Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Middle East and the Far East tended to prefer to communicate with government in
face-to-face interactions, while participants from a western backgrounds often
preferred to use online services and believed it conferred relative advantages such
as convenience, saving time, and so on. The point here is that e-government
developments must be considered not only by measuring the EGDI but also taking
into account individual member state culture; the context in which e-government is
implemented varies from one county to another.
7.3.2
Implications of Considering Sociocultural Factors
It is clear from the above discussion that the sociocultural aspects of different
countries are not considered by the UN report in assessing e-government develop-
ment in countries around the world. The EGDI is not telling the full story; therefore
the index needs to be adjusted to take into account cultural and economic factors.
While the index has been renamed 'development', it still measures e-government
readiness. Including these factors in the index will allow the creation of a better
index of a country's e-government readiness that takes into account not only the
supply of e-government services but also the demand and acceptance for such
services.
When monitoring countries' e-government developments, relying only on the
supply focused EGDI, and overlooking the sociocultural aspects could lead to false
sense of advancement in some countries. The lack of consideration to sociocultural
factors when considering and make decisions about government online services
could lead to the conceptions and implementation of e-government systems that are
either not used or underutilized by end-users. The focus should always be on the
users' needs and expectations as users are the most important tools in implementing
ITeS.
7.4 Conclusions
If a country is not well developed there may not be services which are amenable to
online delivery in the first place. For example, if a country does not have a
'Medicare' style program there is little possibility of providing an e-government
interface to such a program.
Hence, the UN data need to be interpreted carefully before any specific
recommendations or policy decisions are made. The level of public discourse and
debate about e-government seems prone to considering e-government development
in absolute values and not relative to each individual country's economic and
sociocultural circumstances.
Each individual country needs to look not only at the level of development of their
telecommunications infrastructure, the literacy and technological skills available in
