A Systematic Literature Review on Existing Digital Government Architectures: State-of-the-Art, Challenges, and Prospects

Abstract

System architecture plays a crucial role in the establishment of Digital Government infrastructure. Over recent decades, various architectures have been introduced by scholars for the establishment of Digital Government infrastructure. However, there is no uniform agreement on Digital Government architecture concepts required for Digital Government infrastructure. To more thoroughly examine the Digital Government architecture introduced in this article, we collected 103 papers published between 2003 and 2020 retrieved from five leading literature databases. To conduct our research, we followed best practice scholarly accepted guidelines for researchers. Per the guidelines, we formulated research questions and employed an approach based on specific inclusion and exclusion criteria to meet our research goals. Our study found evidence that there is a lack of knowledge in terms of the state-of-the-art in Digital Government infrastructure and its challenges concerning existing Digital Government architectures. We identified a set of primary Digital Government architecture characteristics and building blocks on which the Digital Government infrastructures are built. These components are meant to improve the design of future Digital Government systems and applications. Furthermore, our research revealed a need for designing a reference architecture to provide government organizations with the best practice knowledge of already existing Digital Government architectures.