Moderating effects of business-systems corruption on corruption in basic national institutions and electronic government maturity: Insights from a dynamic panel data analysis

Abstract

Corruption has emerged as a well-debated subject against the backdrop of electronic government (e-government). While e-government has attained a level of sophistication in leading countries, there are countries for which going digital remains comparatively new on their national schedules. Their struggle and lag in reaching maturity in e-government can be attributed to corruption, which is an infamous issue prevalent across the globe and argued to impede technological innovation. Despite such a possibility, there is a paucity of research examining the “corruption–e-government” linkage. This study, hence, adopts the institutional perspective for conceptualizing corruption and seeks to understand the relationship of corruption in basic national institutions and national stakeholder service systems with e-government maturity. Specifically, by grounding the discussion on the agency theory, the rent-seeking theory, and the perspective of institutions as structures of cooperation and power, this study analyses the moderating influence of corruption in a national stakeholder service system (i.e., business systems) on the relationship of corruption in three basic national institutions (i.e., political, legal, and media) with e-government maturity in a country. The hypothesized relationships are empirically validated using a panel data of 94 countries, and the findings confirm that political corruption, legal corruption, and business-systems corruption in a country play vital roles in influencing its e-government maturity. Implications of our results to research and practice are discussed.