E-Government Service Research Development: A Literature Review

Introduction

Electronic service or e-service creates new efficiency in the daily life and drives new revenue stream in public and private organizations (Piccinelli & Stammers, 2002). E-service usually refers to the service delivery via any form of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), e.g. internet, mobile network, television, or radio broadcasting to the individual, group, or organization at any place, e.g. residence, work, or public place in any time (24x7x365) by public or private sectors (Gouscos et al., 2001; Scupola et al., 2009). For example, government agencies provide electronic services to the citizen known as e-Government service and the business organizations deliver electronic services to its consumer known as e-Commerce service. This paper concentrates only in the government electronic service also known as public electronic service.

Public electronic service was first introduced in Europe in late 1980s. A few European countries introduced ‘Electronic Village’ to link remote villages with the central government (Alsem, 2009). Within two decades, e-Government is now recognized as one of the most vibrant research areas in the context of public sector modernization where e-service is considered the key branch of e-Government (Wimmer et al., 2008; Lofstedt, 2005). However, it is evident that e-service is critical in e-Government research and development (Valarie, 2002; Wimmer et al., 2008). Therefore, an effective review of the published literature is essential to develop the knowledge from existed research and strengthen the research area where more research attention is required (Webster & Watson, 2002).

A number of studies have been conducted to review the research development of e-Government service during previous years. Riedl et al. (2011) derives a set of key themes from a literature review that distinguishes electronic services from non-electronic services. Fathul (2013) reports on a literature review of published e-Government research during 2005 to 2010 and identifies research themes in the context of developing countries. Liu et al. (2010) reviews the literature of Chinese core journals and China e-Government journal in terms of research themes, research methods, and research analysis. Hassan et al. (2011) summarizes the key ideas and characteristics of e-Government service development from a review of the published literatures during 2000 to 2009. A contemporary literature review by Islam & Scupola (2011) reveals e-Government service research development during 2005 to 2009 in terms of research theme, research publication, research approach, methodological technique, and research perspective. The finding indicates that e-Government service research publication is increasing within the theme of acceptance, evaluation, architecture, etc. Descriptive research approach and organizational research perspective are mainly focused in the literature.

The aim of this paper is to investigate and analyse previous e-Government service research and compare the findings with the study of Islam & Scupola (2011) in order to provide a complete overview of e-Government service research development since 2005. The results and analysis of this paper can serve the e-Government research communities as a means of understanding the research development and future research agenda. This paper explores the development of e-Government service research with the particular research question: What is the research development of e-Government service during prior years? Earlier reviews of the e-Government service research focus on the research theme, regional context, data analysis method, research perspective, and research approach to address the research development (Fathul, 2013; Islam & Scupola, 2011; Liu et al. 2010).