Analyzing e-government in developing countries using a stages model approach: a case study.

Abstract

This dissertation undertakes an evaluation of electronic government in a developing country using a Stages Model approach. The intellectual traditions of communication for development and technological determinism perspectives are employed to assess the implementation of e-government, a transformational resource for the advancement of government-citizen relations made possible by advances in information and communication technologies that have gained prominence in the last two decades. Governments around the world have adopted the use of information and communication technologies as a means of transforming the delivery of services and access to information for citizens. Electronic government, the use by government agencies of information technologies that have the ability to transform relations with citizens, businesses, and other arms of government, has become a critical tool toward this end. However, the progress and outcomes of the implementation of e-government in developing countries has not been adequately studied. This study uses content analysis to examine websites established by Kenya government's 46 ministries in Kenya and evaluates their performance using a four-stage model framework. The framework builds on existing e-government literature and utilizes 35 different content measures to evaluate information content, transaction, horizontal integration and vertical integration attributes of government ministry websites. The research was conducted between June and July of 2009. The content coding instrument used in the study is the Web Attribute Evaluation System developed by the Cyberspace Policy Research Group. The study reviews relevant e-government literature for evaluating Web sites worldwide, discusses sample selection, methodology, theoretical framework, findings, and recommendations. The content and attributes of ministry websites are compared across different e-government stages and ministries grouped into functional categories. The central analysis of these data is to evaluate the claim that access to information and transaction attributes provided by e-government will improve the relations between government and citizens by enhancing the quality and convenience of services delivery. This dissertation puts forth two major findings: that government ministries have adopted online communication as one of the main resources for delivery of services, achieved by posting online some level of information, enabling communication and interaction online, and are at varying stages of e-government development. Secondly, the data set confirmed the Layne and Lee Stages model prediction that e-government tended to grow progressively from the information (Catalogue) Stage towards higher Stages. The study showed higher scores at the Catalogue stage for all ministries than at all the other stages.