Why e-government projects fail? An analysis of the Healthcare.gov website

Abstract

Electronic government or e-government project failure has been widely discussed in the literature. Some of the common reasons cited for project failure are design-reality gaps, ineffective project management and unrealistic planning. Research shows that more than half of e-government projects result in total or partial failures with regard to the initially grounded standards, scheduling or budgeting plans, while even more fail to meet end users' expectations. This paper focuses on the factors that lead to e-government project failures. It explores the context of project failure and investigates the launch of the U.S. Healthcare.gov website. This case is concerned with a highly public e-government project failure where gaps between political agendas and planning are identified through an examination of media sources and social media data analysis of Twitter discussions. The finding of the analysis indicates that e-government users react against failures, while e-government projects will impact and attract opinion makers' attention that influence audience behavior. This research provides classifications of e-government project failure reasons and sources. Moreover, another contribution is the beginnings of a typology for social media activity against e-government project failures.