What Drives Global E-Governance? An Exploratory Study at a Macro Level

Global e-government is being tracked using a variety of different measures, none of which have been systematically validated. Little research compares and contrasts these measures and little work has sought to frame and identify potential independent drivers of e-government at the national level. This paper systematically compares and contrasts the dependent variables and the relationships between the e-government variables and independent drivers. Using data from a variety of institutional sources, we find low correlations among e-government measures and low to moderate consistency in the relationships between established independent variables and e-government measures. Findings indicate a significant measurement validity problem and conclusions recommend consideration of a different approach.