Introducing e-Gov: History, Definitions, and Issues

Abstract

The e-Gov field (also called Electronic Government, Digital Government, Electronic Governance, and similar names) emerged in the late 1990´s. Since then it spurred several scientific conferences and journals. Because the field grew considerably in size, both its contents and position with respect to other research fields and disciplines need to be explained and discussed. What is e-Gov? What is e-Gov research? What does it mean for the field of Information Systems? This paper briefly sketches the short e-Gov history and current status, and discusses the content of the field as it appears in current research. We conclude with a discussion of e-Gov as a research field of interest both as a new application area for IS theories and methods and as a source of new insight.

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Introducing E-Gov: History, Definitions, and Issues by Å. Grönlund and T.A. Horan
INTRODUCING e-GOV:
HISTORY, DEFINITIONS, AND ISSUES
Åke Grönlund
Örebro University,
ake.gronlund@esi.oru.se
Thomas A. Horan
Claremont Graduate University,
ABSTRACT
The e-Gov field (also called Electronic Government, Digital Government, Electronic Governance, and
similar names) emerged in the late 1990´s. Since then it spurred several scientific conferences and
journals. Because the field grew considerably in size, both its contents and position with respect to other
research fields and disciplines need to be explained and discussed. What is e-Gov? What is e-Gov
research? What does it mean for the field of Information Systems? This paper briefly sketches the short e-
Gov history and current status, and discusses the content of the field as it appears in current research. We
conclude with a discussion of e-Gov as a research field of interest both as a new application area for IS
theories and methods and as a source of new insight.
Keywords: electronic government, governance
I. INTRODUCTION
The e-Gov (Electronic Government or Electronic Governance) field1 emerged in the late 1990´s
as a context within which to share experiences among practitioners. Over the past few years e-
Gov gave rise to several conferences with more and more scientific content. Some specialized
journals now appear. Because the field grew to considerable size, both its contents and position
with respect to other research fields and disciplines needs to be explained and discussed. What
is e-Gov? What is e-Gov research? What does it mean for the field of Information Systems?
1Synonyms for e-Gov include digital government, one-stop government, and online government.
While digital government is the most commonly used term in the US, electronic government is
most common elsewhere. In this paper we broadly cover the development irrespective of the term
used.

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A scientific field is usually characterized not just by a common object of study, but also a by set of
theories which can be used to understand the study objects of the field, and a set of preferred
methods and/or general methodological practices and understandings of what to investigate and
how. While these understandings are usually not undisputed, they still serve as ingredients of, if
not homogenous, at least to a large extent shared culture of the field [King and Lyytinen, 2004].
Because e-Gov is new and, as we shall see, consists of a partially new combination of scientific
disciplines and a vast area of practice, explaining the field is still difficult. In this paper we define
e-Gov in terms of current practice – who are e-Gov researchers and what are they researching? –
and in terms of the practice the research refers to.
Our object of study, “government”, is made up of a large number of organizations and many
different kinds of processes. It is not necessarily intuitively apparent what a small village in
France and the federal US government in Washington share in terms of process rationalization
potential. The substantive domains in which government agencies work also differ considerably,
from road construction to social welfare to schools to railroads to military defense. While political
science and public administration developed a range of conceptual approaches and empirical
foundations about public enterprises, the thesis to be examined here is how the rise of
information systems in government provides an opportunity for IS researchers and practitioners to
extend their contributions to management and society.
OUTLINE OF THE ARTICLE
After a brief sketch of the short e-Gov history, including publication outlets and literature in the
field (Section II), and a discussion of the content of the field (Section III) we go on to define the
field implicitly in two steps. First, we discuss the outer boundaries by displaying various definitions
and relating them to governance (Section IV). Second, we define the core by considering salient
issues for practitioners which impact research (Section V). We conclude with a discussion of e-
Gov as a research field that is interesting both as a new application area for IS theories and
methods and as a source of new insights (Section VI).
II. E-GOV HISTORY
The term e-Government (e-Gov) emerged in the late 1990s, but the history of computing in
government organizations can be traced back to the beginnings of computer history. A literature
on “IT in government” goes back at least to the 1970s [Kraemer, et al, 1978, Danziger and
Andersen, 2002]. This literature concerns IT use within government, while the recent e-Gov
literature more often concerns external use, such as services to the citizens [Ho, 2002]. While
some earlier e-Gov computer issues, such as office automation, may not be highly relevant to
research today, many issues are, for example decision making, service processes, and values.
As we shall see in Section IV, all definitions of e-Gov go beyond services to the citizen to include
organizational change and the role of government. Therefore, the two strands of literature need to
be considered together as the basis of the e-Gov field.
ORIGIN
Just like the term e-Commerce, the term e-Government was born out of the Internet boom.
However, it is not limited to Internet use or publicly accessible systems for direct use by
customers or citizens. e-Gov started as a practitioner field, basically convening practitioners
struggling to meet the new challenges of the Internet medium by implementing new systems
creatively. For example, in the United States the (then) Vice President Gore led the National
Performance Review, which placed a strong emphasis on the role of e-government in federal
services [Gore, 1993; Salem, 2003].

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CONFERENCES
Not surprisingly, then, most conferences so far are practitioner-oriented. Many conferences
gather practitioners only, and invite researchers only as guest speakers2. Other conferences
invite academic papers but try to attract a mixed audience (e.g., the European DEXA E-GOV
(www.dexa.org), the US Digital Government (http://www.diggov.org/) and the European
Conference on e-Government (ECEG,http://www.academic–conferences.org/eceg2005/
eceg2005-home.htm). Yet other conferences, or sections thereof, focus on research knowledge
exchange only. This group includes smaller workshops that meet regularly such as IFIP WG 8.5
(International Federation of Information Processing) and EGPA, the European Group of Public
Administration. For over a decade the last two arrange annual conferences on several e-Gov
themes. Many large, broadly themed conferences such as HICSS, ECIS, IFIP’s I3E (E-
Commerce, E-Business and E-Government, http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/conf/i3e),
AMCIS, and the Bled eConference, (http://www.bledconference.org/), which were held in the past
one to four years, added e-Gov sections.
More recently new concepts appeared that draw on the popularity of new technology. For
example, in 2005 we will see the first European, Asian, and American conferences about m-
government, where “m” refers to mobile technology (http://www.icmg.mgovernment.org/).
Worth mentioning specifically, although they do not focus on e-Government only and are
fundamentally political rather than scientific, are the World Summit on the Information Society
(http://www.itu.int/wsis/) and the preparatory World Forum on the Information Society and
WITFOR (World IT FORum), sponsored by UN and UNESCO respectively (and many other
actors) and serving to enhance the interest in e-Gov (among other things) in a global perspective.
JOURNALS
Dedicated e-Gov Journals were founded in 2004 and 2005, including e-Government Quarterly
(eGQ), International Journal of Electronic Government Research (IJEGR), and Journal of E-
Government (JEG). e-Gov papers were, of course, being published in academic journals prior to
that. They appeared in several journals in neighboring fields such as e-commerce and
government, often as special sections. They also appear in established journals in the social
sciences.
There is some discussion about the size of the field. A search by Norris and Lloyd [2004] for e-
Gov journal articles published between 1994 and 2004 found only 40 articles about e-government
published (or soon to be published) in refereed journals. Another search by Andersen and
Henriksen [2005] found 167 papers for the period of 1998-2003. Both figures may be an
underestimation of the size of the field, as many articles about e-Gov may not use that specific
term (political science articles often do not, for example).
E-GOV LITERATURE
A large number of publications appear outside of scientific journals and conferences. We now
present this literature, which is mainly of a practical nature.
A huge number of e-Gov projects are undertaken in most countries around the globe. Many
attempts are made to assess e-Gov development based on these projects. Analyses cover both
geographical areas and various topics. There is a distinction in production, as most scientific
papers cover developments in the industrialized world whereas the developing world is largely
covered by research and development sponsored by major organizations such as the World Bank
and UN. These two strands of development are merging, and will most likely continue to do so as
2 For example, conferences arranged by G8, Telecities, and national associations of
municipalities

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technology rapidly spreads across the globe and as experiences from early trials can be
disseminated. In this subsection we therefore do not distinguish between them. The following
discussion is designed only to indicate the scope of literature in the field. We do not claim to be
complete or even to cover the most important publications.
Surveys
Several surveys cover e-Gov projects. These surveys can be found at several portals on the
Internet.3 Many of these studies are showcases, some are just directories, but a number of
studies attempt analysis. Many of these studies are qualitative detailed case studies of successful
e-Government projects [Devadoss, Pan, and Huang, 2002; Ke and Wei, 2004; Golden, Hughes,
and Scott, 2003].
Benchmarking
A number of more or less recurrent benchmarking studies cover geographic areas such as the
EU, the US, and worldwide (e.g.,[Accenture, 2004; UNDESA, 2003a; West, 2003]). These studies
cover issues ranging from implementing services to multidimensional “e-readiness” indexes
[UNDESA, 2003; IBM and EIU, 2002; EIU, 2004; WEF, 2003]. An example of e-readiness studies
is the series of 10 papers on Globalization and E-Commerce published as Volume 10 of
Communications of AIS in 2003.
Critical Studies
Critical studies focus on, e g, how and when to measure success (e.g., De, [2004], discusses 1st
and 2nd order effects – immediate and long-term), and on the connection between e-Gov
development in the service area and economic and democratic development (e.g., [De, 2004];
[ZDNet IndiaNews, 2004]; [Booz Allen Hamilton, 2001]; [Accenture, 2003]).
Different studies use different measures of e-Government activity because they focus on different
aspects. Examples include public sector use of the Internet and other digital devices to deliver
services and information [West, 2004], governments providing information about services, as well
as the ability to conduct government transactions, via the Internet [Accenture, 2004], and the
application of information and communications technology (ICT) to transform internal and external
relationships [UNDESA, 2003a].
Handbook and Other Literature
A body of handbook literature is based on cases and assessments. Handbooks exist for
managing e-Gov projects in general [Grönlund, 2001], for developing countries in particular (e.g.,
[CDT, 2002]) and for particular kinds of efforts, such as local community telecentre building (e.g.,
[Jensen and Esterhuysen, 2001]).
Sponsored e-government literature series, such as the one undertaken by the IBM Institute on
Electronic Government [IBM, 2004] also exist.
A growing scientific literature within IS is assessed in various ways by e.g. Andersen and
Henriksen [2005], Grönlund [2004] and Norris and Lloyd [2004].
As this brief review shows, many outlets publish e-Government articles. What, then, is e-
Government about? What is the content that motivates the many institutionalization efforts?
3 See Appendix I.

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III. E-GOV CONTENT
Defining the content of the e-Gov field can be done in different ways. Andersen and Henriksen
[2004] identify various themes found in the literature. Grant et al. [2005] offer a comprehensive
empirical definition by mapping out all kinds of work done within the field. Grönlund [2004] and
Norris and Lloyd [2004] are concerned with the nature of the research in terms of methods used.
Another way is to consider the calls for papers and proceedings from the multitude of
conferences that exist today. Doing so we find not only a very wide range of topics but also many
topics that are in other more established niches. Using just one, but a representative, conference
call as an example to illustrate papers for existing niches (Table 1), we find that, for example,
number 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 are examples of such topics. Further, some topics are self-
generated by the very nomination of “a field” of e-Gov (including 3, 6, 13 and 14).
Table 1. Call for Papers for DEXA EGOV 2005
1. Frameworks and guidelines for e-Government and e-Governance
2. e-Government policies, strategies and implementation
3. Methods and tools for e-government research
4. Participation, e-democracy and e-voting
5. One-stop government, electronic service delivery, mobile services
6. International and regional projects, case studies and best practice
7. Administrative process design and change, collaborative activities, legal interpretation
8. Trust and security: provisions and instruments
9. Knowledge management, public information, decision process support
10. Interoperability and standards, semantic standardisation
11. Change management and new organisational arrangements: public-private-partnerships,
virtual teams
12. Legal, societal and cultural aspects of e-Government
13. International dimensions: cooperation, comparisons, networks
14. Teaching e-Government
Source: http://falcon.ifs.uni-linz.ac.at/news/cfp_e-Government2005.html
Rather few topics in Figure 1 directly distinguish e-Gov from other areas and mark e-Gov with
salient defining features. Number 1, 2 and 4 may be such.
The list in Table 1 covers a large number of topics, ranging from technical (e.g., security) to
organizational (e.g., knowledge management), social (e.g., participation), economic (e.g., public-
private partnerships) and societal (e.g., democracy and law). Many of these topics already have
their own journals and conferences in other disciplines, such as law and computer science. One
may ask why e-Gov conferences should attract such papers. This question motivates inquiry into
what triggers such a variety of topics being grouped together. This motivation comes from a
number of sources. One is what we call the “outer boundary” of e-Gov, that is, the definitions that
are used in the field of practice that e-Gov research reflects. Another is what we call the “inner
core”, that is, the current e-Gov research practice; the issues on which e-Gov researchers focus.

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IV. OUTER BOUNDARY – E-GOV DEFINITIONS
Of the definitions of e-Gov, the dominant ones emerged from fields of practice. Around the turn of
the millennium, governments across the globe set up definitions as basis for national strategies to
achieve excellence based on use of Internet technology. Grönlund [2002] reviews some of these
and find them similar and typically explicitly mentioning three goals,
1. more efficient government,
2. better services to citizens, and
3. improved democratic processes.
These definitions still remain, as they are implemented in official documents and government
reform programs. Over the past few years, in many countries the rhetoric about improved
democratic processes was played down a bit in practice and in definitions. One example to
illustrate this change in emphasis is the US 2002 E-Government Act, defining e-government as
“the use by the Government of web-based Internet applications and other
information technologies, combined with processes that implement these
technologies, to
a) enhance the access to and delivery of Government information and services to
the public, other agencies, and other Government entities or
b) bring about improvements in Government operations that may include
effectiveness, efficiency, service quality, or transformation;”
[U.S. Congress, 2002].
That set of definitions was complemented with various definitions crafted for specific more limited
purposes, often by researchers. Some of these definitions limit the field to make it more easily
operationalized in some technical or reorganization project, or for research purposes. For
example,
1. by discussing “self-service” in a technical manner, avoiding organizational issues
involved with producing such services, or
2. by talking about “e-voting” without addressing context of democratic processes in which
voting is embedded.
Other definitions are designed to address the broader development towards “better government”.
Better government definitions are typically being created by supranational organizations
concerned with development, research, or international cooperation. Because in this section we
are interested in the total realm of e-Gov, the outer boundaries of the field, we start by
considering some of these.
What all recent definitions by major organizations share is that they
1. acknowledge the need for organizational reform to go hand in hand with technology
implementation, and
2. focus on the role of government in society, that is, governance (discussed below).
Three sample definitions illustrate these ideas.
“E-Government refers to the use by government agencies of information technologies
that have the ability to transform relations with citizens, businesses, and other arms of

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government. These technologies can serve a variety of different ends: better delivery of
government services to citizens, improved interactions with business and industry, citizen
empowerment through access to information, or more efficient government management.
The resulting benefits can be less corruption, increased transparency, greater
convenience, revenue growth, and/or cost reductions” [World Bank, 2004; italics added
by author]
E-Government is…
“The use of ICTs, and particularly the Internet, as a tool to achieve better government”
[OECD, 2003, p 23]
The e-Gov efforts by the European Union are based on the definition:
“e-Government is the use of Information and Communication Technologies in public
administrations combined with organisational change and new skills in order to improve
public services and democratic processes” [EU, 2004].
These definitions are about governance rather than government. This distinction is since long made in
political science but IS research, and indeed e-Gov practice, tends to use confusing definitions. In short, e-
Government refers to what is happening within government organizations (in IS research the term is often
used restricted to those government organizations that provide services to citizens or companies). e-
Governance, on the other hand, refers to the whole system involved in managing a society. The system
includes activities not only by government organizations but also companies and voluntary organizations,
and – often forgotten! – citizens. Moreover, it features the processes and flows of governance, dimensions
that are critical to understanding the context of information systems deployment and use [Atkinson, 2003]
For these reasons, e-Governance is a preferable term for use when considering IS applications to the
public sphere. Clearly IT and information systems are at work in all the above activities.
While
"Government’s foremost job is to focus society on achieving the public interest [….]
Governance is a way of describing the links between government and its broader
environment - political, social and administrative" [Riley, 2004].
Another way of describing the difference is that while government is about certain specific activities with a
short-term perspective, governance is about processes and outcomes in the long run. Table 2 illustrates
this difference by pairing concepts that belong together but put the emphasis on either of these two ideas.
For example, while “rules” are what governments set up, “goals” are why they do it and “performance” is
how they will be evaluated.
Table 2. Government Compared to Governance
GOVERNMENT GOVERNANCE
superstructure functionality
Decisions processes
Rules goals
Rules performance
implementation coordination
Outputs outcomes
e-Government e-Governance
electronic service delivery electronic consultation
electronic workflow electronic controllership
electronic voting electronic engagement
electronic productivity networked societal guidance
Source: [Riley, 2004]

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In e-Gov research, political scientists tend to use the term governance, while IS researchers tend
to use government. This appears a little odd as IS researchers in private sector contexts are
much concerned with processes and outcomes. It is also an unfortunate practical problem, as
most conferences, journals, and research sponsors – and consequently also most researchers –
use the term e-Government, even when they actually discuss governance or take a governance
perspective. This definitional confusion is perhaps one we will need to live with as the term e-
Government seems to be quite well established, and as the e-Gov research area appears to be
dominated by IS researchers [Andersen and Henriksen, 2005; Grönlund, 2004]. Here we simply
use “e-Gov” to cover all pertinent research.
Following from this distinction is that talking about governance or government makes a big
difference in terms of what information systems count as e-Gov systems and hence what people
should be considered users. Figure 1 illustrates this difference by using a textbook model of
society as consisting of three distinct but interrelated spheres, the political sphere, the
administrative sphere, and civil society. All are mutually dependent by a large number of
relations, but are each distinct in many ways, including legal status, culture, and modes of
operation.
Arrows indicate influence, circles indicate domains of control. Intersections indicate “transaction
zones” where control is negotiated by, e.g., lobbyists and media on the left-hand side,
intermediary service deliverers on the right-hand side and professional interaction in government
boards and committees on the top side. (Adapted from [Molin et al, 1975; p. 16])
Figure 1. Basic Spheres and Relations in a Democratic Government System
Governance obviously concerns all three spheres, while government can be taken to mean either
just the administrative one or the political and administrative in combination. While all the e-Gov
definitions from major constituencies referred in this paper rather discuss e-Governance, other
more limited definitions exist. For example, OECD [2003] distinguishes among four types of
definitions:
1. “Internet (online) service delivery and other Internet-based activity such as e-
consultation” (that is, mainly the transactions between government administration and
citizens in the right-hand side of the figure).
2. “E-government is equated to the use of ICTs in government. While the focus is generally
on the delivery of services and processing, the broadest definition encompasses all

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aspects of government activity” (that is, mainly the right-hand side of the figure but with
more focus on Administration).
3. “E-government is defined as a capacity to transform public administration through the use
of ICTs or indeed is used to describe a new form of government built around ICTs. This
aspect is usually linked to Internet use” (that is, mainly the Administration sphere and the
processes linking administration and formal politics)
4. The OECD’s own definition, “The use of ICTs, and particularly the Internet, as a tool to
achieve better government” [OECD, 2003, p 23] clearly concerns the whole figure as
“better government” must be measured from outside, what good it does for (civil) society.
Even though different in scope, the definitions are unanimously socio-technical: organizational
change, skills, and technology together are the key to success. The definitions are not only based
on the ambitions of the respective organizations but also empirically on experiences and research
from successes and failures of a large number of projects, in developed as well as developing
countries (see, e.g., the handbook literature in Section II).
Plotting the definitions on the e-Gov domain as defined above, we find that they are related to
different parts of Figure 2.
Figure 2. Different e-Gov Definitions Plotted on the e-Gov Domain
The positioning of the definitions in different areas of the e-Gov domain is at least partly the result
of researchers from different field being engaged, using their traditional areas of expertise,
research questions, and empirical interests. e-Gov research is not only multidisciplinary when
seen as a field, so are also individual conferences. This finding can be illustrated by the Grönlund
[2004] examination of papers at three major e-Gov conferences (Table 3).
Though IS and IT researchers (where we include business administration) dominate, the
considerable number of papers with public administration origin should be noted.
Another way of illustrating the multidisciplinary nature of the field is plotting disciplines on the e-
Gov domain. As shown in Figure 2, several disciplines are interested in each part of the domain.
For example, using definition 1, relevant disciplines include (at least) informatics, psychology, and
economics. Definition 2 involves at least economics, management sciences, and informatics/IS.
Definitions 3 involves at least political science, management sciences, and informatics/IS, and
Definition 4 involves at least political science, sociology, and informatics

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Table 3. Papers at DEXA e-Gov, ECEG, and HICSS 2003 Conferences by Affiliation of First
Author
Disciplines No of papers
Social sciences Business administration 17
Social sciences Law 12
Social sciences Public administration, government,
and social studies 19
Social sciences Library sciences 2
Social/technical Informatics/Information systems 45
Technical Technology, computer science 20
Other Government professional 4
Not mentioned 50
Source: [Grönlund 2004, p 184]
One important but so far largely ignored issue is that the different definitions lead to different
performance measures. Table 4 gives some examples, but clearly there are many more. (IS) e-
Gov research is very often focused on issues directly concerned with implementation of technical
systems, such as those pertaining to the first definition. Clearly, measurements can be more
easily designed for the first definition than for the 4th, however, definition four scores higher on
relevance from a governance perspective because it assesses outcomes rather than activities.
Table 4. Examples of Performance Measures Relevant to the Different e-Gov Definitions.
Definition Example measures
Def. 1 Internet (online) service delivery and other
Internet-based activity online presence,
cost cuts,
access
Def. 2 E-government is equated to the use of ICTs in
government. While the focus is generally on
the delivery of services and processing, the
broadest definition encompasses all aspects
of government activity
Productivity as measured by
specified tasks, e.g., service
delivery
Def. 3 E-government is defined as a capacity to
transform public administration through the
use of ICTs or indeed is used to describe a
new form of government built around ICTs.
This aspect is usually linked to Internet use
implementation of strategy,
degree of political control over
public administration
Def.4 “better government” improved interaction with
business and industry,
increased transparency,
reduced corruption
The issue of different performance measures is not only a problem of how large a system one
considers, it is also a matter of values. In agreement with the definitions discussion, clearly e-Gov
can be studied with several kinds of values in mind, including economic, social, and political.

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This review shows that influential definitions of e-Gov today include contextual and societal
aspects – governance – and hence go beyond single government organizations and indeed
government as a whole. The consequence of this analysis for research is that e-Gov is a new
domain with new issues to study beyond traditional IS. Clearly information systems pervade all
parts of the domain. Furthermore, as Table 4 indicates, rigor and relevance come in somewhat
different contexts depending on definition than in traditional IS settings. Good performance as
measured using definition 1 may not only conflict with but indeed contradict good performance as
measured using definition 4. This observation is a classical example of system analysis, the risk
of sub-optimization, and one IS researchers on e-Gov at least must be aware of. It is also an
important observation for those who believe that IS e-Gov research should avoid becoming
trapped inside Definition 1, both from the perspective of being able to interact with and learn from
other disciplines who use broader definitions and from the perspective of being faithful to the IS
tradition of applying systems perspectives to information technology and systems.
V. INNER CORE – E-GOV ISSUES, AND THE ROLE OF IS
The previous section showed that e-Gov practice and research cover a large domain. But of
course not everything within that domain is a research issue, and not all of those are necessarily
e-Gov research issues. Defining e-Gov as a specific research field involves at least three
limitations. These limitations are:
1. Exclusive – what, if any, issues are there that would be best off discussed in a distinct field? An
e-Gov example could be that new combinations of disciplines are required beyond what is
traditionally within the IS field.
2. Government focused – what issues are special for the combination of IT and
government/governance, that is, that do not concern any organization? For e-Gov, this focus
includes a government context which in some theoretical way can be distinguished as special.
For example, “leadership” could to some extent be imported from corporate leadership studies
but would have to be considered also in the context of a democratic decision making system.
Interoperability among departments would need to include not only technical issues and data
integrity/definitional interoperability (these are problems for any organization), but also privacy
considerations discussed in terms of the nature of the relation between government and citizens.
3. e-Gov analytical – a government context, even if well defined, is not enough. The role and
methods of government need to be discussed in the light of the “e”. What are the implications of
IT design and use? Government in its current implementation cannot be taken as a given –
because then IT would not matter - but “e” is in fact one of the problems in the current e-Gov
discourse [Snellen, 1995; Zouridis and Thaens, 2002]. Issues such as integration and
reorganization are typically discussed without reference to the principles and the history that
resulted in government becoming precisely what it is today. The discussion about various models
for government typically takes place in the political science field. The discussion is rather on a
very aggregated level, concerned with national political institutions and principles. Political
science theories often ignore the dynamics of organizational environments. They usually do not
deal with users/citizens in practice, and they ignore IT. Just how the infrastructure affects
organization is little discussed. It is sometimes implied that only political decision is important.
While true in a trivial sense – government organization is decided politically – there is no doubt
that the current democratic systems maintain a relation to the infrastructure of the industrial
society. It is therefore likely that democracy in the information society is somewhat different and
that the technological infrastructure and tools will make a difference. While most would agree to
that statement, the e-Gov literature contains little about just how this happens. Conversely, while
IS research is indeed often concerned with users in practice, commonly used theories in IS
contain limitations when trying to apply them to understand government and governance. For
example, these theories often decontextualize actors by taking them out of a historical and

724 Communications of the Association for Information Systems (Volume 15, 2004)713-729
Introducing E-Gov: History, Definitions, and Issues by Å. Grönlund and T.A. Horan
systemic perspective (Actor Network Theory) and depolitify government (Institutional theory,
Large Systems Theory). Of course, some theories do not contain these particular weaknesses
and can be (and have been) used both in IS and in more general discussions of society (e.g.,
Institutional theory [Giddens, 1984]). In the recent debate4 on the nature of the IS field (“IS Core”),
at least some voices were raised in warning of defining the “IS Core” too tightly precisely because
the growing field of IT use in government provides new challenges [Myers, 2003]. It is our
contention that defining IS broadly would be fruitful for both the IS as a whole and for the e-Gov
field. The discussion in the rest of this section will hopefully clarify this view, at least to some
extent.
E-GOV DEFINING ISSUES
The previous section discussed e-Gov definition largely stemming from practice. Another way of
defining the e-Gov field is to consider what e-Gov researchers actually study. Previous attempts
to assess what e-Gov research is all about include Andersen and Henriksen [2004] who arrive at
four “themes”:
1. Conceptualization of e-government,
2. The Governmental role in technology diffusion,
3. a Governmental administrative eService focus, and
4. Democracy and involvement of citizens.
Anderson and Henriksen create their categories inductively by coding the content of 110 journal
papers.
In Table 5 we create another classification to illustrate how e-Gov research relates to various
aspects of governance we discussed above. Table 5 is constructed the following way. Papers
from three major e-Gov conferences – DEXA e-Gov, ECEG and HICSS – were classified by title,
keywords and contents into several “themes” (based on [Grönlund, 2004]). These themes were
associated with four important aspects of governance:
1. a systems perspective – all government agencies together rather than individual
organizations or subsets of government organizations,
2. the governance system, as discussed above,
3. social, or rather societal as they concern general principles rather than individuals,
aspects, and
4. the relation between government and governed, a typical theme in political science.
Table 5 illustrates how what researchers do relates to a governance perspective. It does not say
that all these researchers take a governance perspective, just that e-Gov research (1) includes
these issues and (2) they have implications for governance.
Some of the issues in Table 5 have been on the agenda for some time, some are “emergent
issues” triggered by events in the environment. Still other issues did not yet make it onto the e-
Gov research agenda by the time the sample was taken in 2003. The major themes of Table 5
that stand out as recently most highlighted are:
1. Security and Infrastructure. The events of September 11th sent aftershocks through many
industries and research communities. IS is no exception—and within IS, the interest in
security and critical infrastructure is emerging as an important area of study. Such research
ranges from large scale modeling efforts underway at National Laboratories (such as at
Sandia Labs) in the U.S. to more localized examples of emergency response (see [Turoff,
2002]).
4 See Communications of AIS, Volume 13, Articles 30 to 42 published in November 2003.

Communications of the Association for Information Systems (Volume 15, 2004)713-729 725
Introducing E-Gov: History, Definitions, and Issues by Å. Grönlund and T.A. Horan
Table 5. Research Themes Aggregated from Three Major e-Gov Conferences in 2003: DEXA e-
Gov, HICSS, and ECEG.
Fields Themes
Reorganization
Infrastructure
Efficiency, rationalization
Self-service
eCommerce-inspired systems
Interoperability,
Standards
Ontologies
change management
Legal environment
Government in a systems
perspective: all government
organizations together
Process management/process remodeling
Outsourcing
Value-added services by 3rd parties
virtual communities
The governance system
community network
Universal access
Design for all
(Bridging) digital divides
e-democracy
Social aspects of e-Gov:
“Society, the home of all
people”
Participation
User value / citizen satisfaction
Societal value (effectiveness)
CRM
Call centers/service centers
The role of civil servants
Governing the Internet
eService models, government business models
Voting
The relation between
government and governed
Control, security, surveillance, privacy
2. Citizen Satisfaction with e-Governmental Services. This theme builds on the macro-trend
of customer-centric businesses. While much is written in the private sector about customer
relationship management, a similar set of issues need to be addressed within an e-
government context.
3. The Use of IT for Regional Development. Appealing again to macro-trends, from a global
perspective there has been much interest in using ICT to facilitate economic and social gains
in developing countries. Even within developed countries, critical issues of access are being
addressed [Horan, Arguelles, and Worthington, 2004].
Clearly classifications like this one can be made in different ways. We provided Table 5 to
illustrate the importance of a governance perspective by mainly two arguments:
1. e-Gov practice defines e-Gov in terms of the governance system
2. e-Gov researchers study a large set of issues which contain implications for governance
whether or not the researchers actually realize that or for some other reason take a more

726 Communications of the Association for Information Systems (Volume 15, 2004)713-729
Introducing E-Gov: History, Definitions, and Issues by Å. Grönlund and T.A. Horan
narrow view of their objects of study. Thus, e-Gov is a valid new context for these issues
even though many of them are published in other disciplines and can be considered in
other contexts.
VI. CONCLUSIONS
This brief introduction shows e-Gov as a large practice. Numerous publications are available in
the practitioner field. The academic field includes numerous conferences, a handful of new
journals, and publications in established journals with a more general scope. e-Gov is, however,
an immature research field because of novelty, unclear definitions of the scope and core, and a
necessary but not yet fully developed multidisciplinarity.
Most definitions in the field of practice take a governance perspective. Even if each piece of
research does not need to do that, we argue that the e-Gov field as a whole should in order to
reflect the practitioner field and to make contributions to practice.
e-Gov is a potentially fruitful research field. It extends all contributing disciplines in some way. It is
not just the least common denominator of established research fields. For IS, this extension
includes the concept of governance5, which brings new analytical dimensions and new variables
to IS research, and the integration of ideas from public administration, political science and (in
new ways than before) sociology. As IS grapples with the substantial changes in the field (such
as employment trends due to the rise in global outsourcing), it is important to recognize those
areas that warrant practitioner and research attention.
In conclusion, we believe e-Gov is a budding field that is interesting both as a new research area
for IS theories and methods and as a source for IS practitioner contribution and use.
Editor’s Note: This article was received on February 2, 2005 and was published on May __, 2005.
It was with the authors for approximately one month for one revision.
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5 Governance of the IS function is a separate area that is receiving practitioner and research
activities. It is not covered in this paper

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Communications of the Association for Information Systems (Volume 15, 2004)713-729 729
Introducing E-Gov: History, Definitions, and Issues by Å. Grönlund and T.A. Horan
APPENDIX I. A LIST OF PORTALS WITH DESCRIPTIVE AND ANALYTICAL REPORTS ON E-
GOVERNMENT
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UNPAN (United Nations Online Network in Public Administration and Finance)
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Egov.it (http://www.egov.it)
Digital Governance (http://www.cddc.vt.edu/digitalgov/gov-menu.html)
Stanford Africa internet directory and Stanford University library's Africa pages: http://www-
sul.stanford.edu/depts/ssrg/africa/elecnet.html
U.S. National Science Foundation: http://www.digitalgovernment.org/
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Åke Grönlund is Full Professor of Informatics at Örebro University. He is also affiliated to the
dept. of Informatics at Umeå University (both in Sweden). Åke’s research currently focuses on
various aspects of electronic government. More generally, interests include the coordination of
organizations (including virtual organizations and networks) using ICT, including electronic
service delivery, organizational redesign, electronic information infrastructures, and coordination
of work based on IT use. Current projects includes also mobile technology for different contexts
and ICT for Development with a particular focus on e-Government. Åke has also served as
consultant in several international e-Government projects, including EU projects and the World
Bank. Åke is Chair of IFIP W.G: 8.5 (IT in Public Sector) and AIS Special Interest Group on
Electronic Government, and founding faculty and scientific leader of the multidisciplinary
DemocrIT research programme on ICT in democratic processes. He is involved with most e-
Government journals and several e-Government conferences, in particular the major European
one, DEXA EGOV.
Thomas A. Horan is Associate Professor in the School of Information Science and Director of
the Claremont Information and Technology Institute (CITI), Claremont Graduate University. His
research areas include inter-organizational systems, e-government and community informatics,
and electronic health care systems. This research has been published in such journals and
proceedings as Communications of the ACM, Information Systems Frontiers, and Proceedings of
the Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS). In addition, he authored
Digital Places (ULI Press, 2000) and, more recently, co-edited (with Rae Zimmerman) Digital
Infrastructures (Routledge, 2004). Dr. Horan’s work has been sponsored by a public and private
organizations, including the National Science Foundation (Digital Government Program), U.S.
Economic Development Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation, and QTC
Management. Dr. Horan has been a visiting scholar at MIT, Harvard, UCLA, and the University of
Minnesota.
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