E-Government Adoption in the U.K.: XBRL Project

Electronic government is one of the strategic innovations which have become a powerful agent of change for developing better government information and services and supporting the modernization of government’s operations. This paper investigates a remarkable e-government initiative represented by the adoption process of the Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) at Companies House (CH) in the United Kingdom. Based on the application of Rogers’ framework, the research identifies CH’s motivation, vision and process to use XBRL to achieve efficiency and produce better quality data to enhance and streamline the electronic filing process. The novelty of this research is based on the usage of a well-established innovation adoption framework to examine XBRL adoption as a process –rather than a productinnovation that remains to be an under-researched area. This research provides valuable implications and conclusions that can help decision makers and IT experts in government agencies to devise meaningful strategic plans to adopt future e-government initiatives and develop existing ones.