Citizen-centered e-government services: benefits, costs, and research needs

The promise of E-Government (and its more recent spin-offs of EDemocracy, E-Participation, E-Procurement, and a range of other “E-‘s”) is to engage citizenry in government in a user-centered manner, but also to develop quality government services and delivery systems that are efficient and effective. User-centered EGovernment suggests that governments will provide services and resources tailored to the actual service and resource needs of users, including citizens, residents, government employees, and others. Efficient and effective E-Government suggests that governments will gain economies of scale, reduce costs, and provide technology-enabled user services. The extent to which these goals of E-Government are mutually exclusive is an issue that requires additional study, particularly research that focuses on the relationship between citizen-centered E-Government services and the attainment of cost savings. A key issue is that citizen-centered E-Government implies that governments know what citizens want from E-Government, want to meet citizen expectations and needs, and actively seek to discover what citizens want from E-Government. This paper presents a range of issues associated with the development and implementation of citizen-centered e-Government.