European countries has a leaning on the need to improve citizen social experience [75,76]. Most of these nations are founded on a principle of enlightenment to all [77]. They consider education’s integral contribution akin to the hinge of e-government initiatives [78]. The way to achieve this plight is to discover that alleviating inequalities is a step in the right direction. The E.U., through the E.C. has adopted e-Europe, which has helped track the development and implementation of Actions Plans. The platform helps Europeans to experience the benefits of information dissemination to the society [79,80]. A complete system of interconnected services helps monitors progress and report to the relevant authority for approval.

The U.K. government, through the Cabinet Office, has created an e-democracy team that conducts democracy campaigns online. Recently, the government has rolled a campaign to get more people and business entities to embrace and establish an online presence. There are plans to increase the number of platforms where people can get online training and share new ideas. This plan will be actualized by making internet access cheap for platforms with many participants such as libraries, colleges, and football clubs [81,82]. Note that Denmark was among the first countries to create e-democracy services. About 14000 eligible Danish voters tested an e-voting system during the 2004 European Parliamentary elections [83]. The platform has furthered the claws of e-democracy integrity by allowing political parties, interested organizations, and citizens to voice their concerns. The turning point for Denmark was the Swedish Government’s Official Report on Democracy done in 2002 to find out whether ICT could be adopted to improve local democracy within the country. The government seeks the opinions of the Citizens through the Internet to provide correspondence on matters of policies and guidelines [83].

Asia came third with some countries performing well according to the 2018 index. The 2018 E-government Readiness Index put the Republic of Korea (#3), Singapore (#7), and Japan (#10) in their respective global positions [56]. Countries in this continent do not follow a single criterion for developing their e-government initiatives. In 1987, the Republic of Korea put up measures to strengthen the Information technology. Koreans have benefitted from this upgrade from 1990 to access online birth certificate and other online platforms [84]. Between 1996 to 2001, the government has spent about $ 5 billion in ICT. The country is a leader in the speed of ICT diffusion, mobile community use (72%), and houses in the fast Internet (70%) in the world. After laying the foundation by developing a robust I.T. infrastructure, in early 2001, the government legislated the e-Government Law and instituted the e-Government Special Committee [85]. Singapore ranks high in the 2004 index because it invested in e-government as early as 1980. The CSCP (Civil Service Computerization Programme) was launched. Itwas later replaced by an action plan in 2000. This project was the first e-Government Action Plan, which took effect for three years. The action plan has six programs. They include communications and information education, Knowledge-based workplaces, operational efficiency improvement, e-service delivery, robust and adaptive information, and communications infrastructure and technological experimentation [86].