E-government Projects Research Articles

A Comparative Study of Digital Government Policies, Focusing on E-Government Acts in Korea and the United States

The first enactment of a single national e-government act took place in Korea in 2001. Subsequently, the United States enacted its electronic government act in November 2002. Unified e-government acts in Korea and the United States have since been established and enforced for nearly two decades, and provide interesting case studies for examining the long-term influences of the e-government act on national e-government and digital government policies. The e-government act of the United States is much more comprehensive than the e-government act of Korea. The US e-government act focuses on strengthening the federal government’s ability to regulate the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)’s role in e-government implementation. The OMB has overall jurisdiction over the e-government promotion process and will continue to consult with ministries on appropriate budget support for each project. In contrast, the e-government law in Korea is based on electronic document processing as the basic viewpoint and has been downgraded to a level that supports document reduction and electronic processing of documents, rather than a comprehensive law that can support e-government projects. The comparative case study of e-government acts in Korea and the United States revealed that, from the standpoint of digital government transformation using information technology, it is most important to promote digital government policy directly from the ministry that manages the budget, or to establish a dedicated organization under the ministry to secure strong coordination while linking it with the budget.

A Proposed Three Tier Framework for E-Governance Services in Indian Context

In the course of this study, the researcher is designed the framework for successful implementation of the e-governance services in Indian context for today’s scenario. The researcher is presents a Three Tier Framework for e-governance services by implementing latest and cutting edge information technology. Researcher proposed the framework for implementing successful e-governance projects in the district, which provides electronic services at the village, Tahasil, district and state level. Researcher achieved the wide range analysis of empirical transactional data and managed to gather the information in order to provide all inclusive responses to the research problem statement, therefore, considering the satisfactory outcomes.

Performance Evaluation of E-Governance Initiatives in Satara District of Maharashtra, India

An attempt was made to evaluate performance of e-governance projects in the Satara district of the Maharashtra state in India. The primary data collected from the stakeholders of the e-governance projects implemented in the Satara district to fulfill this evaluation process. Such an analysis also aims to know the performance of the egovernance projects. In this research article, researcher identified the performance indicators/variables for evaluation of the performance of the e-governance initiatives in the district.

Socio-economical Costs and Benefits of E-Governance in India through CSCs

The key influence of E-Governance is to improve government procedures, linking people and building peripheral contacts by e-services. But because of some ins and outs citizens are not cognizant about such facilities and services or fail to receive such services up to its extent. Therefore, these services are suffering from meagre enactment. It is discussed in the past studies that the ICT play vital and significant role in societal development. ROI cannot be the focused and foremost objective when e-government projects are envisaged. These are frequently determined for attaining and preparing effectiveness in delivery of services. To raise usefulness, The Indian Government conveyed the idea of Common Service Centres (CSCs). CSCs are the common point for offering the necessary public useful services like social development schemes, banking & finance, health, education skill development and agriculture to citizens in rural and remote areas of the country. The key objective of present study is to evaluate the role of Government, Semi-Government, CSCs and other various agencies in promoting E-Governance facilities with high societal benefits in India.

Elektronik Devletin Gelişim Evreleri

In post-digital ecosystem, the implementation of effective electronic government systems comes to the fore as a strategic priority. Removing paper based processes and increasing integration of the systems used by different departments and agencies are directly related to the power of a government. e-Transformation of the government from traditional to electronic takes place in four stages, namely the phase of initial presence, unification, integration and social transformation. In the initial presence phase, each government institution separately provides services to citizens through its own site. In the unification phase, citizens will be able to access all government agencies' systems through a single website with a single username and password. In the integration phase, the systems of all government agencies will be linked to a common reference and archive system as well as common databases. Finally, in the last phase, the most important phase of electronic government applications, it will be ensured that citizens and the government will meet on the internet through electronic government applications. In this phase, the society will become an information society, and thus increase its productivity at individual level. Therefore, e-government projects have strategic importance for governments. In this context, the study emphasizes the importance of the involvement of the society to electronic government projects and suggests a new classification for the development phases of e-government.

Ease of Doing Business and E-Governance in India – Initiatives and Challenges

The phenomenal role of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the delivery of citizen services in the public or government sector as well as private sector has been gaining momentum. The technology and the methods used in e-governance project provide a roadmap for efficient delivery of citizen services at the convenience and comfort of people. E-governance ensures equitable access to public services, accountability and transparency in the governing process, saving of time due to provision of services through single window, reduction in corruption, convenience and empowerment. The use of ICT in provision of citizen services helped in easing of doing business processes. ICT enabled e-governance platform has paved way for the businessmen to perform their processes easily, quickly, conveniently and transparently. The present descriptive research paper attempts to provide an understanding of the concepts of “Ease of Doing Business” and “e-Governance”; to exhaustively explore e-governance initiatives and to identify the challenges in implementing e-governance in Indian context. For the purpose of present research paper, only secondary data sources are explored and various research articles, research papers and related e-governance websites are visited and analysed.

Exploring the Different Dimensions of Challenges in E-Governance Projects – A Literature Review Analysis

Digital technology is expected to play a key role as an enabler by providing a platform for interaction and improving public service delivery. By the adoption of digital technologies, e-Governance tries to ensure transparency and accountability, enhance efficiencies within the government, and empower people through information. Taking into consideration its advantages, e-Governance is being adopted by both developed as well as developing countries. In the developing world, including India, the number of e-governance applications has risen rapidly in recent times. Even though high amount of investments are made for e-Governance, past studies show that the success rates of e-governance projects are lower than the expected levels. Several projects incur time and cost overruns, do not meet stakeholder expectations or are even abandoned before completion. Identifying the kind of challenges faced in e-Governance projects should help in the adoption of established project management methodologies and best-practices to overcome the challenges. A systematic literature review is conducted from relevant studies by assessing the quality of studies, answering the research questions and extracting available information. This paper focuses on the identification of the challenges in the implementation of e-Governance projects by means of a systematic literature review. The challenges that emerged from the literature review during the period 2003 to 2017 were categorized in order to organize the identified challenges. The challenges were identified and the changing nature of the challenges over the period was analyzed. The findings from the research provide insights into the nature of challenges in the implementation of e-Governance projects. The findings can be used as a reference for better planning while initiating e-Governance projects by the government departments, software development agencies and other potential key stakeholders. The results are expected to contribute in providing a baseline for pursuing further research in this area.

Unified and integrated authentication and key agreement scheme for e-governance system without verification table

E-governance or electronic governance is an application of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for delivering cost-effective government services by any country to its citizens with reliability, transparency and efficiency. Majority of authentication schemes for e-governance in India are based on single-server environment. To access the services, users need to register themselves at the authentication server for every e-governance service. Various e-governance services work through different servers, and therefore users get registered on each server separately. These services and servers require a unified and integrated authentication scheme to overcome the problem of multiple registrations and login processes. This paper proposes a dynamic authentication protocol based on the identity of a user for multi-server architecture without using verification tables. It is also capable of integrating all the existing e-governance projects. The proposed protocol fulfills the security requirements such as mutual authentication, traceability and identity protection along with the facility to share a session key among all the servers for secure communication.

Analysing and securing the sustainability of e-Government projects from technical aspect using employees perspective approach

Sustainability of eGovernment projects in developing countries is an evolving area, in 1987 India has started its major computerization in government sector by launching the national satellite-based computer network (NICNET). Subsequently in 2006 government has approved National eGovernance plan, with projects classified under Centre, State and Integrated. The aim of plan is citizen centric with anywhere anytime access, increased efficiency and reduced cost. These high aiming and crucial projects face various challenges and hence it’s working team plays a pivotal role in their sustainability. In this research using employee perspective approach an algorithm and a model has been developed for conducting studies of similar nature. Further the determinant named as Backend, Frontend and Best Practices has been identified and analysed in Indian context. We have conducted a survey on a sample size of more than 400 employees working in these projects. The results and findings have revealed that continuous learning and training plays a key role for project sustainability. As per the research conducted it has been identified that the backend factors are of eminent importance at all stages in project except conceptualisation phase.

A review of the generic end-user adoption of e-government services

E-government projects provide many advantages and offer benefits to governments and their citizens. Hence, the big issue and challenge for governments are how they can increase citizen adoption. This has resulted in the development of many e-government initiatives that aim to enhance the provision of public services to citizens and improve associations with industry and world business. It is shown that there are critical success factors and barriers in e-government adoption, and technology adoption more generally, which identifies the fact that current e-government adoption models do not adequately explain the needs of citizens. Based on the diagrammatic of a detailed structure of review methodology, existing studies show that national culture, trust, the information system success model, and knowledge services are very crucial issues for citizens regarding new system application in the successful uptake of e-government services. Therefore, this article presents a review of the generic end-user adoption of e-government services based on a theoretical perspective and the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use Technology model. Furthermore, this article presents a conceptual model as a better foundation for the development of e-government. The findings of this article will contribute to the limited e-government adoption literature available by providing insights into end users’ perceptions of e-government services.

Computerisation of Public Administration in Slovakia – Impact on (the Fiscal Position of) Municipalities

The authors of the paper will analyse the structure of revenues and expenditures of local governments and evaluate the actual level of their independence. The authors will try to identify the room for improving of the financial position of the municipalities and special attention will be paid to a certain means of rationalisation of public administration, particularly computerisation within the e-Government projects that should, inter alia, lead to reduction of the administrative burden laid upon (local) government bodies and also saving of the budget. The analysis, largely based on a survey conducted by the authors within primary research, shows that performance of reforms in terms of rationalisation efforts may be a way forward, hence, the one analysed in this paper was not implemented in a fully satisfactory manner.

Integration and Scaling in an E-Government Project

Purpose: Scaling is an important concern in the management of Information Systems projects. E-Government projects are no exception to the challenges of scaling. The problem is more severe because of a large and diverse population of target users and more crucial because of vulnerability of the target population in case of failure of such initiatives (in projects like public distribution system of food). In spite of a significant awareness of its importance among implementers, scaling still remains a challenge. This paper examines this important issue. Design/Methodology/Approach: The case study method has been used to demonstrate the relationship between integration and scaling of e-Government projects. This study employs analytic generalization from field case as a method to theorize a broad framework for integration of ICT projects. The context of this study is an e-Government project in West Bengal, India. The selection of the case involved theoretical sampling apart from considerations for possibility of access to the project and its appropriateness with respect to the topic under study. Findings: Five different levels of integration in e-Government projects viz., Interface, Data, Electronic communication, Application and Knowledge have been identified. Further it has been demonstrated that each of these integration mechanisms impacts scaling of e-Government projects. Also the nature of impact has been identified. Originality/Value: This paper demonstrates the impact of integration on scaling of e-Government projects. It analyses the phenomenon of integration in terms of five different levels. All the levels of integration impact scaling of e-Government projects in different ways.

Factors affecting the intention to adopt e-government services in Malawi and the role played by donors

Despite many papers written on the adoption of e-government services in developing countries, authors have not approached their articles empirically. For those that have, obvious constructs critical to the development of e-government in developing countries were overlooked. This paper extends the technology-organization-environment (TOE) framework with a decomposed theory of planned behavior (TPB) and the technological acceptance model (TAM); it is guided by stimulus-organism-response (SOR) in its attempt to develop a successful model that can be used to study factors affecting the adoption of e-government services in Malawi, while taking into account missed constructs. Donor support was hypothesized to moderate the effect of e-government funding on perceived behavior control. Data were collected from 259 Malawian public servants, and structural equation modeling was used to evaluate factors affecting e-government services adoption. The study reveals that there is a need for the Malawian government to fund e-government projects to reduce over-reliance on donors.

International Standards and ICT Projects in Public Administration: Introducing Electronic Voting in Norway, Estonia and Switzerland Compared

This research focuses on the interrelationship between international standards and e-voting projects. With the rise of e-government activities, a multitude of new international standards is discussed or adopted in conjunction with such innovative reform steps. In order to gain a perception which role international standards dealing with legal, organizational and technical aspects play in national contexts and whether they are actually implemented, this essay specifically examines standards used in e-voting projects, as this area can be clearly distinguished from other e-government projects. Case studies in Estonia, Norway, and Switzerland show that there is a general interest in international sources and that real international standards are considered to be more important and “binding” than private organizations’ standards or other documents. In all three countries, the Council of Europe Recommendation on e-voting, the only real international standard in this field, played a role in the respective e-voting projects, but did not coin all phases. Once the international standards were endorsed as national regulations, they only played a minor role for the continuation of the projects. However, they are used for orientation and evaluation purposes.

Role of Trust in E-Government Projects

Trust forms an important part of the discourse on e-Government. E-Government adoption involves trust relationships amongst three important entities: government (provider of the system), citizens (end users of the system) and the enabling technology, forming a trust triad. An important link in this trust triad that has not been studied much in the literature on e-Government is the role of the trust reposed by the government in the citizens. This relationship has enormous potential to simplify the control mechanisms used in e-Government transactions. This in turn significantly enhances citizens’ perceived usefulness of the system. Hence, trust in citizens by the government is expected to eventually lead to higher adoption of the concerned e-Government system and its continued use. Development of this trust is facilitated by acquiring information processing capability. This paper seeks to explore the issue of government trust in citizens using the case study methodology. The Profession Tax Digitization project in West Bengal, India, has been used as a case to demonstrate a trust-based e-Government system. At the heart of the implementation approach of this project lies the belief that people are essentially not tax-evaders and that lack of compliance is more because of the cumbersome process of tax payment. This belief defines the focus of change in the system, viz., process simplification based on the trust in taxpayers. In this paper, we identify potential causes of disruption of the government’s trust in citizens and mechanisms of production of trust in the same context. We emphasize the role of information processing capability in the production of the government’s trust in the citizens. Further, we demonstrate that production of trust results in an opportunity for trust-based governance leading to higher adoption of e-Government projects through simplification in government processes.

Paradoxes of Intermediation in Aadhaar: Human Making of a Digital Infrastructure

E-governance projects in India are often purported to minimise the role of human intermediaries. They rely on machines to curtail corruption and bring more efficiency to service delivery. However, studies have found human intermediation and its affordances to be crucial, especially in developing countries where social endowment gaps pose considerable barriers to the effective use of information and communication technologies. Human intermediation in technological infrastructure is thus invisible yet inevitable. I unravel this paradox of intermediation by examining the everyday practices of two sets of intermediaries in Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan associated with everyday workings of Aadhaar, India’s digital biometric identity infrastructure. Looking at biometric technologies as ‘situated practice’, I draw on the notion of ‘infrastructuring’ to argue that the discretionary practices of human intermediaries in fact stabilise the technological system, anchoring it to a human infrastructure. So, as disruptive technologies such as Aadhaar are implemented, their effective usage will invariably rely on the potential agency of human intermediaries and their collaborative work practices.

Service quality perception: A study of common service centers operating in rural areas

Maharashtra Government has implemented e-Governance project in the various government offices to improve the delivery of government services in transparent manner. Amongst the various projects Maha e-Seva Kendra project has been started to provide the services such as various online certificates to the people residing in Maharashtra. Maha e-Seva project is implemented in urban as well as in rural areas under the Revenue Department as a Mission Mode Project of National e-Governance Plan to provide the government services more efficiently to the citizens. So there is a need to assess the efficiency of the implemented project in terms of citizen’s satisfaction and service quality. The present research study is conducted in the rural parts of Kolhapur district. Perception of citizens regarding service quality of Common Service Centers operating in rural areas is assessed by using SERVQUAL Model. The study deals with the facilities and services provided by the Common Service Centers. Keywords: Service quality, SERVQUAL, Maha e- Seva Kendra, Common service centers, e-Governance.

E-Government Implementation Process in Rwanda: Exploring Changes in a Sociotechnical Perspective

Abstract Background: Failures in e-government projects to deliver expected results are frequent in the context of developing countries. These are partly attributed to the lack of balanced attention to both technical and social aspects in the implementation. However, there has been limited research on these aspects in the least Developed Countries. Objectives: Taking a socio-technical perspective, this study aims at exploring the extent of changes and effects in the implementation of e-government service-oriented initiatives in Rwanda, one of the Least Developed Countries. Methods/Approach: An empirical investigation was conducted, via interviews at 8 agencies during the period from January 2017 to May 2018. This involved two case projects, an Enterprise Content Management System and a One-Stop e-government system. Furthermore, government documents and online material were analyzed. Results: A number of changes in technology, processes and people aspects were faced in both projects. However, those changes are coupled with secondary effects; there is a need for a better fit between technical systems and social systems of organizations implementing e-government; a larger gap was identified in the first case project. Conclusions: Addressing the issues as a socio-technical system would contribute to improved work systems of agencies and better services.

Why e-Government ODA Projects Show Low Sustainability? Cases of EDCF Projects for Senegal and Angola

연구목적: 이 논문의 주요 목적은 전자정부 ODA 사업이 일반적으로 단기적 성공, 장기적 실패로 귀결되는 현상에 주목하여 세네갈과 앙골라에 대한 EDCF 전자정부 기반구축 지원사업의 사례를 바탕으로 지속가능성이 떨어지는 이유를 설명하는 것이다. 연구의 중요성: ICT 및 전자정부 프로젝트의 지속가능성을 설명하는 선행연구들은 성공 또는 실패에 영향을 미치는 요인에 주목하는 요인중심 접근과 행위자의 역할과 기능에 주목하는 행위자중심 접근으로 나뉘어진다. 본 연구는 이 두 가지 유형의 선행연구들이 특정 사례를 이해하는데 유용하지만 일반적인 전자정부 ODA 사업의 지속가능성이 저조한 이유의 설명에는 한계가 있음을 지적하고, 사업관련 이해관계자들이 상호작용을 하는 다양한 맥락을 중심으로 설명을 시도하였다. 연구방법론: 본 연구는 유사사례의 비교분석에 유용한 J.S. Mill의 일치법(Method of Agreement)를 활용한 비교 분석을 시도하였다. 이에 따라 본 연구는 사례지향적 비교연구방법론을 적용하여 두 사례를 비교분석하였다. 연구결과: 연구결과, 두 사례 모두 단기적으로는 성공적이었으나 중장기적 지속가능성이 크게 떨어졌는데, 그 주된 이유는 정치 및 정책적 맥락에서 특히 정치적 리더십이 사업에 충분한 관심을 보이지 못함으로써 연쇄적으로 경제 및 재정적 맥락, 제도 및 조직적 맥락, 기술적 맥락 등에 영향을 미처 사실상 지속가능성이 낮아졌음이 확인되었다. 결론 및 시사점: 선행연구들은 다양한 요인이나 행위자를 ICT 및 전자정부 프로젝트의 실패요인으로 확인하는 수준에서 이루어졌으나 본 연구는 여러 요인들이 구체적인 맥락 속에서 행위자들의 상호작용에 영향을 미치는 과정을 분석함으로써, 장기적 실패에 영향을 미치는 맥락 및 요인들의 상대적 우선순위를 확인할 수 있었다. 향후 아프리카 지역의 성공사례와의 비교연구를 통해 각 맥락 및 요인들의 중요성을 보다 구체화하는 후속연구를 제안한다.Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine why the outcomes of e-Government ODA projects have not lasted long, although the projects themselves have been completed successfully and delivered to the recipient countries. Originality: This study examines two e-Government projects sponsored by the Economic Development Cooperation Fund (EDCF) of Korea to two African countries, Senegal and Angola, by using what I call the “context-oriented approach” in order to explain why the two e-Government ODA projects did not last long although all the deliverables were transferred to the recipient countries as originally planned. Methodology: The main methodology adopted in this study is a case-oriented, comparative, institutional approach using Mill’s method of agreement. In this study, the author explores the interplays of stake-holders under various contexts such as politics and policy, economy and finance, institution and organization, and technology, to discover specific contexts that affect the sustainability of the project, and to explain the relative importance of the different dimensions. Result: Overall, both projects have been problematic with regard to their long-term sustainability. Notably, both countries have lacked the necessary political/policy leadership to continue the given ODA projects, which in turn has resulted in a lack of the economic/financial mobilization needed to maintain effective operations. Although organizations in charge of the projects existed, their status within the government bureaucracy was relatively weak and their leadership did not have political connections with the national leadership. In addition, capacity building that was needed to maintain the projects was not fully developed either. Conclusion and Implication: From the contextual analysis, we can conclude that project ownership was insufficient because of a lack of strong political leadership and institutional capabilities. In addition, technological expertise was not empowered enough to maintain project outcomes, partly because of a lack of systematic plans and budgets to increase technological expertise.

Measuring citizens engagement in e-Government projects – Indian perspective

The e-Government does not merely means computerizing the working of government operations and thus making maximum possible processes technology driven. It is about providing transparency, simplified processes and overall efficiency in ecosystem. This ensures that there is good governance, trust and accountability among stakeholders leading to aware and empowered citizens and steady economic growth of nation. However it’s the Citizens willingness to use these services, which actually makes it acceptable and successful in the ecosystem. The citizens’ acceptability is the key reason of sustainability of these e-Government Initiatives. Hence the factors like ease of use, quality of service being offered, efficiency parameters, Transparency and Accountability, Security and Privacy, Comprehensive and Assisting Information at one place have been taken into account while conducting the study. This paper has made an attempt in identifying critical success factors in the constructs taken for study which needs to be focused upon for sustainability of any e-Government initiative from citizens’ perspective. The findings have been presented based on empirical study carried out for a data set of 300 respondents. It has been observed that the respondents are inclined more towards opting the technological platform; hence a focused approach on working towards critical factors can make e-Government initiatives a huge success in developing countries.