Assessing E-government progress– why and what

The aim of this primarely theoretical paper is to discuss the use of e-government frameworks and benchmarking tools. It is frequently claimed that providing an effective egovernment assessment framework is a necessary condition for advancing e-government. However, there are major drawbacks in many of the existing e-government frameworks and surveys, as e.g. lack of a clearly defined purpose, and that they do not allow for specific national contexts and priorities. The paper reviews some of these frameworks and discusses to what extent they really can fulfil their intention in acting as guiding tools in e-government implementations. It is further argued that these different approaches are not likely to provide adequate framework for research that can deepen our understanding in this field.