Identifying Barriers to e-Government Services for Citizens in Developing Countries: An Exploratory Study

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.