E-service development has grown to become a daily practice in most public organizations as a means for realizing digital agendas and e-government initiatives on different levels (local, regional, national and transnational governmental levels). Public e-service development is often an inter-organizational (IO) effort with multiple actors and organizations involved in the multi-faceted dimension...

Purpose – In this paper we gradually develop a framework for evaluating the websites of public authorities. The proposed framework consists of four axes: two for assessing the general characteristics and content of the websites (namely general characteristics and e-content); and two for assessing specific functionalities addressing their governmental character (namely e-services and e-participa...

Recent studies of e-government activity have highlighted adoption and diffusion issues as important subjects for rating e-government success. However in developing countries inadequate resources and limited citizens’ capabilities regarding new e-government have resulted in low diffusion and adoption of e-government services. This paper examines the role of intermediaries, which can be played by...

For the last decade e-government research has underlined the importance of an external user perspective in public e-service development and there have been numerous attempts to provide guidance and directions for government agencies in this matter. Individual research studies show little progress in this matter, but a more generalisable picture of the current state of external user inclusion is...

This paper highlights the research findings of a digital governance survey conducted in the fall of 2009. The study replicates previous surveys of large municipalities worldwide in 2007, 2005, and 2003. This longitudinal assessment, focused on the assessment of current practices in municipal e-governance by evaluating their official websites. Specifically, the survey analyzed security, usabilit...

Inclusive e-government is challenged by the limited participation of generic citizens. In order to address this issue, we propose to exploit the online services offered by the Public Administration (which support the establishment of direct relations with the population) for identifying people who might be motivated to contribute at decision making on the basis of their information interests. W...

Numerous developing countries have embarked on major e-service delivery programs. These countries grapple with the initiatives and are confronted by many problems that are unique to developing countries. A major problem is the lack of methodical approaches that can guide their efforts. There is also not much in the literature on the issues that face these countries as they struggle to provide e...

Developing countries have established promising e-Government initiatives with the objective of enhancing the accessibility of government services and information for their citizens. However, governments tend to design and launch online services based on their understanding of what citizens need, surprisingly, without actually measuring what increases citizens’ willingness to adopt web-enabled s...

The aim of this paper is to analyse the translation of the national policies at local levels in order to draw some conclusions about the impact of the strategies upon an equitable distribution of an esociety in terms of ethnicity and disadvantaged groups, such as the elderly and disabled. Three data gathering activities were conducted in the UK local areas of Hillingdon and Medway: a survey tha...

Since the benefits of Internet based business opportunities involving Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have become evident and influenced not only commercial enterprises, but governments around the globe, investments into the provision of e-services have amplified. The United Kingdom is one such country that has passionately initiated a number of e-government programmes at both...