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E-government has emerged as a powerful medium to connect and deliver services to citizens (Abu-Shanab, 2017; Heeks & Bailur, 2007; Nam, 2019; Sawalha, Al-Jamal, & Abu-Shanab, 2019). Governments are employing several strategies such as the involvement of third-party intermediaries to e-offer their services, reduce the digital divide, and increase the adoption rates of newer technologies (Abunadi & Alqahtan, 2019). Although these strategies could be useful, a citizen-centric approach for designing the services would fetch more appealing outcome which is supported by customer focus theory (Vakeel & Panigrahi, 2018) and cultural theory (Hofstede, 2011).
Customer focus theory (Lohan, Conboy, & Lang, 2011) puts customers at the center stage of the offered services. The theory argues that services which are focused on customers and developed from their participation are adopted quickly. The adoption is also supported by cultural theory as the development of these services increases rapidly if the designed services are culturally congruent (Bagchi, Hart & Peterson, 2004). Cultural theory (Hofstede, 2011) may explain the intrinsic motivation (see Kumar & Sadarangani, 2018) of people to involve in culturally aligned activities and behavior, including the development of e-government. The United Nations also stressed on adopting citizen-centric and culturally congruent approaches related to e-government for reducing the demand and supply discrepancies in e-services (United Nations, 2016).
E-government development assesses the performance of technology and strategy of a nation that varies across countries (United Nations, 2016; Vakeel & Panigrahi, 2018). The e-government development is associated with several variables, for example, human capital, technological resources, adequacy of infrastructure for service delivery, government willingness to take initiatives, accessible language and content, trust, and culture (Khalil, 2011; Moreno-Enguix, Lorente-Bayona, & Gras-Gil, 2019). Researchers have examined the creation and distribution of culturally related e-government services and culturally congruent policies that are exclusively focused on indigenous people (Bagchi et al., 2004; Erumban & de Jong, 2006; Gong, Li & Stump, 2007; Lallmahomed et al., 2017). However, researchers have paid little attention to provide empirical evidence for establishing relationships between culture and e-government as most of the studies are exploratory or limited to one country context (For example, Lallmahomed et al., 2017; Seng, Jackson, & Philip, 2010; Guijarro, 2007; Twizeyimana & Andersson, 2019). Also, to the best of our knowledge, no work so far has examined the e-government development and culture in a longitudinal design. The longitudinal study may delineate the favorable dimensions which are responsible for growth as effect of a particular factor can be measured across years. Some cultural dimensions may support, whereas others may diminish the e-government development. Therefore, there is a need to understand the impact of culture on e-government encompassing several countries by using longitudinal data. This study is an attempt to fill this gap. This study examines the longitudinal data from 2008 to 2018 to establish the relationship between e-government development and culture. The reason behind countries either leading or lagging in e-government should be discovered and put forward in order to develop firm e-government policies. The study seeks a cultural interpretation and justification of variation in e-government development across countries and attempts to outline the cultural implications for e-government policies.
The contribution of this study is twofold. First, it adds to the body of knowledge of e-government on how culture impacts e-government development. This study supports the development of culturally congruent services along with policies and enhances the theoretical understanding of e-government development. Second, this study contributes to the customer focus theory and cultural theory. The study adopts a citizen-centric view in which citizen acts as a customer when viewed from customer theory perspective and seeks cultural explanations for the development of e-government. This study also outlines the practical implications by analyzing panel data from 2008 to 2018 across 78 countries. This study is first to view e-government development from longitudinal lens to examine the impact of culture. The study outlines as to what extent government and policymakers are required to consider cultural background while designing e-government services.