Organizational transformation through e-Government: Myth or reality?

Abstract

The field of e-Government (e-Gov) is still in the phase of finding and defining its research agenda and its accepted research standards and methods. How does e-Gov research differ from traditional public management information systems (PMIS) research? Also, to what extent does e-Gov represent a new tradition of research in terms of the subject area and the research paradigm? To what extent does government change through e-Gov? While one group of e-Gov researchers emphasizes the transformational impact of e-Gov on the business of government, others have squarely questioned this assertion. This paper contributes to the debate and to the definition of the research agenda by discussing various dimensions of organizational transformation, and how they relate to the phenomenon of e-Gov. It suggest that e-Gov, at least in the short term, has the capacity to transform the business of government in mode rather than in nature. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.