Performance Impacts of E-Government: An International Perspective

Though policy makers and governments are interested in understanding the impacts of e-Government on national performance, there are relatively few empirical studies that analyze this aspect. Using secondary data from 99 countries and the IT impact literature as the guiding theoretical perspective, we first examine the impact of e-Government on first order government efficiency parameters (resource allocation and internal operations efficiency) and subsequently the impact of these first order outcomes on the two second order dimensions of national performance (social welfare and business competitiveness). Our initial analysis reveals a significant relationship between e-government development and resource allocation efficiency and also between e-Government development and internal operations efficiency. For the second order model, we find that the relationship between internal operations efficiency and social welfare competitiveness is not significant. We conducted a post-hoc analysis which revealed that the relationship between internal operational efficiency and social welfare competitiveness is fully mediated through national business competitiveness. Hence, business competitiveness emerges as an important aspect for realizing the social welfare benefits of e-Government. Through this research, we make some important contributions and implications for researchers, practitioners and policy makers.