2013 46th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Maui, Hawaii, 7-10 January 2013

1. Themes of Research on eGovernment
in Developing Countries:
Current Map and Future Roadmap
Fathul Wahid
Department of Information Systems, University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway
Department of Informatics, Universitas Islam Indonesia, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
fathul.wahid@uia.no
Presented at HICSS 2013
Hawaii, 7-10 January 2013

2. Introduction
• No comprehensive literature review focusing on
eGovernment in developing countries
• Exceptions include Dada (2006) and Hedström & Grönlund (2008)
• Research questions:
• What is the themes of current research on eGovernment in
developing countries?
• What possible future research direction can be proposed?
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3. Selection of literature
• Limits to prominent journals and or conference proceedings
portals:
• ScienceDirect
• Ebsco
• IEEE Xplore
• ACM Digital Library
• SpringerLink
• EJISDC
• Searching keywords
• electronic government and developing country; eGovernment and
developing country; digital government and developing country
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4. Literature in the pool
• 108 papers
• 39 journal + 69 conference papers
• 95 empirical + 13 conceptual papers
• 2005: 7; 2006: 8; 2007: 19; 2008: 23; 2009: 35; 2010: 16 papers
• Countries reported in the papers
• India (11 papers); South Africa (7); China, Kenya, Nigeria (6);
Bangladesh, Indonesia, Jordan (5); Morocco, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri
Lanka (4); Argentina, Brazil, Egypt, Iran (3); Turkey, Colombia,
Ghana, Thailand, Uganda (2); Cape Verde, Chile, Ethiopia, Jamaica,
Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritius, Mexico, Mongolia,
Mozambique, Philippines, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia,
Taiwan, Tanzania, UAE, Uzbekistan, Zambia (1)
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5. Method of analysis: research themes
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6. Method of analysis: research approach
• Research paradigm: positivist; interpretive; critical (Chen &
Hirscheim, 2004; Myers, 1997)
• Focus of research: techno-centric; government-centric;
citizen-centric (Grönlund, 2010; Sahroui, 2007)
• Knowledge framework: theory-based; framework-based;
model-based; schema-based; concept-based; category-
based (Heeks and Bailur, 2007)
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7. Research themes
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8. Findings: research themes x paradigm
Theme Positivist Interpretive Critical Unclear
n % n % n % n %
Design/implementation 15 71.4 2 9.5 0 0.0 4 19.0
Adoption 12 66.7 3 16.7 0 0.0 3 16.7
Impact 5 45.5 4 36.4 0 0.0 2 18.2
Evaluation 11 35.5 11 35.5 2 6.5 7 22.6
Context 3 11.1 6 22.2 1 3.7 17 63.0
All 46 42.6 26 24.1 3 2.8 33 30.6
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9. Findings: research themes x focus
Theme Techno- Government- Citizen-
centric centric centric
n % n % n %
Design/implementation 14 66.7 2 9.5 5 23.8
Adoption 10 55.6 2 11.1 6 33.3
Impact 4 36.4 2 18.2 5 45.5
Evaluation 17 54.8 9 29.0 5 16.1
Context 12 44.4 12 44.4 3 11.1
All 57 52.8 27 25.0 24 22.2
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10. Findings: themes x knowledge framework
Theme Theory
Frame
Model Scheme Concept Category Unclear
work
% % % % % % %
Design/implementation 0.0 4.8 0.0 28.6 38.1 14.3 14.3
Adoption 33.3 16.7 5.6 0.0 38.9 0.0 5.3
Impact 27.3 9.1 18.2 0.0 36.4 0.0 9.1
Evaluation 19.4 3.2 12.9 3.2 41.9 12.9 6.5
Context 3.7 7.4 7.4 0.0 29.6 29.6 22.2
All 14.8 7.4 8.3 6.5 37.0 13.9 12.0
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11. Findings: sub-themes
Main theme Sub-theme
Design/implementation - IT/IS artefacts
- IT/IS development frameworks
Adoption - Determinants
- Processes
- Problems
Impact - Instruments/frameworks
- Assessments
Evaluation - Technical
- Organisational
- Social
- Success/failure factors
Context - Technical/resources
- Organisational/institutional
- Social/cultural
- Opportunities/prospects
- Challenges/barriers/threats
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12. Design/implementation
• Current map
• Positivist approach is dominant (71.4%)
• Mainly techno-centric (66.7%)
• Lack of user involvement
• Separated from the evaluation process
• None uses a theory
• Future roadmap
• Considering the specificity of the context (such as by involving end-
users/stakeholders and local readiness) – solution-oriented?
• Incorporating evaluation in the design/implementation phase – action
research?
• Bringing in relevant theories
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13. Adoption
• Current map
• Positivist approach is dominant (66.7%) – answering what questions
• Lack of research from an organizational perspective
• Various adoption models exist
• Future roadmap
• Paying more attention to the adoption process (i.e., decision making,
resource mobilisation, strategy, role of key actors/stakeholders)
• Addressing how and why questions in addition to what questions
(e.g., by adopting interpretive research paradigms)
• Identifying conditions/circumstances in which certain factors are
determining or specific problems are emerging (e.g., by synthesizing
studies on adoption)
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14. Impact
• Current map
• Limited studies on impact
• Very few papers report the real impact (versus the expected impact)
• Future roadmap
• Theorising impact (such as tangibility, measurability, and magnitude)
• Taking the specificity (such as scale and time-space) of the context
into account when developing instruments to assess impact
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15. Evaluation
• Current map
• Tended to be techno-centric (54.8%)
• Separated from design/implementation phase
• Lack of longitudinal studies (or historical approach)
• Limited uses of theories
• Future roadmap
• Conducting a more comprehensive evaluation, beyond a techno-
centric approach
• Integrating evaluation with the design/implementation phase
• Conducting longitudinal studies
• Bringing in relevant theories
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16. Context
• Current map
• Lack of studies that adopt a citizen-centric approach (11.1%)
• Various lists of contextual issues
• Many papers use ‘unclear’ research paradigm (63.0%)
• Only one study that uses a theory
• Future roadmap
• Paying more attention to social contextual issues
• Identifying conditions/circumstances in which certain contextual
issues are more determining than others (by taking the diversities of
developing countries/contextual issues into account)
• Using the research paradigms appropriately and properly
• Bringing in relevant theories
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17. Limitations
• Possible bias due to limited number of the papers under
review
• Single coder
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18. Thanks for your attention
Comments or questions?
Fathul Wahid
fathul.wahid@uia.no
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