Investigation Determinants of E-Govt and its Impact on Corruption and Accountability

Abstract

In this technological era, Governments across the globe are delivering public services to their citizens in an efficient and effective manner through E-Government (E-Govt) system. However, the development of E-Govt is not without challenges. Its development is surrounded by a number of factors, amongst those technological and governance structure have to be focused more in order to facilitate E-Govt implementation. Conversely, once developed, E-Govt brought forward more transparency, reduces corruption to a greater extent and makes public officials highly accountable to citizens. In terms of prior research, most of the literature either focused on the implementation challenges or the adoption factors, no research studies were found that took holistic view of both determinants and outcomes of E-Govt. So this research aimed to investigate the determinants and impacts of E-Govt by integrating both determinants and outcomes of E-Govt cohesively in a unified framework. The study incorporated Technological Sophistication, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law, Political Stability and Government Effectiveness as critical enabling factors that may influence E-Govt development. On the other hand the impacts of E-Govt on Control of Corruption and Voice and Accountability were also investigated. This study also posited that the relationship between E-Govt and Control Corruption and between E-Govt and Voice and Accountability further strengthens with the inclusion of Right to Information laws. Based on quantitative research method, country level secondary data was collected from international agencies (i.e. World Economic Forum, Center for Law and Democracy, United Nations and World Bank) to operationalize research variables. The results suggested that Technological Sophistication, Regulatory Quality and Government Effectiveness have significant positive association with E-Govt while Political Stability has significant but negative effects on E-Govt. Further the relationship between Rule of Law and E-Govt was statistically insignificant. Likewise, on the outcome side, E-Govt has strong impact on Control of Corruption but no impact on Voice and Accountability. In addition, Right to Information laws have moderating effects on the relationship between E-Govt and Control of Corruption and also on the relationship between E-Govt and Voice and Accountability. The research implications and limitations with future research directions are also discussed.