E – Government for Developing Countries: Opportunities and Challenges

1. INTRODUCTION The explosion of digital connectivity, the significant improvements in communication and information technologies and the enforced global competition are revolutionizing the way business is performed and the way organizations compete. A new, complex and rapidly changing economic order has emerged based on disruptive innovation, discontinuities, abrupt and seditious change. In this new landscape, knowledge constitutes the most important factor, while learning, which emerges through cooperation, together with the increased reliability and trust, is the most important process (Lundvall and Johnson, 1994). The competitive survival and ongoing sustenance of an organisation primarily depend on its ability to redefine and adopt continuously goals, purposes and its way of doing things (Malhotra, 2001). These trends suggest that private and public organizations have to reinvent themselves through 'continuous non-linear innovation' in order to sustain themselves and achieve strategic competitive advantage. The extant literature highlights the great potential of ICT tools for operational efficiency, cost reduction, quality of services, convenience, innovation and learning in private and public sectors. However, scholarly investigations have focused primarily on the effects and outcomes of ICTs (Information & Communication Technology) for the private sector. The public sector has been sidelined because it tends to lag behind in the process of technology adoption and business reinvention. Only recently has the public sector come to recognize the potential importance of ICT and e-business models as a means of improving the quality and responsiveness of the services they provide to their citizens, expanding the reach and accessibility of their services and public infrastructure and allowing citizens to experience a faster and more transparent form of access to government services. The initiatives of government agencies and departments to use ICT tools and applications, Internet and mobile devices to support good governance, strengthen existing relationships and build new partnerships within civil society, are known as eGovernment initiatives. As with e-commerce, eGovernment represents the introduction of a great wave of technological innovation as well as government reinvention. It represents a tremendous impetus to move forward in the 21 st century with higher quality, cost effective government services and a better relationship between citizens and government (Fang, 2002). Many government agencies in developed countries have taken progressive steps toward the web and ICT use, adding coherence to all local activities on the Internet, widening local access and skills, opening up interactive services for local debates, and increasing the participation of citizens on promotion and management …