Assessing Digital Government at the Local Level Worldwide: An Analysis of Municipal Web Sites Throughout the World

Abstract

Throughout the world, government agencies are looking to use information technology as a tool for strategically enhancing their performance and creating public value. Our research examines 84 cities worldwide and evaluates their performance using a five-stage framework. The framework builds on existing e-government literature utilizing 92 different measures. The research was conducted between June and October of 2003. Our instrument was translated into the native language of each city and the assessment of each municipal Web site was conducted by a native speaker of the municipality’s language. We review relevant e-government literature for evaluating Web sites in the U.S. and internationally, discuss our sample selection, methodology, theoretical framework, findings, and recommendations. Our results indicate that Seoul, Hong Kong, Singapore, New York, and Shanghai are the top five large cities providing digital government opportunities to citizens online. In addition, our research suggests a difference in the digital government capabilities between the 30 developed nations belonging to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and lesser-developed (non-OECD) nations.