E-Government Evaluation: Reflections on Two Organisational Studies

Abstract

Senior executives in public sector organisations have been charged with delivering an e-Government agenda. A key emerging area of research is that of the evaluation of e-Government, given that economic factors have traditionally dominated any traditional ICT evaluation process. In this paper the authors report the findings from two interpretive in-depth case studies in the UK public sector, which explore e-Government organisational evaluation within a public sector setting. This paper seeks to offer insights to organisational and managerial aspects surrounding the improvement of knowledge and understanding of e-Government evaluation. The findings that are elicited from the case studies are analysed and presented in terms of a framework derived from organisational analysis to improve e-Government evaluation, with key lessons learnt being extrapolated from practice. The paper concludes that e-Government evaluation is both an under developed and under managed area, and calls for senior executives to engage more with the e-Government agenda and for organisations to review e-Government evaluation to improve evaluation practice.