Theoretical Background of NIAT written by Jeongwon Yoon

Varying criticality of key success factors of national e-Strategy along the status of
economic development of nations
Jeongwon Yoon a
, Myungsin Chae b,
⁎
a
National Information Society Agency, 77 Moogyo-Dong, Jung-Gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea
b
Seoul University of Information and Venture, 37-18 Samsungdong, Gangnam-Gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea
a b s t r a c ta r t i c l e i n f o
Available online 12 November 2008
Keywords:
National e-Strategy
E-Government
Critical success factors
e-Readiness
Delphi
Many studies mention the importance of national e-Strategy as it is a vital contributing factor for ICT-enabled
development. However, it is difficult to find a conceptual framework that suggests how the national e-
Strategy should be defined and applied by the target country. This creates more confusion for policy makers.
This paper reviews previous research on national e-Strategies to recognize its significance as a major
contributing factor. Based on that, this research defines the critical success factors of national e-Strategy and
investigates the possibility of prioritizing factors by the scale of economy through a Delphi survey. By
reviewing the evaluated status of e-Readiness and co-relating the evaluation with economic status, we may
further investigate the significance of the digital divide and national e-Strategy. The outcome of this research
may be applicable in differentiating critical success factors from general ingredients of National e-Strategy.
© 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
National strategy for ICT, or sometimes called ‘national e-Strategy’
may be set in place to contribute to national growth. According to the
World Bank's study, a country needs to have a significant stock of ICT
or users in place and perhaps be more advanced in using that stock for
economic transformation (Hanna, 2003). Many countries have put
their effort into promoting “National e-Strategy” as a way of
enhancing their respective countries' economic growth. For example,
in South Korea, comprehensive national e-Strategy has been a key
driving factor in the phenomenal rebound of its economy from the
1997 financial crisis: the ICT industry's contribution to GDP growth
rose from a mere 4.5% in 1990 to an astounding 50.5% in 2000 (Hanna,
2003). However, it is still difficult to understand the critical
ingredients of the strategy because there are different definitions
and interpretations of critical success factors for national e-Strategy
(Lavin, 2005; Hanna, 2003; Heeks, 2003). Moreover, looking at the
statistics analyzed by monitoring institutions such as the UN, e-
Readiness shows the seriousness of digital divide between developed
countries and developing countries. According to the report from the
Technical Assistance Program, jointly performed by the National
Information Society Agency and the World Bank, most of the client
countries (Morocco, Republic of Congo, Kazakhstan, Myanmar, and
Argentina) have national e-Strategy plans already set in place
(National Information Society Agency, 2004a). However, it is unlikely
that these countries would exercise the plans effectively considering
their strategic targets and environment. In reality, those strategies are
planned by benchmarking strategies taken from developed countries.
Thus, it is important to find a conceptual framework that suggests how
national e-Strategy should be defined and effectively applied accord-
ing to the characteristics of the target country or region.
This paper reviews the research on the critical success factors of
national e-Strategy. This research also reviews the evaluated status of
e-Readiness of countries, and co-relates the economic status and e-
Readiness status to figure out the significance of the digital divide
among developed, developing, and underdeveloped countries. Finally,
this paper investigates the possibility of prioritizing the critical
success factors of national e-Strategy by the scale of economy on the
basis of Delphi analysis. The outcome of this research may be
applicable to differentiating critical success factors from general
ingredients of national e-Strategy, and selectively applying critical
success factors according to strategic priorities.
2. Literature review
2.1. Defining and classifying critical success factors (CSFs) of national
e-Strategy
Strategies help constituents understand where organizations will
be primarily focusing their resources for the time frame of the
strategic plan (Allison & Kaye, 2005). The World Bank defines an e-
Strategy as a set of coordinated actions and policies that seek to
accelerate the social, economic, and political development of a given
country or region through the use of telecommunications, information
networks, and the technologies associated with them, based on the
experiences of developing countries (World Bank, 2005a). Based on
‘Monitoring and Evaluation Toolkit for e-Strategies Results’ developed
Government Information Quarterly 26 (2009) 25–34
⁎ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: yjw@nia.or.kr (J. Yoon), mlee31@naver.com (M. Chae).
0740-624X/$ – see front matter © 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.giq.2008.08.006
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Government Information Quarterly
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/govinf

by the World Bank (Lavin, 2005), the e-Strategy pyramid has four
hierarchical structures: policy, strategic priorities, implementation
plan, and monitoring and evaluation (Fig. 1). At the policy level, the
target country will determine how and why specific themes are
priority objectives. Strategic priorities are then determined. Most
business strategies begin with a review or assessment of the current
state of business. A similar approach is required for the development
of national e-Strategies. Based on the priority objectives defined at the
policy level, strategic priorities may be assessed to determine what
needs to be done for the target countries.
Prioritizing strategy is one of the mandatory steps in determining
what needs to be done for the target countries. The strategic priorities
are essential ingredients in drawing up an implementation plan, and
can include key initiatives and action plans. And, these assessed
priorities become critical success factors of national e-Strategy. The
concept of Critical Success Factor (CSF) of national e-Strategy is known
by a variety of terms and definitions. According to the World Bank, it
used the term “strategic priorities” or “identification of the pre-
requisites for success” (Lavin, 2005). Other research used self-defined
terms such as “Guiding Principles” (Department of Economic and
Social Affairs, 2003), “Success Barriers” (Ministry of Science, Technol-
ogy and Higher Education, 2005), “Success Indicators” (Lavin, 2005),
and “Strategic Responses” (Heeks, 2003). These various terms all
imply CFSs. By reviewing previous literature, this research identified
15 CFSs as strategic priorities of national e-Strategy (see Table 1).
These CFSs can be characterized by policy, technology, and cost. These
characteristics may be applied in determining strategic priorities of
national e-Strategy with appropriate considerations given for the
target country's environment and available resources.
2.2. Strategic priorities and the scale of economy
In the WSIS (World Summit for the Information Society) 2003,
world leaders adopted a Plan of Action encouraging national e-
Strategies be developed (ITU, 2008b). In the WSIS 2005, the Tunis
Agenda clearly stated that developing countries were to be encour-
aged to prioritize some indicators such as funding, ICT Infrastructure,
Training and etc (ITU, 2008a). The Agenda also pointed out that there
was a distinctive gap between developed countries and developing
countries in the capacity to build ICT-enabled economy and society.
The World Bank study also indicated that e-Strategy must focus on
government priorities in ICT development and evolve along with
country's development needs and implementation capacities (World
Bank, 2006). Due consideration must be given to the issue of whether
or not strategic priorities should be determined and applied
differently according to the scale of economy. Research that focused
on CSFs of developed countries emphasized ICT service's extraordin-
ary impact on ICT-enabled economies. Also the “Culture of Civil
Service” could be one of the influential priorities because one of the
key focuses of E-Government is to increase the public's satisfaction by
adopting and applying ICT technology toward the public services. On
the other hand, the United Nations (Department of Economic and
Social Affairs, 2005a) pointed out the success factors for developing
countries by looking into several best practices, such as Korea and
Estonia, including: “ICT Infrastructure,” “Funding,” “Human Capital,”
Fig. 1. Logical framework pyramid of e-Strategy(Lavin, 2005).
Table 1
Classification of CSF: critical success factors
CSF Low cost/
policy-oriented
High cost/
tech.-oriented
Examples of CSF at national-level initiatives References
ICT
Infrastructure
✓ Broadband Infrastructure, PSDN, DSL, Fixed Line,
Mobile Mobile Network
Lavin (2005), World Bank (2005a), Heeks (2003), Janssen et al. (2004),
Oh and Hong (2006)
Funding ✓ Financial Investment, National ICT Budget, Loan Lavin (2005), Oh and Hong (2006), World Bank (2005b), RTR (2006)
Human Capital ✓ Trained IT Professionals, Public's Internet Access Lavin (2005), World Bank (2005a), Heeks (2003),
Educating Public ✓ Reducing Digital Divide Issak (2005), Heeks (2003), Oh and Hong (2006), Ministry of Home
Affairs (2005)
Culture of
Civil Service
Culture of Civil Service, Public's Acceptance of IT,
Internet Internet Usage
Oh and Hong (2006), Lawrence & Samuel (2000)
Literacy ✓ Internet illiteracy Department of Economic and Social Affairs (2004)
ICT Services ✓ ISP, e-Commerce, G2C, B2C, B2B, Web Portals, Internet
Contents
Kunstelj and Vintar, (2004), Janssen et al. (2004)
Institutional
Structure
✓ E-Government Committee Heeks (2003), Ministry of Home Affairs (2005)
International
Cooperation
✓ Technology Transfer, Applying Loan Department of Economic and Social Affairs (2004)
Privacy &
Security
✓ PKI, Encryption, Digital Certificates, Anti-Hacking
Program
Department of Economic and Social Affairs (2003; 2004),
Legal Framework Information Act, Security Act, Privacy Privacy
Protection Law
Heeks (2003), RTR (2006), Oh and Hong (2006)
e-Participation e-Voting, Public Feedback, e-Press Ministry of Home Affairs (2005), Oh and Hong (2006)
Monitoring &
Evaluation
UN e-Readiness Evaluation, Auditing Department of Economic and Social Affairs (2004), Ministry of Home
Affairs (2005)
Political
Leadership
Leader's Commitment, National CIO Department of Economic and Social Affairs (2003), Heeks (2003), RTR
(2006)
Private
Partnership
Promoting IT Industry Lavin (2005), World Bank (2005a), RTR (2006), Oh and Hong (2006)
26 J. Yoon, M. Chae / Government Information Quarterly 26 (2009) 25–34

“Political Leadership,” “Monitoring and Evaluation,” and “e-Participa-
tion.” The World Bank (2005b) specifically emphasized the impor-
tance of “Private Partnership” and “Educating the Public” as one of the
core factors in many developing countries because those are the
dominant factors in reducing digital divide.
These research studies or survey results imply that different CSFs
could be applied to each of the countries based on its economic status.
To confirm this conjecture, this study reconfigured the e-Readiness
index1
published by UN (Department of Economic and Social Affairs,
2005a) based on PPP (Purchasing Power Parity of US$), of each
member country. The blue dots of Fig. 2 represent the e-Readiness
status of each country during the last three years. By plugging in the X
axis with the e-Readiness Index (scale of 0.0–1.0) and Y axis with PPP,
the dots at the cross section of X and Y axes represent the status of the
country. For instance, the U.S. ranks first with 0.9062 (X axis of e-
Readiness Index) and is one of the top five countries by holding 42,000
USD per capita (Yaxis of PPP). Therefore, if the dot moves further away
from the origin, the country becomes more competitive in e-
Readiness and economically strong. It is observed that only 29
countries marked in the index scored more than 0.65. Among these
countries, most are considered developed countries or have transition
economies moving toward being developed, except for a few excellent
players such as Chile, the Czech Rep., Estonia and Hungary. The graph
implies that there is a positive relationship between a country's
economic status and the e-Readiness level of the country. However, it
is not difficult to see that the national e-Strategies of underdeveloped
countries are very similar to developed ones, yet these clearly do not
seem to work for them.
3. Methodology
3.1. Delphi analysis
The purpose of this research is to identify strategic priorities
discriminated by the target country's economic status. It has pointed
out that there is no single established way, no one best practice,
leading to successful E-Government, so the interpretation and
implementation of E-Government must be invented locally (Depart-
ment of Economic and Social Affairs, 2005b). Thus, different CSFs
would need to be applied depending upon environmental conditions
and available resources.
To achieve the research purpose, the Delphi method was used to
gather and analyze data for the research. The Delphi method is a
structured, multi-pass experts' group decision process by means of a
series of questionnaires with controlled feedback. It is usually used to
explore creative ideas or produce suitable information for research
questions where rigid answers are rarely established (Buckley, 1995;
Brancheau et al., 1996). Even though the importance of strategic
1
Each year the UN publishes a report on E-Government readiness that monitors and
evaluates the current status of e-Readiness. The report evaluates several categories of
indices: “e-Participation,” “Human Capital,” “Telecommunication Indicators,” and
“Technology Infrastructure.” In the 2005 survey, it assessed more than 50,000 websites
of the 191 UN member states to ascertain how ready the Governments around the
world are in employing the opportunities offered by ICT to improve the access to, and
the use of, ICTs in providing basic social services (Department of Economic, 2005).
Fig. 2. PPP vs UN e-Readiness index.
Table 2
Grouping experts
Expert
group
Origin of
country
Experiences Expertise of
experiences
Surveyed CSFs of
target country group
Group A Developed
country/
int'l org.
10 yearsb Planning and
implementing
e-Strategy, Technical
assistance, training
Developed country,
developing country,
Underdeveloped
country
Group B Developing
country
10 yearsb Planning and
implementing
e-Strategy, training
Developing country
Group C Under-
developing
country
10 yearsN Planning and
implementing
e-Strategy
Underdeveloped
country
27J. Yoon, M. Chae / Government Information Quarterly 26 (2009) 25–34

priorities are perceptively well recognized, the question of which CSF
is more effective has been distinctively absent in academic debates.
Moreover, there has not been a concrete framework or a case study for
prioritizing CSFs for different environments. Therefore, the Delphi
survey was chosen to identify CSFs from national e-Strategy by
strategic importance and economic scales.
However, the Delphi method is limited by its low level of
reliability of judgment among experts (Makridakis & Wheelright,
1978). Many researchers have tried various research designs to
increase the readability. One of these methods is to set up various
groups and compare their perspective on the same issue (Keil et al.,
2002). The problem that arose while selecting E-government experts
for this study was that most of them were from developed countries.
Thus, this study set up two additional comparative groups to confirm
whether Delphi experts had enough expertise and experience to
know and understand the needs of developing and underdeveloped
countries.
Based on the participants' backgrounds and experiences, partici-
pants were put into 3 Groups: A, B, or C (see Table 2). Group A was
the main survey group and Group B and Group C were comparative
groups. Twenty one participants in the Group A were asked to give
their views on prioritization of CSFs for all three groups of countries:
developed, developing, and underdeveloped countries. Participants
of the Group A, the main target group for the Delphi analysis, had
international experience in consulting, analyzing and/or implement-
ing e-Strategy of developed,2
developing,3
and underdeveloped4
countries. Group B participants were from developing countries and
were involved in their countries' E-Government projects and strategy.
They were expected to be sensitive to developing countries' problems
and issues in terms of national e-Strategy and E-Government
adoption. So they were supposed to respond to questions related to
developing countries only and their responses were to be statistically
compared to the Group A's responses. For the same reason, Group C's
responses were compared with Group A's responses to questions
related to underdeveloped countries. If main group's perception was
similar to comparative groups, then the expertise of the main group
would be determined to be sufficiently reliable as the main survey
group. Upon confirmation of the reliability of the participants of main
group's expertise on the issue, only their responses were used for
data analysis.
3.2. Data collection
Four phases were implemented for the Delphi analysis as shown in
Fig. 3. For the first phase, expert groups were identified and selected.
The experts were asked to give their views and comments on the 15
CSFs chosen from previous research (see Table 1). They had the option
to add or delete CSFs based on their opinions. In that way, the selected
15 CSFs were verified once again through experts' view. Based on their
comments, 15 CSFs were confirmed. For the second phase, experts
were surveyed on their perceptions on the importance and necessity
of strategic priorities for national e-Strategy. Moreover, they were
asked to comment on good practices to improve the effectiveness of
national e-Strategy. For the third phase, enlisted critical success
factors were ranked by their significance and importance to a specific
target group of countries, such as developed, developing, and
underdeveloped countries. Each expert had the choice of weighting
the importance of factors by giving out points on a scale of 1 (the least
important) to 15 (the most important). Duplicated ranks were allowed
if the experts thought the level of importance was identical. For the
fourth phase, a second round of the survey was conducted to confirm
the ranking. The confirmed ranks were then evaluated to observe the
significance of differences, importance, and priorities according to the
scale of economy.
2
PPP(Purchasing Power Parity)/Capita more than 20,000USD.
3
PPP(Purchasing Power Parity)/Capita more than 10,000USD.
4
PPP(Purchasing Power Parity)/Capita less than 10,000USD.
Fig. 3. Process of Delphi analysis.

3.3. Selecting, grouping, and interviewing Delphi experts
With regards to the selection of experts, it was important to have
experts with experience with e-Strategy planning and implementa-
tion of various countries and international institutions. The experts
should be familiar with the concepts of success factors and strategic
priorities. Therefore, working experience in these areas was manda-
tory. Selected experts had at least 10 years of experience in national e-
Strategy. The position level was of at least manager or above who was
responsible for conducting, planning, and implementing national e-
Strategy in governments, international organizations, consulting
firms, academia, or private sectors. Thirty-six experts from eight
countries and three international organizations participated (see
Table 3). All of the selected experts had more than 10 years of
experience in E-Government and national e-Strategy. Only the experts
from Mongolia had less than 10 years of experience because very few
people in Mongolia were available or eligible with more than 10 years
of experience. Considering that Mongolia has a relatively short history
of ICT development, it was reasonable to have these experts for the
survey for an underdeveloped country group.
Recruiting experts was done through the Technical Assistance
Program supported by NIA (National Information Society Agency),
Korea. Between 2004 and 2007, there have been approximately 1200
visitors from 45 developing countries and 10 international organiza-
tions who have come to NIA to discuss training, collaboration, and
joint projects. (National Information Society Agency, 2004b; 2005)
Among them, 2 countries classified as having an under-developed
economy, 3 countries classified as having developing economies, 3
countries and 3 international organizations classified as having
developed economies were selected.
Experts from the developed group were carefully chosen not only
based on their expertise on shaping e-Strategy but also for their
experiences in assisting developing countries. International organiza-
tions are extremely active in assisting developing countries on the issue
of national ICT strategy and development. They have better access to
information on country status and analysis study than academic
institutions. Also, they have much practical experience in helping the
client countries with developing economies. Mexico and Chile were
chosen because of well-established cooperation channels and active
ICT programs in their governments. Since NIA established and operated
Korea–Mexico and Korea–Chile ICT cooperation centers in Mexico City
and Santiago, jointly with e-Mexico Systems of Mexican Government
and Ministry of Economy of Chile, both countries were extremely
cooperative and showed enthusiasm in participating in the survey. NIA
is also providing ICT technical assistance to Myanmar and Mongolia.
These countries set up a national e-Strategy and have been working on
the implementation as well. They are recognized as one of the most
active participants in ICT programs among under-developed countries.
The survey was conducted by a visiting resident country of each
respondent, to increase the accuracy and response rate of the surveys.
The researchers met physically with all respondents to explain the
purpose of research, in order to increase the accuracy of responses and
response rate. The survey took more than 6 months from January to
June in 2006. Most of the participants preferred to use e-mail for their
responses. Some experts used international post mail to send back
their responses.
4. Data analysis
4.1. Expert's perception on strategic priorities
Looking at Table 4, among thirty six participants from Groups A, B,
and C, 86.11% of the experts responded positively that national e-
Strategy is essential for ICT-enabled development. Only 13.89% of
experts responded that the impact of national e-Strategy toward the
national economy was minimal and/or unproved. They claimed that
countries that planned and implemented national e-Strategy hadn't
shown the effectiveness of the strategy in terms of economic impact.
They specifically mentioned that national e-Strategy was not effective
in the developing country's economy. 97.22% of all experts agreed that
strategic priorities were needed to adequately design national e-
Strategy of a target country because it was vital to have strategic
priorities in planning national e-Strategy. This was deemed to be due
to previous reports done by international organizations, such as the
UN, which emphasized utilization of available local resources to make
a more effective national e-Strategy. 88.89% of the experts also agreed
that strategic priorities could be different according to a target
Table 3
Distribution of Delphi participants
Country/
org.
No. % Background Position Experience Group
Austria 1 2.78 Government CEO, RTR 30 yearsb A
Estonia 1 2.78 Academic
institution
President, e-Gov.
Academy
20 yearsb A
Korea 5 13.89 Government Vice President, NIA
(Former)
20 yearsb A
Director, NIA 10 yearsb
Director, NIA 10 yearsb
Research, Fellow, NIA 30 yearsb
Sr. Researcher, NIA 10 yearsb
U.S. 5 13.89 Government Director, USAID 30 yearsb A
Government Director, OMB
(Former)
30 yearsb
Academic
institution
Sr. Consultant, U of
Maryland
30 yearsb
Private
industry
CEO, McKnight
Consulting
30 yearsb
Private
industry
Sr. Consultant, World
Bank
30 yearsb
OECD 1 2.78 International
org.
ICCP, OECD 20 yearsb A
IDB 1 2.78 International
org.
Director, IDB 20 yearsb A
World Bank 7 19.44 International
org.
Program Manager,
ISG
20 yearsb A
Sr. Consultant, ISG 10 yearsb
Sr. Consultant, LAC 20 yearsb
Sr. Consultant, EPG 10 yearsb
Program Manager,
GICT
20 yearsb
Chile 3 8.33 Government Director, CORFO 20 yearsb B
Academic
institution
Professor, U of Chile 20yearsb
CEO, ACTI 30 yearsb
Mexico 4 11.11 Government Korea–Mexico ITCC 10 yearsb B
Korea–Mexico ITCC 10 yearsb
Infotec 10 yearsb
e-Mexico Systems 10 yearsb
Mongolia 4 11.11 Government ICTA b10 years C
ICTA b10 years
ICTA b10 years
ICTA b10 years
Myanmar 4 11.11 Government Ministry of Post &
Telecom.
10 yearsb C
Ministry of Post &
Telecom.
10 yearsb
Ministry of Defence 10 yearsb
Ministry of Defence 10 yearsb
Total 36 100% – – – –
Table 4
Expert's perception on national e-Strategy and strategic priorities
Survey on perception of National e-Strategy Yes No
National e-Strategy is essential for ICT-enabled development 86.11% 13.89%
Strategic priorities are needed to adequately design National
e-Strategy of the target country
97.22% 2.78%
Strategic priorities could be different by the target country's
economic status
88.89% 11.11%

country's economic status. 11.11% responded that national e-Strategy
should be same for all countries because objectives and goals of the
strategies were same for all countries, regardless of the economic
status of the target country.
4.2. Testing the reliability of Group A's expertise on E-Government
implementation in developing under-developed countries
Prior to data analysis of the Delphi survey, Group A's responses
were compared to Group B and Group C to test the reliability of the
Group A's expertise on developing and under-developed countries' E-
Government projects. For the comparison, the Mann–Whitney U test
was used. It is used to test differences between two independent
samples with ordinal data. The Fisher exact test was applied for
significance testing because of small sample size.
As shown in Table 5, Group A selected “Political Leadership” as the
most important CSF for developing countries followed by “ICT
Infrastructure (2nd),” “Legal Framework (3rd),” “Human Capital
(4th),” “Funding (5th),” and “Institutional Structure (6th).” Group B
ranked the critical success factors almost identically to Group A (see
Table 5). Looking at the patterns of CSFs of developing countries
surveyed by Group A and Group B, their perceptions on CSFs
resembled each other. The Results of Mann–Whitney U test confirmed
that there was no significant difference between two-groups at the
significance level of 0.05.
Table 6 summarizes the comparison of perceptional similarity
between Group A and Group C to test Group A's expertise on the
strategic priorities of CSF of underdeveloped countries. Group A
selected “Political Leadership” as the most important CSFs for
underdeveloped countries, followed by “ICT Infrastructure (2nd),”
“Funding (3rd),” “Human Capital (4th),” and “Institutional Structure
(5th).” Group C ranked the CSFs almost identically to Group A (see
Table 6). Looking at the patterns of CSFs for underdeveloped countries
surveyed by Group A and Group C, their perceptions on CSFs were very
similar. Even though Group C gave more weight on the “Legal
Framework,” the difference in rank was minimal. The results of Mann–
Whitney U test also confirmed that there was no significant difference
between the two groups at the significance level of 0.05 (see Table 6).
With a series of comparisons of Group A vs. Group B, and Group A
vs. Group C, the perception of Group A of the developing and
underdeveloped countries, in terms of prioritizing CSFs for e-Strategy,
was similar to the experts working in those countries even though
most members of Group A came from developed countries. Group A
proved to have enough expertise and experiences with developed,
developing, and underdeveloped countries thus, to be a main survey
group.
Table 5
Comparisons of strategic priorities of CSF of the developing country (Groups A and B)
CSF Group A Group B Mann–Whitney U Z Significancea
Total Average Rank Total Average Rank
ICT Infrastructure 224 11.2 2 77 11.0 2 63.00 −393 .722
Funding 198 9.9 5 77 11.0 3 62.00 −.448 .673
Human Capital 206 10.3 4 71 10.1 4 59.00 −.614 .557
Educating Public 151 7.6 7 61 8.7 6 54.50 −.863 .403
Culture of Civil Service 144 7.2 8 49 7.0 10 67.50 −.139 .904
Literacy 108 5.4 12 46 6.6 11 49.50 −.1.141 .266
ICT Services 109 5.5 11 53 7.6 9 49.50 −1.139 .267
Institutional Structure 193 9.7 6 71 10.1 4 68.00 −.111 .924
International Cooperation 105 5.3 14 32 4.6 13 61.50 −.474 .652
Privacy & Security 106 5.3 13 30 4.3 14 67.50 −.140 .903
Legal Framework 208 10.4 3 60 8.6 7 53.00 −.949 .358
e-Participation 71 3.6 15 25 3.6 15 49.50 −1.156 .264
Monitoring & Evaluation 136 6.8 9 38 5.4 12 56.50 −.749 .471
Political Leadership 249 12.5 1 88 12.6 1 56.00 −.823 .430
Private Partnership 136 6.8 9 56 8.0 8 53.50 −.17 .375
a
Fisher exact test.
Table 6
Comparisons of strategic priorities of CSF of the underdeveloped countries (Groups A and C)
CSF Group A Group C Mann–Whitney U Z Significancea
Total Average Rank Total Average Rank
ICT Infrastructure 261 13.1 2 102 12.8 1 79.00 −.052 .965
Funding 239 12.0 3 101 12.6 2 52.00 −1.466 .149
Human Capital 237 11.9 4 96 12.0 3 73.50 −335 .753
Educating Public 167 8.4 7 65 8.1 8 73.00 −.359 .734
Culture of Civil Service 130 6.5 10 49 6.1 12 65.00 −.767 .458
Literacy 141 7.1 9 55 6.9 11 80.00 .000 1.000
ICT Services 101 5.1 12 60 7.5 9 42.50 −1.918⁎ .056
Institutional Structure 179 9.0 5 84 10.5 6 70.500 −.485 .642
International Cooperation 158 7.9 8 81 10.1 7 57.50 −1.154 .259
Privacy & Security 105 5.3 14 41 5.1 13 47.50 −1.682 .097
Legal Framework 170 8.5 6 90 11.3 4 55.00 −1.278 .210
e-Participation 71 3.6 15 14 1.8 15 70.00 −.527 .605
Monitoring & Evaluation 113 5.7 11 24 3.0 14 61.50 −.949 .355
Political Leadership 268 13.4 1 85 10.6 5 45.00 −1.858⁎ .068
Private Partnership 101 5.1 12 70 8.75 9 47.50 −1.682⁎ .097
a
Fisher exact test.
⁎ pb.1.

4.3. Comparative analysis of CSFs on the developed, the developing and
the underdeveloped country (analysis with Group A's responses)
As stated earlier, Group A prioritized critical success factors of
developed, developing, and underdeveloped countries and the final
ranking had been decided through the 1st and 2nd round of survey.
The final analysis was a comparison of priority of CSFs among the
three country groups with Group A's response. Table 7 and Fig. 4 show
the result of the comparison of Group A's perception. For the 2nd
questionnaire using e-mails, Group A was informed of the result of the
1st questionnaire and was requested to re-prioritize critical success
factors. However, most of the experts in Group A showed their
satisfaction with the result from the 1st round of the survey
questionnaire and did not change their preferences for the critical
success factors. According to the observation of patterns of prioritizing
critical success factors, shown in the Fig. 4, developing and under-
developed countries were similar. On the other hand, developed
countries were quite different compared to the other two economic
groups. The factors ranked high for the developed countries such as
“Privacy & Security” (1st
), “Legal Framework” (3rd) and “Monitoring &
Evaluation” (5th), were ranked lower in the developing countries'
ranking of “Privacy & Security” (13th) and “Monitoring & Evaluation”
(9th). Along the same lines, those factors were similarly ranked in
underdeveloped countries (“Privacy & Security” (14th), and “Monitor-
ing & Evaluation” (11th)). In the case of developed countries, harmful
or negative side effects are likely to be caused in proportion to the
level of ICT development, and this could be why “Privacy & Security”
was chosen as the most important critical success factor in those
countries (Choi & Kim, 2004). As shown in Fig. 4, the expert's
perception of Group A for CSFs of each group of economy shows that
there exists some significant differences between CSFs of developed
and the CSFs of developing economies.
To observe and prove the differences statistically, the research
used a statistical approach called the Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test.
The Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test, also known as the Wilcoxon
Matched Pairs Test, is a non-parametric test used to test the median
difference in paired data (Crichton, 1998). Table 8 summarizes the
test results. According to the test, the values of several critical
success factors measured by Group A for different groups such as
developed, developing, and underdeveloped countries showed
significant differences in the results of Group A. Based on Z-value,
some CSFs clearly showed that there were significantly different
perceptions between developed and developing countries (P-
valueb0.1, 0.05, or 0.01), such as “ICT Funding,” “Human Capital,”
“Literacy,” and “Privacy and Security.” Also there were not many
differences in terms of priorities in CSFs between developing and
Table 7
Comparisons of strategic priorities of CSF by the scale of economy (Group A)
CSF Developed Developing Underdeveloped
Total Average Rank Total Average Rank Total Average Rank
Privacy & Security 212 10.6 1 106 5.3 13 105 5.3 14
Political Leadership 180 9.0 2 249 12.5 1 268 13.4 1
Legal Framework 179 9.0 3 208 10.4 3 170 8.5 6
ICT Infrastructure 174 8.7 4 224 11.2 2 161 13.1 2
Monitoring & Evaluation 168 8.5 5 136 6.8 9 113 5.7 11
Human Capital 167 8.6 6 206 10.3 4 237 11.9 4
ICT Services 162 8.1 7 109 5.5 11 101 5.2 12
Private Partnership 156 7.8 8 136 6.8 9 101 5.2 12
Funding 152 7.6 9 198 9.9 5 239 12.0 3
Institutional Structure 148 7.4 10 193 9.7 6 179 9.0 5
e-Participation 146 7.3 11 71 3.6 15 71 3.6 15
Culture of Civil Service 144 7.2 12 144 7.2 8 130 6.5 10
Educating Public 120 6.0 12 151 7.6 7 167 8.4 7
International Cooperation 101 5.1 14 105 5.3 14 158 7.9 8
Literacy 63 3.2 15 108 5.4 12 141 7.1 9
Fig. 4. Pattern of strategic priorities of CSF by the scale of economy (Group A).

the underdeveloped countries. The results mostly matched with the
pattern observed from Fig. 4.
5. Discussions
The objective of this research was to prioritize the critical success
factors of national e-Strategy based on a country's economic status.
The results of the Delphi study showed strong indication that there
were significant differences on strategic priorities of national e-
Strategy depending on the scale of economy. The findings of the study
indicate that policy makers should consider the possibility of
differentiating strategic priorities according to the target country's
status. The detailed implications are as follows:
5.1. Prioritizing the CSFs of national e-Strategy
According to the analysis, Group A distinctively showed their
perceptional differences of CSFs on different economic groups. This
study selected the five highly ranked CSFs of each group to observe the
difference in perception. Fig. 5 illustrates differences and the
similarities among the three groups. The numbers in the parentheses
of Fig. 5 represent the rank of the CSFs in each group in the order of
developed, developing, and underdeveloped countries.
It is observed that “Political Leadership” and “ICT Infrastructure”
were commonly recognized as the most highly weighted factors in
developing national e-Strategy for all three target economic groups.
These two factors were acknowledged as the foundation of all
strategic priorities (RTR 2006; Department of Economic and Social
Affairs, 2003). The cases of Korea, Chile, and Estonia, exemplary in E-
Government implementation, showed that strong support from top
decision makers was the most important factor of all. And E-
Government adoption in those countries began by developing ICT
Infrastructure first. Besides “Political Leadership,” “ICT Infrastructure,”
and “Funding and Human Capital” were equally important factors for
both developing and underdeveloped countries.
“Legal Framework” is the common important factor for both
developed and developing countries. However, it is also regarded as
an important factor in underdeveloped countries as it was ranked 6th.
“Privacy & Security” and “Monitoring & Evaluation” play important
roles for developed countries. Current studies strongly emphasize
these factors along with ICT Service for E-Government evolution of
developed countries, because reducing harmful side of ICT, like
enhancing “Privacy & Security,” and “Monitoring & Evaluation” have
an extraordinary impact on an ICT-enabled economy (World Bank,
2006).
“e-Participation” is an important critical success factor for
developing and under-developed countries to disseminate ICT
services to the public. Considering that preceding conditions of
nurturing “e-Participation” can be “Funding” and “ICT Infrastructure”
(Oh & Hong, 2006), it is easy to understand why “e-Participation” is
ranked lower among experts. In Fig. 4, e-Participation for the
developed group is ranked much higher. Since developed countries
have well-established infrastructure and funding mechanism, e-
Participation is strongly encouraged to stimulate the public's
participation.
Fig. 5 shows Group A's perceptional differences on some of CSFs.
Group A gave more weight to “Political Leadership” for developing
and underdeveloped countries because a developing economy needs
more attention from the top leader to obtain the political and financial
support to sustain the development. Group A put “Privacy and
Security” on top of many other CSFs for developed countries. Since
developed countries provide various ICT services being enjoyed by the
public, “Privacy and Security” issue is a more distinctive CSF for stable
and reliable ICT services and development (National Information
Society Agency 2005: World Bank 2006). Considering that there are
huge increases of usage rate on E-Government services in many
sectors, it is obvious that there is a need to give more priority for
security and privacy issues in national e-Strategy.
5.2. CSFs and 5 phases of development process
The UN (2003) suggests five (5) steps in benchmarking E-
Government which is one of the main areas shaped by national e-
Strategy. The study categorized the CSFs into 5 phases of development
process: Initiation, Development, Inter-operation, E-Commerce, and
Integrated System. It is observed that underdeveloped and some of
developing countries belonged to the Level 1 (Initiation) or Level 2
(Development) phases. Initiation phase has extremely limited func-
tionality to provide information. In other words, it lacks the ICT
Infrastructure and shows high illiteracy rate, hindering the public's
access to the information. During the development phase, countries
are capable of periodically updating information enabling partial E-
Government functions, but still lacks in bi-directional exchange of
information that is vital in creating an impact on society and economy.
At the inter-operation phase, the government is able to communicate
Table 8
Statistical comparisons of Group A's perception on CSF for each economic group using
Wilcoxon signed rank test
Variable Comparative groups Z-value P-value
ICT Infrastructure Developed vs. developing −2.941 0.003⁎⁎⁎
Developed vs. underdeveloped −3.054 0.002⁎⁎⁎
Developing vs. underdeveloped −1.618 0.106
Funding Developed vs. developing −1.471 0.141
Developed vs. underdeveloped −2.530 0.011⁎⁎
Developing vs. underdeveloped −1.812 0.070⁎
Human Capital Developed vs. developing −2.251 0.240
Educating Public Developed vs. developing −1.796 0.072
Culture of Civil Service Developed vs. developing −0.370 0.711
Developed vs. underdeveloped −0.783 0.461
Literacy Developed vs. developing −2.328 0.020⁎⁎
ICT Service Developed vs. developing −2.306 0.021⁎⁎
Institutional Structure Developed vs. developing −1.925 0.054⁎
International Cooperation Developed vs. developing −0.485 0.627
Developing vs. underdeveloped −2.914 0.004⁎⁎⁎
Privacy & Security Developed vs. developing −3.241 0.001⁎⁎⁎
Developing vs. underdeveloped −1.719 0.086⁎
Legal Framework Developed vs. developing −0.947 0.344
e-Participation Developed vs. developing −2.487 0.013⁎⁎
Monitoring & Evaluation Developed vs. developing −1.331 0.183
Developing vs. underdeveloped −2.121 0.034⁎⁎
Political Leadership Developed vs. developing −2.836 0.005⁎⁎⁎
Private Partnership Developed vs. developing −1.196 0.232
Developing vs. underdeveloped −2.809 0.005⁎⁎⁎
⁎ pb.10.
⁎⁎ pb.05.
⁎⁎⁎ pb.01.

with the public through the exchange of e-mail or electronic forms.
The ICT Infrastructure is able to support bi-directional activities with a
higher impact to the public. Most of the developing countries fall into
this category. The e-commerce stage lets the target country exercise
its digital economy. For the digital economy to flourish, ICT-services,
and legal support on privacy and security should be well established.
Advanced countries such as U.S., Korea, U.K., and Singapore belong
to this category. At this stage, target countries have the capability
to have a fully functional online processing of civil service and secure
e-payment system. The final stage, which is an integrated system,
provides cross-agency online service and converged public/civil
services. There are no countries with claims of achieving this level
of ICT development.
Fig. 6 shows the categorization of CSFs according to the develop-
ment phase. The four development phases display the differences in
CSFs' weighted values. For example, based on our research at the
initiation level, which tends to have a provision of limited information,
a stronger “Political Leadership” is required as well as more “Funding,”
“Human Capital,” and improved “Education.” At the e-Commerce
phase, it is definitely required to consider “Privacy & Security,”
“Evaluation & Monitoring,” and various “ICT services” as major
strategic priorities of national e-Strategy.
Fig. 5. Group A's perception represented by rank CSF identification (Numbers in parentheses represent the rank of CSF for developed, developing and underdeveloped countries
respectively).
Fig. 6. Categorized CSFs with development phases.

6. Conclusion
6.1. Summary of the study
The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) declaration
emphasized the critical importance for the establishment of a national
e-Strategy in bridging the digital divide (Cho, 2005; ITU, 2008a; ITU,
2008b), creating an information society, and strengthening national
competitiveness. Accordingly, the study gives a clear indication of the
importance of identifying strategic priorities in effectively establishing
national e-Strategies. The need to take into account the limited
resources and circumstances specific to each country, and linking with
national development strategy in establishing a national ICT strategy
by identifying strategic priorities was indirectly verified through the
views of experts. Furthermore, the experts' opinions on critical
success factors and tailored approaches applicable according to a
target country's economic level and environment, and the compara-
tive analysis of the different types, can be used as references in a
macro view-point towards establishing future national e-Strategies. In
particular, inadequate infrastructure, poor financing, low level of IT
human resources, and lack of information awareness are common to
many developing countries, and these work to reduce the effective-
ness of support initiatives from international organizations and
developed countries. The experts' opinion on a tailored approach by
applying critical success factors according to the economic level and
environment of target countries can be of valuable use in establishing
e-Strategy for the developing countries in the future.
6.2. Limits and suggestions for future study
The transparency issue has been mentioned as a possible candidate
of critical success factor but disregarded due to several reasons. During
the Delphi survey, many experts mentioned the seriousness of
corruption in certain developing and underdeveloped countries.
Corruption actually lowers the effectiveness of national e-Strategy
and its implementation. However, it is hard to measure or prove the
impact due to its secretive nature. It is well agreed among experts that
transparency indeed has a serious impact on the implementation of
national e-Strategy. However, this study could not explore the relation
of political transparency and national e-Strategy.
Impact analysis and evaluation of national e-Strategy according to
economic levels is a future research task, and is an important research
area that should be accompanied by a more thorough study, taking the
impact of ICT utilization into account. This study used the Delphi
survey to analyze expert perceptions and is not suited for direct
utilization in a practical application, such as a technology assistance
project. Nevertheless, the surveyed results from this study can be used
as a basis for determining future research directions and applicability
in practice.
In addition, there has been no single country claiming to have a
failure in applying national e-Strategy efficiently. By nature, govern-
ments do not normally admit their policy as a failure. Official
measurement such as “e-Readiness index” measured by the United
Nations may indirectly show each country's strategic performance.
However, further study needs to be done to monitor governments'
performance of planned strategy based on resource allocation,
monitoring assessment of virtuous circling from plan to evaluation,
and feedback of outcomes.
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Jeongwon Yoon received his Ph.D in MIS from Seoul University of Venture and
Information at Seoul, Korea in 2006. He is a Director of Department of Global
Consulting, National Information Society Agency. He is involved in numerous
international E-Government projects.
Myungsin Chae received her Ph. D in MIS from the University of Illinois at Chicago in
2003. She is a professor in the department of MIS at Seoul University of Venture and
Information at Seoul Korea. She teaches courses and conducts research in e-business
and mobile business, and strategic IS management.

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