Towards a better understanding of e-Government implementation

The adoption and proper use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the public sector can lead to a positive image, effectiveness and efficiency for government related services delivered to citizens. However, high failure rates of Electronic Government Information Systems (EGISs) as well as huge wastages in government investments seemed to grow. Actor Network Theory (ANT) has been used frequently as a framework to assess Information System (IS) related research. Reviewing the latest ANT related articles led to the identification of three trends of utilization. (i) The four `Moments of Translation´ feature, (ii) Information System (IS) trajectory plotting using the `Mobilisation of Local and Global Networks´ feature and (iii) The use of ANT in interpretivists´ literature as a `lens´ to clarify and make their viewpoints. Based on the peculiarities of ICT utilisation, this paper argues that the selective use of ANT features solely, may hinder the proper description of the situation. It is claimed that both the `Mobilisation of Local and Global Networks´ feature coupled with the `Moments of Translation´ feature of ANT and, contrary to its use by interpretivists, allowing ANT ontology to prosper, may give a better representation of facts with a view to solving e-Government (e-Gov) problems, an area yet to be adequately explored in the current body of literature.