The Revolution That Wasn´t: Investigating Barriers to Platform-Based E-Service Delivery Partnerships

In response to the increasing political and popular demand on e-government to deliver, governments have begun to seek out new, alternative forms of operation. One such development in the domain of e-government is the emergence of private-public partnerships (PPP). However, research on PPPs in the service layer of e-government is virtually silent. In this paper we argue that one possible approach to help close this gap is by investigating key partnership issues from a platform perspective. Building on a case study, and using this novel perspective, we identify three key barriers for developing platform-based partnerships for e-service delivery in local government: the bureaucratic barrier, the interface barrier and the business barrier. Based on experiences from this study, we also conclude that the platform approach have proven useful as a means to close the highlighted gap in research.