Assumptions of E-government Services Quality Evaluation

Authors

  • Lidija Kašubienė Kauno technologijos universitetas
  • Povilas Vanagas Kauno technologijos universitetas

Abstract

Aside from the growth of electronic commerce, the implications of the web are being felt in many other areas. One such area is electronic government (e-government). E-government has the potential to transform profoundly people’s perceptions of civil and political interaction with their government. Through the web, expectations of the service levels that e-government sites must provide have been raised considerably. Organizations providing egovernment are becoming ever more aware of the need to improve their offerings regarding to citizens and other stakeholders needs. The article presents analysis of several e-government services quality evaluation assumptions. The choice of the theme is based on some aspects. First, electronic delivery of services creates complex issues for the public sector. Question of quality in public sector should be one of essential issues. It is important to investigate what kinds of factors influence customers’ attitudes and behaviors towards e-government. Second, e-government is a relatively new subject of research so e-government services quality conception and aspects of quality evaluation is quite limited despite the importance of such process. Institution can make real progress just if it improves its activity paying attention to customers’ needs and expectations. This article reveals the analysis of e-government conception in order to clarify important aspects for egovernment services quality evaluation. The structure, architecture and transforming process from government to e-government is not the objective of this article. After the analysis of scientific literature the quality of e-government services is defined. Notwithstanding variety and complexity of quality definitions as the most suitable was chosen definition regarding determination who can and/or should judge or evaluate quality. Several discussions how customer and citizen should be treated in the public organization are presented. These discussions just emphasize the perception that the main justice of e-government services quality is citizen (or other stakeholder group) and services quality evaluation process should start from revealing citizen (or other stakeholder group) needs. Using systematic, logical and comparative analysis of concepts and conclusions published by different authors theoretical assumptions of e-government services quality evaluation were formulated: quality evaluation process depends on egovernment maturity stage, quality criteria from customer view point should be established and regular measured and quality criteria can various by maturity stages. Analysis extent is limited by the article size limitation.

Additional Files

Published

2007-12-13

Issue

Section

COMMERCE OF ENGINEERING DECISIONS