2011- Working Papers: Technology and Information Systems

This paper includes two parts: evaluating e-government and identifying its success factors. The evaluation and measurement of e-government services and contact channels are at the centre of the first part. A systematic study of local e-government has created an in-depth index of the local e-government in Israel, and its four sub-indices, that were extracted by factor analysis: efficiency, basic efficiency, contact with the public, and effectiveness. Interestingly enough, socioeconomic, financial, or demographic factors did not fully explain the index results and were consequently excluded as alternative explanatory factors. Questionnaires and interviews with managers and other officials provided support to the viability of a new model, termed technophilia, which is now extended to the organizational level. The technophilia model that was developed and empirically examined in a previous study concerning the process of technology adoption at the level of the individual is revealed, in this study, as a valid explanation for the e-government index results. By developing the index, observing municipal websites, and carrying out a detailed examination, we have opened the "black box" of organizational processes and portrayed the technophile managers that intuitively plan and implement citizen-oriented information systems and Internet websites and lead to technical and social change. Theoretical implications are discussed in the context of socio-technical approaches (actor-network theory).