Electronic government and corruption: Systematic literature review, framework, and agenda for future research

Anupriya Khan,Satish Krishnan,Amandeep Dhir

doi:10.1016/j.techfore.2021.120737

Abstract

The notion of corruption has emerged as a prominent topic against the backdrop of e-government. However, there are diverse but disorganized viewpoints about the relationship between e-government and corruption, thus creating difficulties in obtaining a structured overview of the existing literature and identifying the avenues to take this research area forward. Despite this, prior studies have made limited attempts to gather these fragmented observations to guide future research holistically. To address this concern, we conduct a systematic literature review (SLR) of 63 articles discussing e-government and corruption and provide a comprehensive synthesis of the current knowledge in this domain. In particular, we offer a thematic classification of prior studies, uncover the key gaps in the literature, identify the potential research areas, and provide recommendations to broaden the avenues for future studies. Furthermore, we propose an integrated conceptual framework to caution policymakers about the incomplete understanding offered by the existing studies and to inspire further research in several ways.

Highlights

E-government refers to the development and use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) with the aim of streamlining the delivery of public services to citizens, businesses, and public agencies (Carter and Belanger, 2005; Nam, 2014); recently, it has become a life-sustaining means for managing a crisis due to its ability to improve service delivery, leadership, communication, and collaborative efforts (United Nations, 2020)
Based on these two approaches, e-government can be represented differently. It can be defined as the use of ICTs in the in ternal operations of the public sector to integrate workflows, improve transaction times, and enable open information transfers to address the inefficiency induced by traditional paper-based systems (Abu-Shanab et al, 2013), and it can refer to the use of ICTs by the government to interact with and provide services to external stakeholders, such as citizens and businesses (Das et al, 2017)
Guided by the insights obtained from this review, we develop a conceptual framework to offer a comprehensive overview of the re lationships between e-government and public sector corruption

Summary

Introduction

E-government refers to the development and use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) with the aim of streamlining the delivery of public services to citizens, businesses, and public agencies (Carter and Belanger, 2005; Nam, 2014); recently, it has become a life-sustaining means for managing a crisis due to its ability to improve service delivery, leadership, communication, and collaborative efforts (United Nations, 2020). With technological advances, government organizations have undergone a gradual transformation from such an inward-focused endeavor to a citizen-centric, outward-focused approach through which they can connect to external stakeholders (e.g., citizens and businesses), under stand their needs and concerns, and take action (Ho, 2002; Nam, 2014). We posit that e-government can be used for a wide range of purposes, including better service, improved management, enhanced governance, increased public participation, and better relationships with citizens and businesses, to name a few Such diverse benefits have inspired many researchers and practitioners to regard e-government as an effective anti-corruption tool (e.g., Hartani et al, 2020; Nam, 2018). These conflicting views make it imperative to comprehend the extent to which e-government is associated with corruption while calling for a deeper understanding of the notion of corruption

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