Technology factors influencing e-government readiness

Abstract

A rapidly growing number of countries are realizing that e-government has become a powerful tool for governments, as it can assist with measures such as making public administration significantly more efficient and effective. There is an urgent need for e-government to be able to enhance government administration performance and to provide efficient services to citizens. It can contribute to shortening time and effort as well as alleviating pressures on citizens. E-government projects need government support in order to create, apply, disseminate and continue the experience by providing all necessary resources. Various means of information transmission (such as the media) are vitally important by which to educate the stakeholders and increase their awareness to ensure the success and sustainability of such projects. Moreover, governments should assess their readiness for developing e-government procedures before embarking on the implementation of such a project to avoid any possible failures. Most of the failures of previous e-government measures can be attributed to technology factors. These factors include: infrastructure; security; technological/ technical issues; hard/soft gap; digital divide; internet use; and finally, skills. The successful implementation of e-government relies on assessing the readiness of technology aspects in order to realize the benefits of e-government and reduce potential failures of e-government implementation. Existing studies on e-government readiness lack agreement on the important technology aspects; thus, there remains a need to identify the relevant factors that shape the technology aspects of e-government readiness. The aim of this paper is to identify the said technology aspects of e-government readiness.