E‐government evolution in EU local governments: a comparative perspective

E-Government Innovation, Financial Disclosure, and Public Sector Accounts

This study seeks to test and examine the relationships and impacts of e-government development and e-participation on the financial disclosure of public sector accounts in the context of small island countries. To study the relationships and impacts, the authors drew on (1) e-government development index and (2) e-participation index as measures of e-government development and e-participation. They developed a public accounts internet financial disclosure index (PAIFDI) to measure the online financial disclosure of public sector accounts. A total of 30 small island countries were selected for this study. Data were generated from the 2018 United Nations e-government survey and through assessment of the national websites of 30 small island developing countries. The findings from this study also showed that e-government development has a positive and statistically significant impact on PAIFDI, at a 5% level of significance, holding all other variables constant.

Digitally Transforming Electronic Governments into Smart Governments: SMARTGOV, an Extended Maturity Model

Smart government aims to provide intelligent and agile personalized public services to government stakeholders. Over the past few years, governments seek to employ innovative technologies, such as blockchain, analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, robotics process automation, and machine learning (ML), to improve citizens’ experiences and quality of life as well as government decision-making processes. They also aim to increase the efficiency of business processes and to transform the delivery of public services. However, the extant e-government literature lacks an inclusive digital government maturity model that can be used as a unified reference for guiding public organizations through the journey to smart government. Accordingly, the main aim of this paper is to develop a smart government maturity model by extending and revising the extant literature related to e-government. The developed model is then used to empirically evaluate the smart government initiative in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). We applied the model on 41 UAE federal governments’ websites/portals and measured their maturity level using 73 indicators. The findings indicate that the UAE is quite advanced with regard to smart government, as the majority of governmental entities scored “High” and above on the use of innovative and disruptive technologies in various domains. The smart government maturity model proved its efficacy and value in evaluating the UAE's smart government initiative.

Only for Citizens? Local Political Engagement in Sweden and Inclusiveness of Terms

In both policy and research, civic engagement and citizen participation are concepts commonly used as important dimensions of social sustainability. However, as migration is a global phenomenon of huge magnitude and complexity, citizen participation is incomplete without considering the political and ethical concerns about immigrants being citizens or non-citizens, or ‘the others’. Although research on citizen participation has been a frequent topic in local government studies in Sweden, the inclusiveness and exclusiveness of terms used in the context of local political engagement, which are addressed in this article, has not received attention. This article examines the Swedish case by analyzing information provided by the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and by websites of all 290 municipalities as well terms used in selected research publications on local participation. Additionally, this article studies the effectiveness of municipal websites in providing information to their residents about how they can participate in local democracy. The results show that the term citizen is commonly and incorrectly used both by local authorities and the Association. The article concludes that the term citizen is a social construction of exclusiveness and the use of the term citizen should be avoided in political and civic engagement except for the limited topics that require formal citizenship.

Health Transparency and Communication on the Government Websites of Ibero-American Countries: The Cases of Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Spain

Through the strategic use of health communication from their websites, government institutions can achieve greater promotion and prevent health issues for citizens, at whom such websites are aimed. Thus, the transparency of these sites is essential to favor issues such as participation, accountability, and good governance. In the present study, through content analysis, we examined how active transparency and communication in health is built through analyzing the information provided by the different administrative levels with competencies in this field (government, regions, and municipalities) from the following countries: Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Spain. The results were projected according to a double axis of analysis. On the one hand, we offer a description of the levels of management of this phenomenon (structural characteristics and available resources). On the other hand, we developed indices based on each of the countries to compare the typologies grouped in these Ibero-American countries. As a general conclusion, the results evinced insufficient transparency in common; however, the deficit was less in countries that had a public health system.

Determinants of e-government implementation at the local level: an empirical model

Purpose

The empirical research of e-government at the local level has been the subject of many studies in the last two decades. The evidence collected by those studies constitutes a relevant opportunity toward the development of a theory of local e-government implementation. However, several synthesis efforts are needed before such a theory can be developed. The purpose of this article is to contribute to that endeavor by proposing an empirical model of the determinants of e-government implementation by local governments.

Design/methodology/approach

The empirical model results from the systematic revision of 59 primary studies published in scientific journals, between 2002 and 2018. As a starting point, a conceptual map relating concepts such as readiness, diffusion, adoption, implementation and institutionalization is presented.

Findings

There is a common set of determinants that explains local e-government implementation in general, and three other sets of determinants that contribute to differentiate each one of three e-government dimensions: e-participation, e-transparency and e-services.

Research limitations/implications

Because it was found that different determinants are associated with different e-government dimensions, future empirical studies should differentiate between those dimensions when studying local government.

Originality/value

This is the first study to attempt a synthesis effort on the determinants of e-government implementation by local governments.

Building digital state

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to review and illustrate historical milestones and evolutionary stages of public sector reforms in such a typical transitional society as Kazakhstan through the prism of existing e-government development strategies, implementation models and institutional regulations.

Design/methodology/approach

The research is mostly based on a retrospective analysis of technology-driven public sector reforms and content analysis of various e-government strategies and platforms implemented by national and local executive authorities in Kazakhstan for the last two decades.

Findings

The results of the analysis has confirmed previously made assumptions that typical developing states tend to adopt different non-linear and multidimensional implementation strategies in advancing e-government reforms in comparison with developed countries. As it turns out, the continuity of actual stages or levels of such development not always corresponds in a consecutive manner to the formal phases of the most popular e-government maturity models proposed previously in academic literature.

Research limitations/implications

One of the fundamental limitations of the case study is that its findings and recommendations could relate only to a limited number of countries that have similar political, socioeconomic and administrative contexts. Taking into account the fact that Kazakhstan is not only a typical developing economy but also a transitional post-communist and post-totalitarian society that has its own unique political and socioeconomic features of governance, the results of case study could not be generalized and extrapolated to all developing countries, presumably narrowing them only to a very limited number of similar states, mostly, in Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia.

Practical implications

The main practical contribution of the article is that it provides a close review of e-government politics in Kazakhstan that could be helpful for policy makers and practitioners in evaluating, learning and improving the work of various technology-driven public sector projects in the area, especially from a regulatory point of view.

Originality/value

This inherently ethnographic narrative, which is based on the analysis of e-government legislation and implementation strategies derived from diverse administrative practices, could be interesting for those who seek to understand an ever-changing truly evolutionary nature of technology-driven public sector reforms in a typical transitional society.

The associativity evaluation between open data and country characteristics

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to review the levels of open government data (OGD) among various countries that are not consistent with the development levels of those countries. This study evaluates the associativity between OGD Index (OGD) and the characteristics of those countries as well as to compare the degree of OGD among countries. Accordingly, an advanced discussion to explore how a country’s characteristics affect how that country’s government opens data was presented.

Design/methodology/approach

The stakeholder relationships of OGD is analysed with the characteristics of a country. The usage data are compared with the data availability according to nine indicators. These data collected from the statistics and OGDI websites are grouped for comparative statistical analyses based on basic descriptive statistics, one-way analysis of variance and a regression model with variance inflation faction.

Findings

The results 1) revealed the reasons some countries have high-ranking indexes and 2) verified the high index values of countries in terms of their degrees of development. This study, thus, attempted to derive a balanced appraisal of national development and OGD.

Research limitations/implications

The study sample is limited only to countries 1) which open the statistical data; and 2) are of uneven population density and development degree. The OGDI is limited to expert evaluation. The score might be vary to experts and users with diverse countries at different evaluation period. The limitations can be attributed to the differences between OGDI and real open levels. These differences might influence the reliability and validity.

Practical implications

Government departments with OGD policies provide raw data in various formats and with application interfaces for user access. This study, thus, attempts to derive a balanced appraisal of national development and OGD. The factors that evaluate which types of countries open the level of data are explored.

Originality/value

This study establishes stakeholder relationships of OGD and extends to analyse the characteristics of a country and OGD that affect the government data open level. The relationships are evaluated through the OGDI with design score scheme. The measurement results indicated that a country possesses high relation to open data with high DI and nature resource.

MCDM for Candidate Selection in E-Voting

E-voting is one of the most important components of e-democracy and forms the basis of a democratic governance system. Voting results always lead to a broad debate in terms of candidate selection and whether the candidate elected to a position is suitable for that position. At present, the selection of qualified personnel and their appointment to responsible positions in public administration is one of the topical issues. In this article is proposed an MCDM for selection of candidates in e-voting. Criteria for the candidates' selection are determined and the relation of each candidate to other candidates is assessed using a binary matrix. Candidate rating is calculated according to all criteria. A numerical experiment is provided for candidate evaluation on the base of the selected criteria and ranked according to the importance of the criteria. The proposed model allows selecting a candidate with competencies based on the criteria set out in the e-voting process and making more effective decisions.

E-government and accountability

Purpose

Electronic government (e-government) is perceived as an effective tool to enhance accountability in public organizations. However, e-government implementation to enhance accountability is still unclear and involves many complex processes because of the multiple accountabilities disorder. The e-government elements that contribute to mitigate the disorders and dysfunctions of accountability relationships are still underdeveloped in the current literature. This paper aims to provide understanding on how e-government enhances public organizations’ accountability by highlighting the key elements of e-government that mitigate the disorders and dysfunctions of accountability relationships.

Design/methodology/approach

This study adopts a qualitative case study approach by using the case of Jordan Customs. Data were collected using a triangulation approach that involved semi-structured interviews, document reviews and observation.

Findings

The findings revealed that the e-government elements that mitigate the disorders and dysfunctions of accountability relationships are classified into three contexts, namely, technological, environmental and organizational aspects. The technological elements include systems integration, single window and electronic connectivity. The environmental elements embrace public participation and partnership council. The organizational elements comprise having well-defined strategic plan and risk management approach.

Research limitations/implications

This study contributes and gives further insight into how to address the confusion, fuzziness and dysfunctions in accountability relationships existing in the literature by providing several success elements that mitigate the problematic of disorder between accountability relationships in public organizations. The paper highlights the need to investigate further elements, particularly, in the organizational context, to assist public organizations in improving their performance to enhance accountability in their operations.

Practical implications

This study provides guidelines for future e-government implementation strategy in public organizations, particularly, in the context of developing countries, as most of the recent studies of e-government in developing countries indicated that they are suffering from difficulty of managing e-government implementation to promote accountability successfully and are struggling with a lack of resources and experiences to handle this new trend of technology.

Originality/value

This study is of a significant value, as it is one of the preliminary studies that empirically extend the accountability dimensions suggested by Koppell (2005) with the key success elements of e-government that enhance accountability proposed by Heeks (1998b) and other current literature. This paper enriches the body of literature by providing some new key success elements of e-government that enhance accountability in public organizations. It also contributes to the expansion of the boundaries of knowledge by adding further interpretation on how these elements reduce the existing confusions and dysfunctions in accountability relationships.

Electronic Government Services Adoption

This study investigated the moderating impact of perceived service quality on the positive relationship between perceived usefulness of e-government services and intention to use e-government services. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was applied as the theoretical foundation for the study. The research data collected was analyzed with SPSS while the graphical representation of the moderating effect was generated using the software known as Interaction version 1.7.2211. The results have demonstrated that perceived service quality of e-government services does not have any significant moderating effect on the positive relationship between perceived usefulness and intention to use e-government services. However, perceived service quality and perceived usefulness of e-government services were found to be positively significant in influencing the intention to use e-government services. The implications of this study are further discussed.

Online sustainability information in local governments in an austerity context

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to analyse and compare how austerity has influenced online sustainability information in Italy and Spain.

Design/methodology/approach

– The authors relate austerity policies to online information in order to ascertain whether austerity plays a role in the financial, organizational, social and environmental information disclosed on local government (LG) websites. The research has been conducted by analysing the websites of all Italian and Spanish LGs with more than 100,000 inhabitants.

Findings

– The results show that institutional and legislative pressures, as well as austerity measures, have played a relevant role in the increased production of information by LGs, although not all information is fully provided.

Originality/value

– The results may be of interest to managers and politicians as a stimulus to increase the flow of information. They may also be useful to policy makers, regulators and other stakeholders in order to foment environmental information.

Online sustainability information in European local governments

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to propose an analytical model that shows causal relationships between the amount and nature of information on strategies and the governance of city councils, as well as the contents of different dimensions of sustainability that are disclosed on the websites of local governments in big European cities. This model could reveal if the information is disseminated in a homogeneous and coordinated way and could improve the quality of the information, its coherence and its comparability.

Design/methodology/approach

– The authors have designed a questionnaire with 75 variables from the Global Reporting Initiative proposal to specify information disclosed on sustainability. The level of information about each of these variables has been gathered by consulting the contents published on the websites of the 142 local governments in the sample. Finally the authors propose a model about the cause-effect relationships between the amount and nature of the information in different dimensions of sustainability on the websites of large cities’ local governments based on the structural equation modelling methodology.

Findings

– The model obtained reveals that there is coherence in the sustainability information disclosed by large European cities on their websites. However, it is demonstrated that the relations between the amount of information about strategies and the dissemination of information on each of the dimensions of sustainability (economic, social and environmental) do not have the same intensity.

Originality/value

– The proposed model can be useful as a reference framework to structure online information supplied in a balanced and comprehensive way. This conceptual model can suggest ways for sustainable improvements based on the experience of analysed local governments.

The Government 2.0 utilization model and implementation scenarios

Although it seems that Government 2.0 will finally deliver the promise of a truly transparent government, many practitioners around the globe (particularly those in the developing world) are reluctant or unable to develop strategies and allocate resources to Government 2.0. As a result, governments around the world ignore or mishandle the opportunities and threats presented by Government 2.0. The primary reason underlying this behavior is the lack of understanding regarding Government 2.0. The purpose of the study is to address this gap in knowledge and understanding by presenting and illustrating fundamental concepts of Government 2.0. A web survey of 200 government websites from 40 countries (20 each from advanced and developing countries) and 45 Web 2.0 initiatives across the globe was used to present and illustrate fundamental concepts of Government 2.0. We suggested a three stage Government 2.0 Utilization Model (GUM) starting from information socialization (stage 1), and then moving on to mass collaboration (stage 2), and social transaction (stage 3). Based on the web survey, we also suggested three Government 2.0 implementation scenarios (i.e., standalone, nested, and hybrid implementation). The study will help researchers and practitioners in understanding the Government 2.0 phenomenon and the opportunities presented by it.

State e-Government Portals in Malaysia

Most of the international e-Government benchmarking studies have focused on national government websites such as portal of ministries at the national level. This paper examines the level of sophistication of e-Government websites for different states in Malaysia, as opposed to a national level assessment, both in terms of the breadth and depth of e-Government service offering. This paper adds to the existing body of knowledge in relation to e-Government web portal assessment in two ways. First, studies pertaining to e-Government in Malaysia focus mainly on implementation issues at the Federal/National level– The authors examined State level implementation of e-Government services. Secondly, they used a predetermined instrument to assess the sophistication level of State government web portals, by consolidating different measurement items from our review of literature over the past ten years. The authors analyzed the website for a total of thirteen states in Malaysia, in relation to six different dimension measures of e-Government service offerings, as prescribed by literature. These six dimension measures are the extent of transparency, interactivity, usability and accessibility of the portal, citizen participation, security and privacy, and maturity level of services. A content analysis of the web portal was done, using a predetermined instrument developed based on our review of literature on this topic, in the past ten years. Their findings suggest that different State Governments in Malaysia demonstrate different levels of maturity in relation to the six dimensions measured.

Reflecting on E-Government Research

After more than a decade of research in the field of e-government, it is now timely and appropriate to reflect upon the overall developmental directions in the area. This paper explores research progress to date by systematically analyzing the existing body of knowledge on e-government related issues, and reveal if there is lack of theoretical development and rigor in the area. Usable data relating to e-government research currently available were collected from 779 research articles identified from the ISI Web of Knowledge database, and by manually identifying relevant articles from dedicated journals on electronic government such as Transforming Government: People, Process, and Policy (TGPPP), Electronic Government, an International Journal (EGIJ), and International Journal of Electronic Government Research (IJEGR). Based on the investigation of the various studies, findings reveal that generic e-government applications were explored more than any specific applications, and the technology acceptance model (TAM) was the most utilized theory to explain research models. Although a large number of theories and theoretical constructs were borrowed from the reference disciplines, their utilization by e-government researchers appears largely random in approach. The paper also presents limitations and further research directions for future researchers.