Measuring eGovernment success: a public value approach

Abstract

Measuring the success of eGovernment systems depends on how citizens perceive their value. Our understanding of success has been hampered however by (i) the rapid development and complexity of Internet technologies and (ii) the lack of conceptual bases necessary to represent the ever expanding range of success dimensions. This study proposes Public Value theory to reposition the DeLone and McLean IS Success Model in order to encompass three essential success or value clusters: efficiency, effectiveness and social value. The efficacy of this approach is demonstrated by creating a Public Value-based (Net Benefits) construct to measure IS success from the citizens' perspective within the context of eGovernment 2.0 systems. Survey responses from 347 experienced users of U.S. government Web 2.0 websites confirm that the proposed success measure is reliable and valid and that the nine-factor structure (Cost, Time, Convenience, Personalisation, Communication, Ease of Information Retrieval, Trust, Well-Informedness and Participate in Decision-Making) can explain a major portion of citizens' perceptions of eGovernment success. Additionally, the nine-factor Public Value construct was applied to three identified eGovernment user groups: Passive, Active and Participatory, in order to better understand success in specific usage contexts, including Web 2.0.

Keywords:

• IS success
• public value
• eGovernment

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Murray Scott

About the authors

Murray Scott is a lecturer in Business Information Systems at the J.E. Cairnes School of Business & Economics, National University of Ireland Galway, Ireland. His main research interests lie in IS success, egovernment and innovation in public sector information systems. He obtained a Ph.D. from NUI Galway and has Masters degrees in English and Philosophy from the University of Dundee, Scotland.

William DeLone

William H. DeLone received the BS degree in mathematics from Villanova University, the MS degree in industrial administration from Carnegie-Mellon University, and the Ph.D. degree in computer information systems from the University of California Los Angeles. He is currently a professor of information technology in the Kogod School of Business at the American University, Washington, DC. His current research interests include the assessment of information systems’ effectiveness and egovernment and public value.

William Golden

Willie Golden is Professor of Information Systems at NUI Galway, Ireland. Previously he has held positions as Dean and Director of a research institute at NUI, Galway. He has co-authored a book, contributed numerous chapters to other texts and published journal papers in among others, Information Systems Journal, Omega; The International Journal of Management Science, International Journal of Electronic Commerce, Journal of End User Computing and Journal of Decision Systems.