E-government evaluation: Citizen's perspective in developing countries

Abstract

Like the evaluation of all other information systems initiatives, the evaluation of e-government in both theory and practice has proven to be important and complex. The complexity of evaluation is mostly due to the multiple perspectives involved, the difficulties of quantifying benefits, and the social and technical context of use. The importance of e-government evaluation is due to the enormous investment put in by governments for delivering e-government services and to the considerable pace of growing in the e-government field. However, despite the importance of the evaluation of e-government services, the literature shows that e-government evaluation is still an immature area in terms of development and management. This work is part of a research effort that aims to develop a rigorous and holistic evaluation framework for e-government systems. The main aim of this article is to develop evaluation criteria for an effective, adaptable, and reflective assessment of e-government systems from the citizen's perspective. Developing countries suffer from poor citizen utilization of their e-government initiatives, and the adoption of such criteria would positively contribute in enhancing government understanding of the factors that influence citizen utilization of e-government systems. Moreover, the criteria also can be used as means for providing valuable feedback for the planning of future e-government initiatives. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.