Investigating the Impact of Corruption and Culture on Electronic Government Maturity

Abstract

Utilizing the concept of “fit as moderation” from strategy literature, and by drawing from the literature on (1) corruption and growth; and (2) Hofstede’s dimensions of national culture; this study investigates (1) the impact of systematic (or bad) corruption and idiosyncratic (or good) corruption on e-government maturity; and (2) the moderating effects of national culture in terms of power distance, individualism, masculinity, and uncertainty avoidance on the relationships of systematic and idiosyncratic corruption with electronic government (e-government) maturity. Based on publicly available archival data from 60 countries, for a cross-sectional period of 2004 to 2008, our results provided support for the hypothesized model. Specifically, while systematic corruption was negatively related with e-government maturity, idiosyncratic corruption was positively associated with it. Further, while the relationship of systematic corruption with e-government maturity was negatively moderated by uncertainty avoidance, the relationship of idiosyncratic corruption with e-government maturity was contingent on power distance in the negative direction, and on individualism, and masculinity in the positive directions. Our findings contribute to the theoretical discourse on e-government by not only understanding the differential impacts of corruption types on growth and maturity of e-government, but also by understanding how national culture affects the relationship of corruption with e-government maturity.