Flexibility of processes and e-governance performance

Abstract

Purpose – The existing government processes are often not able to cope-up with the dynamic context of e-governance due to their rigid character as reflected in the dismal performance of e-governance projects. In this article, flexibility of the key processes and e-governance performance have been analyzed based on six agriculture related projects in India. The analysis has brought out implications for researchers, practitioners and society. Design/methodology/approach – Based on a review of literature, new constructs have been proposed and hypothesis formulated to study flexibility of processes and performance of e-governance. The empirical part of the study involves an opinion survey of officers involved in planning of the identified projects. The proposed constructs have been validated based on reliability and confirmatory factor analysis and used further for statistical analysis and interpretation. Findings – The research has revealed that “flexibility of processes” is a predictor of “performance of e-governance”. The analysis has further reflected the need for reengineering of conventional processes by embedding “change mechanisms” in processes for improving e-governance performance. Practical implication – The findings of this article are expected to sensitize the government officials and other actors involved in the planning and implementation of e-governance projects to analyse the underlying processes from the perspective of flexibility and take measures for transforming the conventional rigid processes into versatile and adaptive processes by introducing change mechanisms. Such redesigned processes are expected to lead to better performance of e-governance initiatives. Originality/value – This paper attempts to address the gap with respect to the lack of measures for analysing the relationship between flexibility of processes and performance of e-governance projects. The article opens the door for further research in terms of defining additional constructs such as “changing situation” and “competence level of actors” and exploring their predictive relationships with “performance of e-governance”. The context-specific interpretations of validated linkages influencing performance shall provide the base for arriving at an empirically founded synthesized strategic framework for improving the performance of e-governance projects.