Maturity as a Critical Sustainability Factor for E-Government: Towards A Conceptual Framework
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Date
2022-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Extant literature reveals that many e-government initiatives fail, especially in developing
countries. Despite the alanning failure rate of e-government initiatives, the governments of
developing countries are allocating a huge budget out of their limited resources to support and
improve e-government services.Prior research suggested that maturity is a prerequisite for egovernment
sustainability, but the relationship between e-government maturity and sustainability
has not been investigated. Hence, this research is aimed at developing a conceptual framework that
maps e-government maturity to a sustainable e-government service.
Qualitative case study was employed in selected government organizations in Ethiopia that provide
e-service through the e-government portal of Ethiopia. The detenninants of e-government maturity
and sustainability were derived from extant literature and the relationship between them were
conceptualized. The conceptual framework was evaluated through document analysis and
interview with experts. A six-step qualitative data analysis framework by Kiger and Varpio (2020)
has been used to identify, analyze, organize, describe, and report patterns within the collected data.
The study results show that availability of an ICT department with an independent annual budget
for the e-government development, human resource capability/ human and intellectual capability,
staff retention, manager's commitment to prioritize e-government projects, degree and frequency
of customer contacts, customer satisfaction, ICT infrastructure development, integration, Website
age, legal and political strategies, institutional instability, organizational e-government operational
plan, political environment and e-payments were identified to be the detenninants of egovernment
maturity. These detenninants are found as the key factors that affect e-govemment
service maturity. Some of the detenninants identified from the literature review were excluded
after the case study investigation and some other detenninants are newly identified. The study
contributes to e-govemment literature by providing a better understanding on the detenninants of
e-government service maturity and sustainability. Identifying the detenninants of maturity and
sustainability and exploring the link between the two constructs improve our understanding of
sustainable e-government services. The outcome of the research could also be of value for
practitioners as a quality tool to assess the maturity and sustainability of e-govemment initiatives.
keywords: Maturity, Sustainability, E-government maturity, E-government sustainaoility, Egovernment
Success
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Keywords
Maturity, Sustainability, E-government maturity, E-government sustainaoility, Egovernment Success