A Case Study of Drivers and Barriers to E-Government Initiative in Jordan

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Abstract

AbstractThe University of ManchesterSahar Safwan Khasawneh-JalghoumDoctor of PhilosophyA Case Study of Drivers and Barriers to e-government initiative in Jordan17 May 2011E-government, in both developed and developing countries, has become the focus of governments‘ agenda because it offers enormous opportunities to reform the public sector and improve its performance. However, the evolution of e-government initiatives in developing countries is not at a satisfactory level which indicates that there are still enormous barriers and concerns that need to be addressed and solved.The major aim of this research is to investigate the supply-side stakeholders‘ perspectives of drivers and barriers forces that stimulate or impede the development of e-government initiative in Jordan and recommend strategies to e-government leaders on how to overcome and manage the encountered forces.This is a case study based qualitative research that employs semi-structured interviews as the primary source for data collection. In addition, template analysis approach and NVivo qualitative software have been used to analyze the gathered data. Moreover, a novel conceptual framework was initially developed by the researcher in order to be used as a helpful guide in the process of data collection and analysis. The framework was then applied to the research context to establish an overall view of the key drivers and barriers that influence the implementation of e-government at national level in Jordan.Research findings indicate that there are various drivers and barriers that affect the development of e-government initiative in Jordan. Most of the research findings confirmed what was already revealed by previous studies. However, this study added new and unique findings that were not discovered before including; The Holy Month of Ramadan, Ministers Reshuffling, Religious Beliefs, Preach Without Practicing, Wasta, and Improper Use of Technology. These new findings emerged distinctively from the Jordanian, Arabic and Islamic contexts. Finally, various recommendations have been proposed to demonstrate how challenges could be handled in practice.The value of this study is threefold. First, it contributes as new reference in e-government literature with respect to drivers and barriers to e-government in developing countries in general and in Arab nations in particular. Second, it proposes a conceptual framework that could be used as a tool to understand drivers and barriers that affect the development of e-government and their correlation to e-government initiatives success or failure. Third, it motivates changes in practice as it provides practical recommendations and guidance for practitioners and leaders of e-government in Jordan on how they should take actions to overcome and manage the encountered forces in order to reduce the possibility of the initiative failure and enhance the chance of its success.

Keyword(s)

Barriers; Drivers; E-Government; Jordan; MoICT; Template Analysis

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