E-Government in Social and Economic Development: The Asymmetric Roles of Information, Institutionalization and Diffusion

There are documented differences between the success and failure factors in the developed and developing countries with regard to the adoption and embracement of Openness in e-Government practice models. This paper posits that e-Government constitutes a critical context for social and economic development in both developed and developing countries. The paper also suggests that e-Government encompasses more than just technology, that is, attempts to highlight the social and economic implications of changes that have occurred in recent years as a result of the transparency and accountability of government and how software usage can influence digital inclusion, trust and privacy and possible strategies to eliminate the digital divide by encouraging greater public and commercial use and re-use of government information through putting government data on the Web. In addition to leveraging economic development, e-Government also helps to stream line government services to more social based values of inclusion and citizens’ participation, accessibility and power relationship ratios. Although e-Government is not a new phenomenon in most developed countries such as the US, UK, Japan, most of the European countries and some developing countries in Asia and Africa which have already announced their Open Government Initiatives and data portals it also leads to greater information asymmetry among citizens and government and also, institutionalization and diffusion asymmetry of the practice of the current Openness in e-Government models within developed and developing countries. Drawing on organizational decision-making research and following the explorative and grounded based research approach the findings of this research are that the information asymmetry between citizens and government and asymmetry in institutionalization and diffusion within developed and developing countries are widely attributed to socio-economic and political variations in developed and developing countries. Unless these differences are skill fully identified and accommodated as such into the development and use models, Openness in e-Government efforts would not help achieve the social and economic development goals by both developed and developing countries.