Understanding E-government: Definition, Types, Importance, And Advantages And Disadvantages

Discussion

E-government can be stated as the utilization of the ICT or information and communication technology for the purpose of improvement of the activities for the public sector organization in any particular country (Janssen & Estevez, 2013). The various strategic decisions are easily undertaken and made by this e-government of the country and the due to the connection of technology, this particular system is well accepted even by the youth generation. The following report a brief discussion on the entire concept of e-government with relevant details.

Definition of E-government

Electronic government or e-government is a proper use of information technology for freely moving the important information for the core purpose of overcoming the physical restrictions of the traditional physical as well as paper based systems (Norris & Reddick, 2013). The various employees, citizens and business partners of the respective country are solely benefitted with the presence of e-government. The overall drive of the-government is also strengthened for the effective governance as well as there is incremented transparency for better management of economic as well as social resources for the development of the country.

The delivery models of the e-government could be broken down to several categories and each of them are significant for the country and its citizens. This type of government must result into the most effective, swift as well as efficient delivery of services and goods to the businesses, agencies, citizens and government employees. It refers to the simplification of the processes and even the streamlining of the approved procedures (Hung, Chang & Kuo, 2013). The-government employees or the agencies get the advantage of facilitation of the cross agency collaboration and coordination for the purpose of ensuring every type of timely and appropriate decision making.

There are four distinct types of e-government services, which are as follows:

i) Government to Citizen: The first and the foremost type of service delivered by the e-government is government to citizen (Fath-Allah et al., 2014). This G2C or government to citizen involves the proper information eradication to the public, ordering of certificates of marriage, death or birth, several citizen services like license renewals, filing of the income taxes and assistance to the citizens for few basic services like health care, libraries, hospital information and education.

ii) Government to Business: The second important and significant type of service that is being delivered by the electronic government is government to business. The respective G2B services subsequently involve e procurement as well as online-government supplier exchanging for the proper purchase of services and goods by the-government (Abu-Shanab, 2014). These web sites enable the registered as well as the qualified users for looking for the buyers and sellers of the services.  

iii) Government to Employee: Another important and noteworthy type of service of e-government is government to employee. The G2E services could encompass the specialized as well as the G2C services for covering the-government employees and improving the day to day functionalities as well as dealing with citizen.

iv) Government to Government: The final type of service that is delivered by the e-government of a country is G2G or government to government. The-government to government services substantially take place in two levels of international and the domestic or local level (Siskos, Askounis & Psarras, 2014). The international diplomacy and relations are enhanced with the help of these distinct services of G2G.

Definition of E-government

E-government is extremely important and significant for any country. This is mainly because of the fact that the overall governance of the country is enhanced and becomes one of the most attractive-government for that particular country. Poor governance has undermined the delivery of services as well as the development initiatives that are being undertaken by most of the developing countries (Snead & Wright, 2014). A better service delivery is eventually ensured for the citizens as well as the other stakeholders. Moreover, this e-government even ensures improvised efficiency of public sector. The responsiveness and accountability are also checked with this type of government and corruption is minimized to a high level. Since, it is completely dependent on the technology, e-government also has a major importance on the enhancement of any country’s technological background.

The major advantages and disadvantages of e-government are as follows:

i) Increase in Efficiency: The first and the foremost advantage of e-government is that it helps to increase the overall efficiency to a higher level and the citizens are benefitted with this type of effectiveness.

ii) Enhancement of Technology: Since, e-government is completely dependent on technology, the technological advancement of the country is enhanced to a high level.

iii) Lack of Corruption: E-government helps to eradicate corruption from the country’s political background and this another important advantage of it.

iv) Increase in Transparency: The next significant and noteworthy advantage of the e-government is that it increases transparency (Weerakkody et al., 2013). Since, it enhances technology, the transparency is increased effectively and the public sector or citizens get the idea of the-government policies easily and promptly.

v) Provides 24 hours Service: Another important and effective benefit of this e-government is that it eventually provides 24 hours services to the citizens of the country. Being dependent on the technology, the respective citizens could easily connect with the-government members and get help with time flexibility.

vi) Better Communication: Technology helps in providing better communication (Elbahnasawy, 2014). Very citizen or individual can easily communicate with the-government members and share their issues for getting prompt reply and action.

vii) Cost Effectiveness: The seventh important advantage of the electronic government is that it is extremely cost effective and hence dos not incur huge costs. The entire set up is quite easier and could be completed with some hardware and software.

viii) Faster Speed: E-government even produces services in faster speed and hence has become extremely popular in today’s world.

In spite of having such significant advantages, there are some of the most significant disadvantages, which make the system problematic. These are as follows:

i) Lack of Equality: The first and the most important disadvantage of the electronic government is that there is lack of equality in the accessing of Internet for the public (Bertot et al., 2014). Every citizen does not get the chance to use internet connection and hence is left out. This is mainly because a minimum education is required for accessing internet and thus the illiterate individuals could not communicate with the e-government.

ii) Lack of Reliability of Information: Another important disadvantage of the e-government is that there is lack of reliability in information. Since, the-government people are interacting behind the compute devices and the common people cannot see them, there is a high chance that it could be fraud.

iii) Lack of Security: The lack of security and privacy is the next significant disadvantage of the electronic government (Abu-Shanab, 2014). As the-government forces the citizens to interact with them electronically, the-government obtains more information about these citizens and hence privacy is hampered.

iv) Dependent on Technology: The dependency on technology is another demerit of e-government. This type of government could not deliver their services without the help of technology and if there is any discrepancy in technology, the entire system is ceased.

Conclusion

Therefore, from the above discussion, it can be concluded that e-government or electronic government provides public services to the respective citizens or non-citizens within any region or country with the electronic communication devices. The digital interaction between the citizens and the country’s government is termed as one of the major requirement for a country. Moreover this type of government even provides newer methods of transacting business and methods to organize as well as deliver relevant and important information. The above report has properly outlined the complete understanding of any country’s e-government.

References

Abu-Shanab, E. (2014). Antecedents of trust in e-government services: an empirical test in Jordan. Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, 8(4), 480-499.

Bertot, J. C., Gorham, U., Jaeger, P. T., Sarin, L. C., & Choi, H. (2014). Big data, open government and e-government: Issues, policies and recommendations. Information Polity, 19(1, 2), 5-16.

Elbahnasawy, N. G. (2014). E-government, internet adoption, and corruption: an empirical investigation. World Development, 57, 114-126.

Fath-Allah, A., Cheikhi, L., Al-Qutaish, R. E., & Idri, A. (2014). E-government maturity models: A comparative study. International Journal of Software Engineering & Applications, 5(3), 71.

Hung, S. Y., Chang, C. M., & Kuo, S. R. (2013). User acceptance of mobile e-government services: An empirical study. Government Information Quarterly, 30(1), 33-44.

Janssen, M., & Estevez, E. (2013). Lean government and platform-based governance—Doing more with less. Government Information Quarterly, 30, S1-S8.

Norris, D. F., & Reddick, C. G. (2013). Local e?government in the United States: Transformation or incremental change?. Public Administration Review, 73(1), 165-175.

Siskos, E., Askounis, D., & Psarras, J. (2014). Multicriteria decision support for global e-government evaluation. Omega, 46, 51-63.

Snead, J. T., & Wright, E. (2014). E-government research in the United States. Government Information Quarterly, 31(1), 129-136.

Weerakkody, V., El-Haddadeh, R., Al-Sobhi, F., Shareef, M. A., & Dwivedi, Y. K. (2013). Examining the influence of intermediaries in facilitating e-government adoption: An empirical investigation. International Journal of Information Management, 33(5), 716-725.