What matters in the development of the e-government in the EU?

Abstract

In this paper we presented an empirical insight into interdependences between selected national performance indicators and e-government indicators at national level in the European Union. Results show that the level of economic development has a moderate impact on the e-government development, while national competitiveness and innovation play quite a strong role. There is also a low correlation between overall government efficiency and e-government. It confirms that e-government projects are predominantly politically and not economic or socially driven. However, the most economically advanced Nordic countries and UK have all very high e-government readiness. On the other hand, there is surprisingly low correlation between e-government usage by enterprises and individuals, which indicates very different incentives for business and the public. The relatively low performance of new EU member states was also noted. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.