A Study on the Evaluation Model for Development of Local eGovernment in China

Over the last few years, the area of electronic government (eGovernment) has received increased prominence and attention; people are increasingly interacting with e-Government systems. It is therefore important to measure the development of eGovernment. This study via principal component analysis (PCA) from the local perspective presents, validates and updates an evaluation model with 5 dimensions, which captures the multidimensional and interdependent nature of e-Government system. The validity of the model is empirically investigated using a sample of local e-Government of 18 cities in China, all of them with high Internet penetration and mature ICT use. The five dimensions of the evaluation model are project construction, information security management, special construction, transparency of government affairs and informationized ability. K-means clustering is applied in the subspace created by PCA to evaluate the local e-Government stages of growth of these 18 cities. The findings provide several important implications for e-Government research and practice.