Examining the adoption, implementation, institutionalization and sustainability of e-government strategies: The case of Tanzania using an institutional perspective

This study examines the forces influencing the adoption of e-government strategies in a developing-country situation, using Tanzania as a case study. It explores the types of e-government services and the users it targets, and identifies the institutional barriers encountered in the process of adopting, implementing, institutionalizing and sustaining e-government. In examining the adoption forces, the study employs an institutional perspective that takes into account coercive, mimetic and normative factors as key forces that exert pressure on institutions to embrace new innovations. A survey of government agencies was conducted in 2004-05; various statistical techniques, including factor analysis and binary logistic regression, were used for data analyses. A content analysis of government websites and the review of government documents were undertaken to supplement survey data. The findings support the hypotheses that all three forces influence the adoption of e-government. Mimetic forces exerted the greatest influence (accounting for 14-18% of the predictive value), followed by normative forces (9-12%) and by coercive forces (9-11%). Three individual variables showed statistically significant predictive values: government agencies outside the responding agency (mimetic, positive), universities and NGOs (normative, positive), and new employees (mimetic, negative). Donors exerted positive influence as sources of coercive forces although not statistically significant. The available services involve one-way communication, disseminating government information via agency websites; those that involve sophisticated portal designs for two-way interaction with users have not yet been established. Government employees constitute the main user group for current and planned e-government services, although there are some users in the general public and the business community. E-services/G2C and e-management/G2G are the principal forms of e-government interactions at present. E-commerce/G2B/B2G and e-democracy/C2G have not yet been established but there are indicators of their emergence. The identified barriers include the lack of financial and physical resources, insufficiently skilled personnel, and poor telecommunications/related infrastructure. A model is proposed as a fuller account of the environment for the e-government adoption and implementation process in the case of Tanzania, for other African states, and for related developing nations. The empirical findings and a conceptual model are offered as resources for the continuing study of e-government development in both developed and developing-nation contexts.