A meta-analysis of empirical e-government research and its future research implications
| Published date | 01 March 2018 |
| Date | 01 March 2018 |
| Author | Peter Daiser,Bernd W. Wirtz |
| DOI | 10.1177/0020852315599047 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
International Review of
Administrative Sciences
2018, Vol. 84(1) 144–163
!The Author(s) 2016
Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0020852315599047
journals.sagepub.com/home/ras
International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
Article
A meta-analysis of empirical
e-government research and its
future research implications
Bernd W. Wirtz
German University of Administrative Sciences Speyer, Germany
Peter Daiser
German University of Administrative Sciences Speyer, Germany
Abstract
The desired e-government potentials and its shortcomings in reality are key reasons
why e-government has become a major topic of interest to academics and practitioners,
leading to an extensive body of knowledge. However, the literature still demands
further quantitative empirical research to substantiate theory development. This
situation calls for a specific review of the literature that arranges relevant knowledge
and provides a solid foundation for future research. However, available meta-analyses
do not deliver the particular insights to appropriately address the shortage of quanti-
tative empirical e-government research. Therefore, this study explicitly focuses on this
specific field to systematically uncover areas requiring further exploration, and defines
promising research directions for a solid foundation for future investigations. Key
findings of the meta-analysis are: the existence of a systematic divide of existing quan-
titative empirical e-government studies into 12 research subtopics, which are assessed
according to different classification criteria for scientific research gap-spotting; the
identification of emerging subtopics that carry innovative research potential; and that
e-government is expected to be an ongoing, open-ended research environment that still
provides manifold investigative opportunities. Based on these findings, straightforward
suggestions for future research are provided.
Points for practitioners
Beyond providing insights into the current state of quantitative empirical research for
scientific researchers, this article also delivers value for professionals working in public
management and administration. First, the study provides a comprehensive overview of
e-government-related meta-analyses, which allows us to quickly identify the literature in
Corresponding author:
Bernd W. Wirtz, Chair for Information and Communication Management, German University of
Administrative Sciences Speyer Freiherr-vom-Stein-Str. 2, 67346 Speyer, Germany.
Email: ls-wirtz@uni-speyer.de
order to tackle particular e-government management issues. Second, the article classi-
fies existing quantitative empirical studies, defines specific subject areas and arranges
relevant knowledge, which eases the processes of confining and labelling e-government
activities. Last, since these deliverables are based on empirical studies that draw their
conclusions from perceptions of reality, the summaries and classifications are thus
regarded to be of special importance for public managers.
Keywords
e-government, empirical research, literature review, meta-analysis, quantitative research
Introduction
E-government can be a powerful instrument to enhance citizen–government inter-
action (Im et al., 2012), to advance public administration (United Nations, 2014) as
well as public service provision (Welch et al., 2005), and to improve internal gov-
ernment efficiency (Parent et al., 2005). Moreover, it is suppos ed to embellish public
service quality and to be a concept for adequately reflecting citizens’ demands for
transparency andaccountability (United Nations,2014). Against this background, e-
government, which refers to ‘the use of information technology to enable and
improve the efficiency with which government services are provided to citizens,
employees, business and agencies’ (Carter and Be
´langer, 2005: 5), has become a
major topic of interest to academics and practitioners (Be
´langer and Carter, 2012;
Wirtz and Daiser, 2015). Thus, up to now, an extensive, complex and interdisciplin-
ary body of knowledge has been accumulated (Arduini and Zanfei, 2014).
Despite this wide-ranging, multifaceted theoretical body of science, the academic
literature postulates the necessity of further quantitative empirical research since a
shortcoming of potent approaches prevails (Morgeson and Mithas, 2009; Piehler
et al., 2014; Rana et al., 2013). However, closing a research gap in an area showing
a plethora of research calls for a sound review of prior, relevant literature that
arranges existing knowledge and provides a firm foundation for future research to
systematically uncover areas requiring further investigation and define promising
research directions (Webster and Watson, 2002). Given this research issue, we
examined e-government-related literature reviews that have dealt with this topic
in the past years (e.g. Andersen et al., 2010; Arduini and Zanfei, 2014; Be
´langer and
Carter, 2012; Hu et al., 2010; Hui et al., 2014; Irani et al., 2012; Kromidha and
Cordoba-Pachon, 2014; Rana et al., 2013; Savoldelli et al., 2014).
On the whole, the investigated meta-analyses aim at covering the entire range of
conceptual and empirical articles with regard to specific core issues, such as e-
government adoption, diffusion or service quality, delivering highly aggregated ana-
lyses of distinct e-government subtopics.Even though these analyses clearly advance
scientific knowledge by giving a detailed synopsis of their respective topic, their
specialized content in combination with their broad scope of research approaches,
covering conceptual, qualitative and quantitative work, does not provide asufficient
Wirtz and Daiser 145
To continue reading
Request your trial