Abstract
The authors divide their research in several phases. First, they conduct a literature review in order to identify relevant studies and theoretical papers covering the topic of governmental e-services. Then, they conduct an environmental scan in order to identify relevant governmental e-services in the EU countries. Further, the authors focus their research on eight European countries and conduct a deeper analysis of the implemented Government to Business (G2B) e-services. Research is centered on the eight G2B e-services. The identified e-services are firstly ranked according to their maturity level, and then analysed by using a developed questionnaire. The aim was to systematically collect enough information on the e-services in order to be able to conclude if the users may consider an e-service as responsible, reliable, accurate, secure, transparent and trustworthy as well as to conclude if an e-service addresses privacy issues, duties to remember, and the right to be forgotten. The comparative analysis of the identified G2B e-services in the eight European countries identifies weak spots of e-services and points them out in order for them to be improved. The identified gaps refer to the long-term service continuity plans, policies giving information on storage and preservation methods, long-term preservation of digitally signed records, use of clients’ data etc. One of the by-products of this research is a check list which can be used by the users of e-services as guidance for establishing trust in an e-service they (intend to) use but it also can be used as guidelines by e-service providers. The authors conclude that not only the comparative study provides an insight into the state of development of G2B e-services in the investigated countries but it also reveals the areas of possible improvements in the context of establishing accountability and trust in governmental e-services in general.
Highlights
From the late 1990s, the influence of ICT and its adoption in the governmental sector had a great impact on the various aspects of how citizens and businesses interact with different governmental services, resulting in new types of services being introduced, namely e-services and the development of e-government (Lemieux, 2016; Andersen et al, 2010; Palanisamy, 2004)
The other seven countries were chosen on the basis of the best online availability of the materials needed for the research at the time the research was done1
The results and the discussion in this paper focus on the eight G2B e-services
Summary
From the late 1990s, the influence of ICT and its adoption in the governmental sector had a great impact on the various aspects of how citizens and businesses interact with different governmental services, resulting in new types of services being introduced, namely e-services and the development of e-government (Lemieux, 2016; Andersen et al, 2010; Palanisamy, 2004). Such developments are changing the way that service firms and consumers interact, and are raising an increased interest among researchers in understanding how e-servicing impacts on citizens or businesses, their satisfaction, their loyalty, their service quality expectations, and how this knowledge leads to better frameworks for e-service provision (Boyer et al, 2002; Rust and Kannan, 2002; Esteves and Joseph, 2008). While the use of technology can improve control in these e-government services, technology by itself is not enough to ensure trust, as observed by Lemieux (2016): “While the efficiency gains that use of ICTs in these specific areas may well have seen improvements in public sector capacity to process information, there is evidence that the overall impact of introducing ICT systems on transparency and accountability may be less than clearly positive.”
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