Collaborative Governance Matters to E-Government Interoperability

Abstract

E-government policy initiatives for implementing citizen-centric integrated interoperable (CII) e-government services have gained international validity by governments worldwide. Despite extensive deliberations in e-government literature, however, successfully implementing strategic, institutional, and technological changes required by citizen-centric (vis-à-vis government-centric) e-government remains an unresolved theoretical and pragmatic conundrum. CII e-government systems are characterized by greater diversity in stakeholders, processes, technologies, applications, and big data, requiring greater cross-agency collaboration and process integration/standardization. Drawing from e-government interoperability and governance literatures, the authors examined the governance role in facilitating CII e-government implementation. The authors performed website and policy analyses of a successful implementation of Saudi Ministry portal, which exemplifies CII e-services. Results showed that government's earlier disconnected websites had not facilitated cross-agency information sharing required for citizen-centric e-government development. However, the authors found evidence that both e-government interoperability policy framework and collaborative governance had contributed to overcoming the implementation challenges and delivering CII e-government services to its diverse stakeholders.