Developing an Analytical Framework for Analyzing and Comparing National E-Government Strategies

Abstract

Across the world, e-government strategies are developed for the effective digitalization of the public sector. They offer governments a framework for dealing with challenges such as technical and legal interoperability and collaboration between public and private sector stakeholders, and for promoting a future vision for a digital public sector. Since e-government strategies are policy document and, thus, likely to convey biased perspectives, analyses of these strategies can yield insights into these biases and different perspectives on public sector digitalization. Until now, there has been no widely recognized framework for systematically analyzing e-government strategies. Based on literature and by applying our findings to the Danish and German e-government strategies, we have developed a novel analytical framework for comprehensively analyzing and comparing national e-government strategies. The framework focuses on the strategies’ role, their function, and their specific content, such as strategic goals and measures to implement e-government. Analyzing and comparing both countries as a proof of concept shows fundamental differences in the level of digitalization and the implementation of e-government. This article contributes to both research and practice by presenting a comprehensive framework for analyzing national e-government strategies and by discussing their context-sensitivity.