Identifying Barriers to e-Government Services for Citizens in Developing Countries

Abstract

Although the use of ICT by government has demonstrated its potential in improving government services, worldwide there are more failures than successes of e-Government projects. In the context of developing countries, including India, authors have observed equally high failure rates. Therefore, it is important to understand the barriers to implementation of e-Government, especially in developing countries. This paper develops a comprehensive understanding of barriers to e-Government services for citizens in developing countries. This study was carried out in India, a developing country with a massive commitment to e-Government at policy and implementation levels. Based on variables identified from research, a survey of the key practitioners in e-Government was conducted to generate evidence on perceptions of barriers to e-Government. Even though a relatively small number of responses were received, the responses could be evaluated using principal component analysis to understand the latent structure of the barriers. Finally, 7 critical factors with 30 items are extracted that describe the latent structure of barriers to e-Government in development.