Internationalization of e-Government Services

This paper is about the challenges and barriers in the internationalization of e-government (G2B) in the Baltic Sea Region and the European Union. The study is supported by qualitative and quantitative empirical data. The quantitative empirical data include 60 interviews with international companies operating in the Baltic Sea Region. The research is made as a part of the WP3 of an EU funded Interreg project DIGINNO. Empirical data for the qualitative study was elicited from the Danish/German Cross-Border service, The Region Sonderjylland-Schleswig and the Danish/Swedish cross border service, Oresunddirekt. The findings of the first study points to language, online identification/authentication, document recognition and national regulations as the major barriers. The second study points to the lack of institutional legitimacy for the internationalization of EU G2B services as a barrier to G2B cross border service delivery between the member states. This paper calls for a regulative institution that will support the current technical efforts aimed at the internationalization of G2B e-government services.