Evaluating information technology usage in a municipal government: An exploratory case study of functional department maturity stages

Information technology (IT) has been widely adopted by municipal government agencies to improve their responses to citizen requests, render effective customer service and provide interface for business transactions. There is need to periodically evaluate the status of IT usage in order to assure optimized capacity utilization of the IT infrastructure and to ascertain that intended benefits are being realized (Norris & Demeter, 1999). This study found that user characteristics was the driver of IT usage in the municipal government amongst the IT usage variables of organizational support, belief, and system characteristics. The research determined the growth stages of IT at the various city departments. The study also showed that operational benefit was the benefit mostly realized from IT usage in the city amongst the IT benefit variables of strategic and tactical benefits. The finding indicated that two or more city departments were at different stages of IT maturity, thus validating the proposal by Galliers and Sutherland (2003) that in a large organization, two or more departments may be at different maturity stages. A concurrent mixed research methodology was adopted with the sample frame comprising city employees. Stratified random sampling was used in selecting the survey participants. Hierarchical regression analysis and one-way analysis of variance were used to determine the drivers of IT usage and IT benefits as well as the stages of IT maturity. The city government agency under study is located in Tarrant County in the state of Texas.