Government Information Quarterly 30 (2013) S94–S109

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Government Information Quarterly

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/govinf

Electronic Governance for Sustainable Development — Conceptual framework and

state of research
Elsa Estevez ⁎, Tomasz Janowski 1
Center for Electronic Governance, United Nations University International Institute for Software Technology, P.O. Box 3058, Macao SAR, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Available online 11 January 2013 Electronic Governance (EGOV) research studies the use of Information and Communication Technologies to
improve governance processes. Sustainable Development (SD) research studies possible development routes
Keywords: that satisfy the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of the future generations to
Electronic Governance meet their own needs. Despite substantial progress in advancing both domains independently, little research
Sustainable Development exists at their intersection — how to utilize EGOV in support of SD. We call this intersection Electronic
Electronic Governance for Sustainable
Governance for Sustainable Development (EGOV4SD). This paper: 1) proposes a conceptual framework for
Development
Meta-research
EGOV4SD, 2) proposes EGOV4SD research assessment framework and 3) applies both frameworks to deter-
mine the state of EGOV4SD research. The main contribution of the paper is establishing a foundation for
EGOV4SD research.
© 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in

The twentieth century witnessed tremendous increase in the
world's population from 1.65 billion in 1900 to 6.79 billion expected
in 2010 (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs
Population Division, 2006) and exponential growth in development —
industrial output increasing by a factor of 40, energy usage by 16, and
carbon and sulfur dioxide emissions by 10 (Dasgupta, 2007). It also
witnessed severe environmental consequences of the chosen develop-
ment paths through air and water pollution, destruction of ecosystems,
extinction of wildlife and other forms of ecological degradation; and un-
even progress between the nations, some showing significant increase
in material wealth while others facing worsening poverty and despera-
tion (Kemp, Parto, & Gibson, 2005).
Both problems – ecological degradation and uneven development –
gave rise to the concept of Sustainable Development (Kemp et al.,
2005). According to the Brundtland Report, Sustainable Development
(SD) is the development that satisfies “the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own
needs” (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987).
The report recommended urgent actions focusing on population and
human resources, industry, food security, species and ecosystems,
urban challenges, managing the commons, energy, conflict and envi-
ronmental degradation. All focal areas were further discussed at the
⁎ Corresponding author. Fax: +853 28712940.
E-mail addresses: elsa@iist.unu.edu (E. Estevez), tj@iist.unu.edu (T. Janowski).
1
Fax: +853 28712940.
1992, producing, among others, global action plan called Agenda 21
(The United Nations Programme of Action from Rio, 1992) and 27 prin-
ciples for environment and development as part of the Rio Declaration
(United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, 1992).
Other international summits followed. Most recently, governments
reaffirmed their commitment to implementing Agenda 21 and the Rio
Declaration (United Nations, 2012). Following such commitments,
many countries around the world are formulating SD strategies and
creating structures to facilitate their implementation. However, the im-
plementation faces various challenges, from intrinsic complexity of the
SD problems, through the impact of multiple crises affecting the world,
to specific local challenges affecting African countries, least developed
countries, landlocked developing countries, and small island developing
states (United Nations, 2012).
In addition, the failure of development efforts, the inability of nations
to sustain growth in most parts of the world, and limited effects of eco-
nomic progress, where available, on poverty reduction and social prog-
ress all highlight the importance of governance for development. In
general, governance represents the means through which government
as an institution of the state acts to perform its functions — representation
and regulation of societal actors, delivery of public services and policy-
making (Coleman, 2008; Finger, 2005) by interacting with various socie-
tal actors (Kemp et al., 2005). Governance for development comprises
economic governance with growth promotion, accountability, transpar-
ency, and pro-poor growth, all facilitating higher incomes, and political
governance with empowerment, participation, access, accountability
and transparency, all facilitating service availability (United Nations
Department for Economic and Social Affairs, 2007). Likewise, the report
highlights that the linkage between development and economic or

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 E. Estevez, T. Janowski / Government Information Quarterly 30 (2013) S94–S109
political governance is established via good governance: pro-poor
policy framework, public administration and civil service reform, and
decentralization and service delivery. The World Bank and the Organi-
zation for Economic Cooperation and Development also refer to: political
stability, rule of law, control of corruption and accountability (Nanda,
2006), and openness, participation, accountability, efficiency and sensi-
tivity to the local context (Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development, 2002). Since governance is central to any development
effort and good governance is a necessary condition in achieving any
form of development, governing the SD process is critical. This includes
(Kemp et al., 2005): engaging citizens in the SD process, ensuring
long-term inter-generational perspective in policy-making, and facilitat-
ing horizontal and vertical policy integration to ensure coherency in
government decision-making processes.
Increasingly, governance processes are supported by Information and
Communication Technologies (ICTs), with new governance paradigms
emerging due to progress in ICT, globalization and increasing influence
of non-governmental organizations (Coleman, 2008; Finger, 2005).
These include: redistribution of powers hitherto concentrated within
government among citizens; enhanced mechanisms for government-
wide coordination in policy and information exchange; stronger regula-
tion due to co-production of public goods and services between public-
and non-public actors; and relying on social networks for citizens to
express their collective voice and pursue action. In general, Electronic
Governance (EGOV) entails strategic use of ICT to support governance
processes including ICT-enabled transformation in the relationships
between government and citizens, businesses and other arms of govern-
ment. In particular, EGOV helps to: deliver public services over electronic
and traditional channels, engage various social actors in decision- and
policy-making processes and regulate the activities of such actors
(Coleman, 2008; Finger, 2005), as well as generate and circulate official
communication in digital forms (Coleman, 2008) to reduce information
asymmetry in the society (Finger, 2005).
Given the relevance of governance to SD processes and the rele-
vance of ICT to governance, this paper applies the EGOV concept to
support the SD domain — Electronic Governance for Sustainable De-
velopment (EGOV4SD). EGOV4SD focuses on the use of ICT to enable
the governance of the SD process (Janowski, Ojo, & Estevez, 2010)
through: enhancing the efficiency of internal government operations
with SD-oriented ICT strategies, processes, architectures and infra-
structures; applying ICT to support the provision of accessible ser-
vices needed by the poor and small businesses, delivered at the
minimum environmental cost; using ICT to increase participation of
the poor in government decision- and policy-making processes; and
others. However, despite substantial progress in advancing the
EGOV and SD domains independently, we are not aware of any efforts
to define, conceptualize and landscape the EGOV4SD domain, to
explore how EGOV could support the SD process. This paper fills
this important gap. First, it presents a conceptual framework for
EGOV4SD that helps define the boundaries and dimensions of
the domain based on the boundaries and dimensions of the main
Political Administrative
3
System System
4 2
1, 3
Civil Society
Fig. 1. Democratic model of Society and Electronic Government (Grönlund & Horan, 2005; Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2003).
S95
contributing domains — EGOV and SD. Second, it defines a methodol-
ogy for analyzing EGOV4SD research, based on the conceptual frame-
work. Third, it presents how the methodology was applied to review
related literature and the outcome of this review — the landscape of
EGOV4SD research.
The rest of the paper is structured as follows. Section 2 provides the
conceptual framework for EGOV4SD. Section 3 explains the methodolo-
gy followed in this paper to assess the state of EGOV4SD research.
Section 4 proposes the EGOV4SD research assessment framework.
Sections 5 documents how the data for EGOV4SD research assessment
was collected while Section 6 documents the analysis of this data.
Section 7 presents the state of EGOV4SD research, Section 8 contains a
discussion, and the final Section 9 provides some conclusions and
plans for future work.
2. Conceptual framework
The current section gradually develops the conceptual framework
for EGOV4SD applied in this paper, from EGOV (Section 2.1) through
SD (Section 2.2) to EGOV4SD (Section 2.3).
2.1. Electronic Governance
Both Electronic Government and Electronic Governance received
numerous definitions in the literature, none of them becoming an ac-
cepted standard. For example, Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development (2003 on pp. 23) introduced four definitions
of Electronic Government: 1) internet service delivery and other
internet-based activities by government; 2) all uses of ICT by govern-
ment; 3) transforming public administration through the use of ICT;
and 4) the use of ICT, particularly the internet, as a tool to achieve
a better government. As depicted in Fig. 1, Grönlund and Horan
(2005 on pp. 721) further mapped these definitions into a democrat-
ic model of society with interrelated spheres of the political system,
administrative system and civil society and the four definitions
of Electronic Government mapped into these spheres: definition 1
belongs to the intersection between the administrative system and
the civil society, definition 2 belongs to the administrative system,
definition 3 belongs to the intersections between the administrative
and political systems and between the administrative system and
the civil society, and definition 4 belongs to the intersection between
all three spheres.
Grönlund and Horan, (2005) also pointed out the difference
between Electronic Government referring to what is happening within
government, and Electronic Governance (EGOV) referring to the whole
system involved in managing the society. Similarly, “e-Governance
comprises the use of Information and Communication Technologies
(ICTs) to support public services, government administration, demo-
cratic processes, and relationships among citizens, civil society, the
private sector, and the state” according to Dawes (2008, pp. 586).
1. Government online
2. All uses of ICT by government
3. Transforming public
administration through ICT
4. Using ICT as a tool to achieve a
better government
S96 E. Estevez, T. Janowski / Government Information Quarterly 30 (2013) S94–S109

Based on this distinction and the model in Fig. 1, we put forward 2. Capital Stock SD Model formulates that the capital stock of SD is
our own definition of Electronic Governance (EGOV): the sum of the capital stocks of the environment, the economy
and the society (Keiner, 2005).
Electronic Governance is the application of technology by govern-
3. Prism of Sustainability Model defines four dimensional goals of
ment to transform itself and its interactions with customers, in order
sustainability: 1) social — representing human capital and aimed at
to create impact on the society.
strengthening social coherence and justice, 2) environmental —
depicting natural capital and aimed at safeguarding the environ-
The definition clearly identifies five dimensions of EGOV, as shown
ment, 3) economic — representing man-made capital and aimed at
in Table 1: government, technology, interaction, customers and soci-
satisfying material needs, and 4) institutional — depicting social cap-
ety. Under each dimension, we list a number of defining elements
ital and promoting participation and co-decision making (Valentin &
like for example mission, role, values, operations, services, institu-
Spangenberg, 1999).
tions, inspection and enforcement under the government dimension.
4. Main Prism of Sustainability Model is a variation of the Prism of
The five dimensions are meant to cover the whole EGOV space but the
Sustainability Model with four dimensions: 1) nature — refers to
list of elements under each dimension is open-ended. The dimensions
the environment dimension and represents all natural capital,
and their elements will be validated through the literature survey
comprising stocks of renewable and non-renewable resources;
described later in the paper.
2) artifact — refers to the economic dimension and represents all
man-made assets like roads, buildings, ports and others; 3) institu-
2.2. Sustainable Development
tion — refers to the institutional dimension and represents the or-
ganization of the society and the relationships between people;
Following World Commission on Environment and Development
and 4) mind — refers to the social dimension and represents the
(1987), para. 27, we adopt the following definition of Sustainable
individual awareness like worldview, knowledge and experience
Development (SD):
(Kain, 2001).
Sustainable Development is the development that satisfies the 5. Egg of Sustainability Model is based upon the principle that a soci-
needs of the present without compromising the ability of future ety is sustainable if people and the eco-system are both in good
generations to meet their own needs. conditions. The aim of the model is to show the relationships
between both elements, that people are inside the eco-system
According to the World Commission on Environment and and both depend on each other (Keiner, 2005).
Development (1987), SD embodies two themes — egalitarianism and
In this paper, we adopt the Prism of Sustainability Model, depicted
redistribution of wealth within and among generations, and environ-
in Fig. 2.
mental preservation and protection. In addition, the sustainability con-
cept is refined into strong and weak sustainability (Andersen, 2007).
2.3. Electronic Governance and Sustainable Development
While strong sustainability does not permit the depletion of natural or
other types of resources to be compensated through savings or invest-
By Electronic Governance for Sustainable Development (EGOV4SD)
ments in human, physical or other capital, weak sustainability allows
we refer to ICT-enabled governance of the transition towards Sustain-
for such compensation. Many authors use the term “sustainability” as
able Development. Based on the definitions of EGOV in Dawes (2008))
equivalent to SD. For example, Allenby (2006) defines sustainability as
and of SD in World Commission on Environment and Development
“classical example of cultural construct, a symbol, idea, or phrase by
(1987), we also propose the following comprehensive definition of
which societies create and transmit meaning”.
EGOV4SD:
According to Adger and Jordan (2009), SD is underpinned by five
principles: 1) to contribute to poverty alleviation, 2) to pursue environ- EGOV4SD is the use of ICT to support public services, public adminis-
mental policy integration, 3) to achieve intra- and inter-generational tration, and the interaction between government and the public,
equity, 4) to ensure public participation in decision-making and 5) to while making possible public participation in government decision-
address technological and environmental limits to growth. Following making, promoting social equity and socio-economic development,
these principles, SD goals include finding solutions to global problems and protecting natural resources for future generations.
affecting sustainability. To understand the complexities of SD problems,
various models were developed. For example: Fig. 3 depicts a mapping of three primary and three secondary do-
mains contributing to EGOV4SD. The primary domains are: Governance
1. Three Pillar SD Model considers three dimensions of sustainability:
(GOV), Sustainable Development (SD) and Information and Communi-
economic growth, environmental protection and social progress
cation Technology (ICT). The secondary domains are formed by inter-
(World Conservation Union, 2006).
sections of any two domains: Electronic Governance (EGOV) is at
the intersection of GOV and ICT, ICT for Sustainable Development
(ICT4SD) is at the intersection of ICT and SD, and Governance for
Table 1 Sustainable Development (GOV4SD) is at the intersection of GOV and
Dimensions and elements of Electronic Governance. SD. The relationships between domains are generally asymmetric in
Government Technology Interaction Customers Society
the sense that one domain (service domain) helps fulfill the goals of an-
other domain (customer domain). SD is always a customer domain in
Mission Equipment Channels Information Demography
any relationship, ICT is always a service domain, while GOV is customer
needs
Role Infrastructure Channel Service needs Digital Inclusion domain in relationship to ICT and service domain in relationship to SD.
Strategy
Value Data Interoperability Producer roles Institutional 3. Methodology
change
Operation Social Media Partnerships Consumer Social tension
roles This section presents a methodology for carrying out a compre-
Service Services Goals Accessibility Participation hensive EGOV4SD research literature review. The methodology com-
Institution Applications Governance Change Globalization prises eight steps depicted in Fig. 4: 1) defining the assessment
Inspection Transactions Trust Migration framework, 2) identifying the contributing domains, 3) defining the
Enforcement Participation Public value
scope of data collection, 4) selecting relevant papers, 5) documenting
 E. Estevez, T. Janowski / Government Information Quarterly 30 (2013) S94–S109
Institutional
Participation and co-decision
Economic
Satisfying
material needs
Environmental
Safeguarding
the environment
Fig. 2. The Prism of Sustainability Model (Valentin & Spangenberg, 1999).
selected papers, 6) coding selected papers, 7) analyzing selected
papers and 8) defining the state of research. Step 1 concerns the re-
search assessment framework, Steps 2 to 4 concern data collection,
Steps 5 to 7 concern data analysis, and Step 8 concerns the synthesis
of findings.
Here are the details of each phase:
○ Assessment framework — Step 1 aims at defining the EGOV4SD re-
search assessment framework based on the review of existing
frameworks. Two existing frameworks are considered and the
outcome is documented in Section 4.
○ Data collection — Step 2 aims at identifying the main domains
contributing to the EGOV4SD research. According to the EGOV4SD
conceptual frameworks from Section 2, three primary domains —
GOV, SD, ICT and three secondary domains — EGOV, GOV4SD
and ICT4SD are identified. Step 3 aims at defining the scope of
data collection by selecting: the most relevant EGOV4SD domains
among those identified in Step 2, the types of publications —
journals, conferences, policy papers, etc. and the time frames of
such publications. Step 4 aims at searching for relevant papers
within the scoping conditions decided in Step 3. Based on their
abstracts, the relevance of each paper to one or more primary
domain – GOV, SD and ICT – is determined. The relevance of
each paper to the secondary domains – EGOV, GOV4SD and
ICT4SD – is calculated automatically, based on the conceptual
framework from Section 2. The outcomes of this phase, including
the Steps 2, 3 and 4, are documented in Section 5.
○ Data analysis — Step 5 aims at documenting the papers selected
in Step 4. Every selected paper is summarized and documented
by applying the assessment framework. The latter involves deter-
mining for every paper the values of every assessment measure
GOV SD
GOV4SD
EGOV4SD
EGOV ICT4SD
ICT
Fig. 3. EGOV4SD primary and secondary domains and their relationships.
S97
Social
Strengthening social
coherence and justice
from the framework, resulting in a matrix of papers as rows and
assessment measures as columns. Step 6 aims at coding the ana-
lyzed papers to determine the problems tackled by them and to
group the problems into themes; the software tool Atlas.ti was
used in this step. Step 7 aims at analyzing the documented papers
based on the research assessment framework from Step 1 and the
coding from Step 6. The outcome of this step is used to define the
state of EGOV4SD research. The outcomes of this phase including
the Steps 5, 6 and 7 are documented in Section 6.
○ Synthesis — the final Step 8 aims at defining the state of EGOV4SD
research including examples of common research problems and
typical research processes applied. The outcome of this step is
documented in Section 7.
4. Research assessment framework
This section presents the research assessment framework for deter-
mining the state of EGOV4SD research — Step 1 in the methodology. The
framework is introduced in Section 4.2, following the review of two
research assessment frameworks in Section 4.1.
4.1. Existing research assessment frameworks
Heeks and Bailur (2007) carries out the assessment of Electronic
Government research based upon five assessment dimensions: impact,
philosophy, theory, method and methodology, and practical recom-
mendations. The impact dimension classifies the impact associated
with the use of new technologies into optimistic, neutral or pessimistic,
and impact caused into social, technological and socio-technical deter-
minism. The philosophy dimension addresses the philosophy underpin-
ning the research work, classified into: positivist studies — studies
based on objective assumptions about the nature of reality, using vari-
ables to describe part of this reality subject to causal relationships expli-
cable by the underlying laws; and social-constructionist studies —
studies where variables are assigned subjective meaning by each
researcher, constructed through interactions with other researchers.
The theory dimension addresses the relationship between research
and its theoretical basis, classified into: theory, framework, model,
schema, concept, category and non-framework-based research. The
methodology and method dimension are concerned with the use of pri-
mary versus secondary data and the methods used for collecting data:
no discernible method, hunt and peck, questionnaire, document analy-
sis, interview, web content evaluation, literature review, reflection on
project experience, or observation. The practical recommendations di-
mension considers whether the research proposes specific action points
that practitioner could use.
A different framework is applied in Gomez, Baron, and Fiore-Silfvast
(2012) for assessing the state of research in ICT for development field.
S98 E. Estevez, T. Janowski / Government Information Quarterly 30 (2013) S94–S109

Framework
1. Defining Assessment framework
assessment
framework

Data Analysis Data Collection

2. Identifying Domains 3. Defining Journals 4. Selecting
domains data relevant
collection papers
Papers

Documented
7. Analyzing Codes 6. Coding Papers 5. Documenting
selected selected selected
papers papers papers
Synthesis

8. Defining
Findings
state of
research

Fig. 4. Research methodology.

The framework applies five dimensions: 1) volume — the number of
publications per year; 2) domain — the area of study including for ex-
ample empowerment, education, e-Government, minorities, health,
gender, agriculture, youth, environment, relief or disabilities; 3) object —
object of study such as ICT in general, information systems, software,
tele-centers, mobile phones, infrastructure, school labs, computers, cy-
bercafé, media, libraries and others; 4) level — unit of analysis including
individual, family, neighborhood, organization, city, social networks, re-
gion, country or international; and 5) contribution — the type of contri-
bution to the field such as best practice, field experience, policy
recommendation, theory, design, testing or method.
4.2. Proposed research assessment framework
The framework proposed in this paper to carry out EGOV4SD re-
search assessment is depicted in Fig. 5. The framework is based on
six main constructs – problem, philosophy, method, data, process
and results – which are explained below.
The Problem construct captures the type of problems studied in
a given EGOV4SD research, to what extent the problem addresses
the EGOV and SD perspectives and which dimensions it addresses.
According to the conceptual frameworks from Section 2, the EGOV
perspective comprises government, technology, interactions, customers
and society dimensions, while the SD perspective comprises economic,
social, environmental and institutional dimensions.
The Philosophy construct determines what kind of philosophy un-
derpins EGOV4SD research. Possible values include positivism, inter-
pretive or critical philosophies in social science research (Neuman,
2011). According to the positivism philosophy, research aims at dis-
covering the universal laws of human behavior based on reality, for-
mulate cause–effect relationships derived from possible causal laws,
link abstract ideas to precise measures of the reality, and empirically
test and confirm the laws. According to the interpretive philosophy,
research aims at understanding social meaning in a given context
by studying meaningful social actions, interpreting subjective mean-
ing and purpose of such actions, and verifying that the explanations
presented to individual actors are understandable, translatable into
actions by the actor, and comprehensible to other. According to the
critical philosophy, research aims to challenge assumptions, to intro-
duce changes to the social world, to critique and transform social re-
lations by revealing the underlying sources of social control, power
relations and inequality.
The Method construct refers to the research method applied. Four
possible values are: qualitative research method, quantitative research

Adopts
Problem Philosophy

Involves
Requires Produces
Method

Executes

Data Process Results

Provided by Underpinned by Contributes to

Source Groundwork Theory

Collected through Executed by Contributes to

Method Team Practice

Fig. 5. EGOV4SD research assessment framework.

 E. Estevez, T. Janowski / Government Information Quarterly 30 (2013) S94–S109 S99

method, combined qualitative and quantitative research method, or no
clear research method.
The Data construct determines the approach to data collection. This
includes data sources — primary data obtained through first-hand expe-
rience or secondary data obtained from another entity; and methods of
data collection including (Heeks & Bailur, 2007): hunt and peck, ques-
tionnaires, interviews, document analysis, web content evaluation,
literature review, reflection on project experience and observations.
We also include simulation (Nautiyal, 2011), games (Brewer, 2007)
and focus group meetings as relevant to EGOV4SD.
The Process construct determines how (groundwork) and by whom
(team) the research was carried out. The former determines if and
how the research is grounded in theory, including (Heeks & Bailur,
2007): 1) theory-based research — using or testing an identified theory,
2) framework-based research — using a framework derived from theo-
retical work, 3) model-based research — applying a model without ref-
erence to any deeper framework, 4) schema-based research — using a
schema, techniques or architecture; 5) concept-based research —
using a concept; 6) category-based research — presenting a set of cate-
gories, factors or features; and 7) non-framework research — making no
use of any knowledge framework. The latter determines the size and di-
versity of the research team, including the number of disciplines and
countries represented in the team, all based on the authors' affiliations.
The Results construct determines the contribution of the research to
theory and practice. We classify theoretical contribution based on six
groundwork categories from the process construct – theory-based,
framework-based, model-based, schema-based, concept-based and
category-based – plus none if the research makes no contribution to
theory. Practical contributions are assessed based on the classification
of good practices by OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation
and Development, 2006): policy integration, inter-generational frame-
work, analysis and assessment, coordination and institutions, local
and regional governance, stakeholder participation, indicators and
targets, and monitoring and evaluation. We also add policy recommen-
dation and capacity-building.
and keywords of the papers published between 1998 and 2011. For
each domain, the following keywords were used:
1. GOV — Governance,
2. SD — Sustainable Development
3. ICTs — Information and Communication Technologies
4. EGOV — Electronic Governance
5. GOV4SD — Governance for Sustainable Development
6. ICT4SD — Information and Communication Technologies for Sus-
tainable Development
7. EGOV4SD — Electronic Governance for Sustainable Development.
The results are presented in Table 2.
5.2. Defining the scope of data collection
Data collection focused on two key domains for EGOV4SD: SD and
EGOV. Four journal titles were selected from each domain. To ensure
a reasonable number of papers while covering the latest research, the
selected time-frame was from January 2011 to February 2012.
In order to select the most representative SD journals, a search in
the Scopus database was conducted for the journals with the key-
words “Sustainability” or “Sustainable Development” in their titles.
The results are presented in Table 3. The journals “Sustainability”,
“Sustainability Science” and “Sustainability: Science, Practice and Pol-
icy” were selected since they address generic SD issues. Two more
journals — “International Journal of SD” and “Sustainable Develop-
ment” were not selected but will be analyzed as part of our future
work. The remaining seven journals were not considered as they ad-
dress specific SD issues. In addition, we also selected the open-access
“Journal of Sustainable Development” published by the Canadian Center
of Science and Education. While not present in the Scopus database, the
journal addresses real-life SD problems facing developing countries.
Six most influential EGOV journals were identified following EGOV
research analysis in (Niehaves, 2011). The first four titles, shown in
Table 4, were selected for the study.

5. Data collection
5.3. Selecting relevant papers

The current section presents the results of data collection, including

identifying EGOV4SD domains (Section 5.1), defining the scope of data
collection (Section 5.2), and selecting relevant papers (Section 5.3).
These constitute the Steps 2, 3 and 4 in the methodology.
5.1. Identifying EGOV4SD domains
To understand the amount of existing EGOV4SD-related research,
we conducted various searches in the Scopus database to assess the
number of papers published in the domain. According to the EGOV4SD
conceptual framework in Section 2, we considered three primary do-
mains — GOV, SD and ICT, three secondary domains — EGOV, GOV4SD
and ICT4SD, and the EGOV4SD domain itself. Each database search
looked for the appearance of a set of keywords in the titles, abstracts
Table 5 specifies the total number of papers assessed and selected per
journal. In total, 417 papers were assessed including 264 papers published
in the SD journals and 153 papers published in the EGOV journals. Among
them, 81 papers were selected for analysis including 46 papers published
in the SD journals and 35 papers published in the EGOV journals.
The selection criteria were as follows. For the papers published in
the SD journals, those related to at least one secondary domain were
selected. These include: EGOV papers — directly considering EGOV
and SD concerns, GOV4SD papers — how GOV can support SD con-
cerns, and ICT4SD papers — how ICT can support SD concerns. For ex-
ample, for the “Journal of Sustainable Development”, among the 174
papers assessed, 30 referred to GOV4SD and 6 to ICT4SD and they
were all selected for analysis. For the papers published in the EGOV
journals, since all of them refer to GOV and ICT, only those papers

Table 2
Number of EGOV4SD-related papers in the Scopus database.

Domains Years

1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

GOV 716 934 1180 1257 1421 1671 1981 1981 2890 3312 3809 4657 5296 5558
SD 1554 1604 1950 2174 2837 3767 5135 5388 5905 5841 5881 7177 8390 9816
ICT 1365 1269 1472 1636 1833 2216 3056 3575 3937 4462 5487 5273 5880 5230
EGOV 6 6 20 31 25 26 47 60 74 84 89 93 148 170
GOV4SD 19 41 41 51 64 92 111 110 193 189 193 243 292 330
ICT4SD 8 14 24 20 18 42 60 63 68 60 78 73 71 70
EGOV4SD 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 3 4 1 4 2 2 5
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Table 3 and 22 (27%) to environment-related problems. Fig. 6 depicts the per-

Selecting SD journals. centages of the research problems addressed by the selected papers
ID Title Selection for the EGOV and SD perspectives.
1 Sustainability Selected
2 Sustainability Science Selected 6.1.1. Consider the EGOV perspective
3 Sustainability: Science, Practice, Selected Among the 61 papers addressing government-related issues in
and Policy this perspective, 78 research problems were identified, listed in
4 Energy for SD Addresses a specific SD issue
Table 6. From the keyword analysis, the most frequent words used
5 International Journal of Environment Addresses a specific SD issue
and SD in the names of such problem are: policy (15 times); services (12);
6 International Journal of Innovation Addresses a specific SD issue planning (6); urban (5); access, intervention, public and rural (4
and SD times each); as well as assessment, broadband, communities, devel-
7 International Journal of SD Not selected opment, housing, institutions and land (3 times each). Among the
8 International Journal of SD and Addresses a specific SD issue
17 papers addressing technology-related issues, 24 problems were
Planning
9 International Journal of SD and Addresses a specific SD issue identified, listed in Table 7. The most frequent words used by such
World Ecology problems are access and GIS (3 times each). Among the 18 papers ad-
10 Sustainable Development Not selected dressing interaction-related issues, 20 problems were identified,
11 World Review of Entrepreneurship, Addresses a specific SD issue
listed in Table 8. From the word analysis, the most frequent words
Management and SD
12 World Review of Science, Technology Addresses SD and other issues used by such problems are governance (5) and agreements (3).
and SD Among the 17 papers addressing customer-related issues, 19 prob-
lems were identified, listed in Table 9. The most frequent words are
access (5), service (4) and value (3). Among the 38 papers addressing
which contain the SD component, marked GOV4SD or ICT4SD, were society-related issues, 41 problems were identified, listed in Table 10.
selected. For example, among the 76 assessed papers from “Govern- The most frequent words used are: urban (5); community, divide and
ment Information Quarterly”, 22 contain the SD component and inclusion (4 times each); and areas, digital, poverty, reduction, rural,
they were all selected for analysis. and sustainability (3 times each).
Editorials, reviews, papers not related to GOV, ICT or SD, or papers
with no abstracts were not classified and therefore excluded from the 6.1.2. Consider the SD perspective
study. The list of all papers assessed and their classification is avail- Among the 23 papers addressing economy-related issues in this per-
able in Estevez and Janowski (2012). spective, 22 research problems were identified, listed in Table 11. From
the keyword analysis, the most frequent words used in such problems
are development (4) and tax (3). Among the 22 papers addressing
6. Data analysis environment-related issues, 24 problems were identified, listed in
Table 12. From the keyword analysis, following the words “environ-
After selecting the papers in Step 4 of the methodology process, ment” and “environmental”, the most frequent words used are: CO2,
this section describes the outcomes of documenting (Step 5), coding government, information, prevention, protection, reducing and waste
(Step 6) and analyzing (Step 7) such papers. Following a coding pro- (2 times each). Among the 37 papers addressing social-related issues,
cess to identify the addressed research problems, 224 codes were 37 problems were identified, listed in Table 13. The most frequently
generated for EGOV-related problems and 131 for SD-related prob- used words are: access and digital (5 times each); divide, services and
lems; complete list of codes is available in Estevez and Janowski values (4 times each); and housing and public (3 times each). Finally,
(2012). Based on such coding, this section presents the analysis of among the 32 papers addressing institution-related problem, 33 prob-
the documented papers according to the six constructs from the as- lems were identified, listed in Table 14. The most frequently words
sessment framework introduced in Section 4: problem (Section 6.1), used by such problems are: governance, monitoring, planning, SD and
philosophy (Section 6.2), method (Section 6.3), data (Section 6.4), urban (3 times each).
process (Section 6.5) and results (Section 6.6).
6.2. Philosophy
6.1. Problem
While analyzing the research philosophy adopted by the papers, we
The EGOV4SD research problems were classified according to the di- found out that among the 81 papers analyzed: 61 (75%) did not follow
mensions defined for the EGOV and SD perspectives; one paper may ad- any clear research approach, 7 (9%) adopted a positivist approach, 12
dress more than one problem and a problem may be related to several (15%) adopted an interpretive approach and 1 (1%) adopted a critical
dimensions. Among the 81 selected papers, 61 papers (75%) refer to approach. Fig. 7 shows the distribution of philosophical approaches by
government-related problems, 38 (47%) to society-related problems, the papers.
18 (22%) to interactions-related problems, and 17 (21%) each to
technology- and customer-related problems in the EGOV perspective; 6.3. Method
while 37 papers (46%) refer to social-related problems, 32 (40%) to
institution-related problems, 23 (28%) to economy-related problems, Among the 81 papers analyzed, 39 (48%) applied a qualitative
research method, 27 (33%) applied a quantitative research method,
Table 4 8 (10%) applied a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods,
Selecting EGOV journals. and 7 (9%) did not apply any clear research method. Fig. 8 shows the
ID TITLE SELECTION distribution of research methods applied by the analyzed papers.
1 Government Information Quarterly Selected
2 International Journal of Electronic Government Research Selected 6.4. Data
3 Information Polity Selected
4 Transforming Government: People, Process, Policy Selected Among the 81 analyzed papers, 38 (47%) relied on secondary data,
5 e-Government: An International Journal Not selected 26 (32%) relied on primary data and 17 (21%) relied on both primary
6 Electronic Journal of e-Government Not selected
and secondary data. Concerning data collection methods, all methods
 E. Estevez, T. Janowski / Government Information Quarterly 30 (2013) S94–S109 S101

Table 5
Assessing and selecting EGOV4SD papers.

ID Title Assessed Selected Domains

GOV ICT SD EGOV GOV4SD ICT4SD

1 Sustainability 50 4 4 0 13 0 4 0
2 Sustainability Science 32 3 3 0 24 0 3 0
3 Sustainability: Science, Practice, and Policy 8 3 3 0 6 0 3 0
4 Journal of Sustainable Development 174 36 31 7 143 0 30 6
5 Government Information Quarterly 76 22 76 76 22 76 22 22
6 Int. Journal of Electronic Government Research 19 3 16 16 3 16 3 3
7 Information Polity 35 6 25 26 6 25 6 6
8 Transforming Government: People, Process, Policy 23 4 23 23 4 23 4 4
TOTAL 417 81 81 94 275 86 75 41

identified in the assessment framework except hunt and peck, and
games were used. In addition, Delphi and software tools were used
as well. Among the 81 analyzed papers and considering that one
paper can apply more than one method: 32 papers (40%) relied on
literature review; 29 (36%) on document analysis, 22 (27%) on inter-
views, 20 (25%) on questionnaires, 10 (12%) on observations, 9 (11%)
on case studies, 5 (6%) on web content, 3 each (4%) on simulation and
focus groups, and 2 (2%) on others. In addition, among the 81 ana-
lyzed papers, 37 (46%) applied one method for data collection, 37
(46%) applied two methods, 6 (7%) applied 3 methods and 1 (1%)
applied 4 methods. Fig. 9 shows the statistics of the data collection
methods used by the papers.
6.5. Process
and Information Technology, and Estate Management; 8 (5%) each
to Geography, Economics and Communications; 7 (5%) to Computer
Science; 6 (4%) to Environment; 5 (3%) each to Chemistry and Architec-
ture; 4 (3%) each to Urban Planning, Statistics, SD, Psychology, Maritime
Science, Development and Environment, and Built Environment; 3
(2%) each to Tourism and Hospitality Management, Surveying and
Geoinformatics, and Humanities; 2 (1%) to Political Sciences, and Eco-
system Science and Management; and 1 (less than 1%) to Science and
Technology, Public Health, Physics and Biochemical Sciences, Forests,
Ecological Economics and Natural Resources, Cognitive Science, Civil
and Environment Engineering, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology,
and Agriculture. 16 papers (20%) were produced by the authors from
several academic units. Fig. 12 depicts the academic disciplines among
research teams of the analyzed papers.

According to the assessment framework from Section 4, the pro-

6.6. Results
cess construct explores theoretical underpinnings of the papers, if
any, and the composition of the research teams.
Considering contributions to theory, among the 81 analyzed papers:
Concerning theoretical foundations, among the 81 analyzed papers,
52 (68%) made no such contribution, 13 (17%) contributed through
4 (5%) were based on theory, 10 (12%) on frameworks, 13 (16%) on
models, 7 (9%) contributed through categories, 6 (8%) contributed
models, 0 (0%) on schemas, 10 (12%) on concepts, 10 (12%) on catego-
through frameworks, 2 (3%) contributed through concepts and 1 (1%)
ries, and 34 papers (42%) had no theoretical foundations. Fig. 10 shows
contributed through theory. None of the papers made any schema-
the distribution of theoretical foundations among the analyzed papers.
based contributions. Considering the contributions to practice: 40
Concerning the composition of the research teams, 167 authors from
papers (49%) contributed to capacity-building; 25 (31%) contributed to
33 countries: Australia, Botswana, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, Finland,
policy recommendations; 5 (6%) contributed to local and regional
France, Germany, Ghana, India, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Kazakhstan, Laos,
governance; 3 (4%) each contributed to policy integration, analysis and
Malawi, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, Nigeria, Pakistan, Poland,
assessment; 2 (2%) each contributed to stakeholders participation, and
Spain, Sudan, Sweden, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, UK, USA
monitoring and evaluation; 1 (1%) contributed to the indicators and
and Vietnam; contributed to 81 analyzed papers. Concerning the num-
targets; and 13 (16%) presented other types of contributions. Fig. 13
ber of authors: 29 papers (36%) were written by one author, 30 (37%) by
depicts the contributions of the papers to theory and practice.
two authors, 13 (16%) by three authors, 7 (9%) by four authors and 2
(2%) by more than four authors. Concerning the numbers of academic
disciplines represented in the research teams: 58 papers (72%) received 7. State of research
contributions from one discipline, 11 (14%) from two disciplines, 6 (7%)
from three disciplines, and 6 papers (7%) were written by practitioners. Following the analysis of the EGOV4SD papers described earlier, this
Fig. 11 shows the composition of the research teams. section outlines the state of EGOV4SD research. This includes the vol-
151 among 167 authors had academics affiliations. Among them: 13 ume of publications, some statistics about such publications according
authors (9%) were affiliated to Public Administration; 12 (8%) to Busi- to the research assessment framework – problem, philosophy, method,
ness; 11 (7%) to Management; 9 (6%) each to Information Systems data, process and results – and example research problems tackled.

Society 47%
Institutional 40%
Customers 21%
Social 46%
Interactions 22%
Environment 27%
Technology 21%
Economic 28%
Government 75%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%
0% 20% 40% 60% 80%

Fig. 6. Distribution of the research problems among the analyzed papers.

S102 E. Estevez, T. Janowski / Government Information Quarterly 30 (2013) S94–S109

9%
Positivist
15%
Interpretive
1%
Critical
75%
No clear
Fig. 7. Philosophical approaches adopted by the analyzed papers.
9%
10%
Qualitative
Quantitative
48%
Both
None
33%
Fig. 8. Research methods applied by the analyzed papers.
Over the last decade, we can observe an increasing volume of re-
search focusing on EGOV and SD. During the same period, the volume
of ICT-focused research has increased initially but decreased later. In
terms of the number of publications, the volume of GOV and SD publi-
cations has increased during 2000–2011 by a factor of 5, while the vol-
ume of ICT publications has increased during 2000–2007 by a factor of 3
but decreased later. Similarly, while the volume of GOV4SD and EGOV
publications has increased during 2000–2011 by a factor of 9, ICT4SD
publications has only increased by a factor of 3 in the same period.
Concerning research problems, they were fairly evenly distributed
along the four dimensions of the SD perspective: social (33%), institu-
tional (28%), economic (20%) and environment (19%); and for the
EGOV perspective, 41% of the papers addressed the government dimen-
sion and 41% the society dimension. Concerning research philosophy,
75% of the papers did not follow any explicit philosophy while 15%
adopted the interpretative philosophy. Concerning research method,
48% of the papers used qualitative methods, 33% used quantitative
methods and 10% used both methods. Concerning research data collec-
tion, 32% of the papers relied on primary data, 47% on the secondary
data and 21% on both primary and secondary data; with data collection
carried out though: literature reviews (40%), document analysis (36%),
interviews (27%), questionnaires (25%) and other methods like observa-
tions, case studies, web content, simulations and focus groups; 46% of the
papers applied one method and 46% two methods. Concerning research
process, 42% of the papers lacked any theoretical foundations and other-
wise relied on models (16%), frameworks (12%), concepts (12%) or cate-
gories (12%), and only a few (5%) on theories; 36% of the papers were
written by one author and 37% by two authors; 90% of them were
academics; academic authors belonged to 33 disciplines and were most-
ly affiliated with Public Administration (9%), Business (8%) or Manage-
ment (7%); 72% were written by the authors from one discipline and
21% by the authors from several disciplines. Concerning research results,
62% of the papers had no theoretical contribution while 15% contributed
to theory through models; 49% of the papers contributed to practice
through capacity-building and 31% through policy recommendations.
Typical areas for EGOV4SD research included: policy, planning, mon-
itoring, urban and community issues, governance, services, agreements,
geographic information systems, value, access, inclusion, development,
taxes, emissions, waste reductions, and prevention and protection mea-
sures. Typical problems addressed by the EGOV4SD research included:
delivering public services particularly to vulnerable groups; delivering
basic services like water, electricity, housing and waste management;
providing access and reducing digital divide; developing infrastructure;
promoting governance at the local, regional, national and international
levels; assessing community needs to determine areas for policy inter-
vention; prioritizing and raising awareness about environmental issues;
promoting innovation; planning urban systems; creating value; and
monitoring and enforcing regulations.
8. Discussion
EGOV4SD research problems are mostly studied within various
contributing domains. For example, the problem of designing public
services based on the customer needs or the problem of citizen partic-
ipation, both studied within the EGOV domain, or the problem of de-
veloping sustainable communities studied within the SD domain. In
order to formulate an EGOV4SD research problem, we could start
with the single-discipline perspective like e.g. EGOV and then special-
ize it by applying one of the SD principles. For example, turning the
EGOV problem of designing public services based on the customer
needs into the EGOV4SD problem by addressing such services to vul-
nerable groups; turning the EGOV problem of stakeholder participa-
tion into the EGOV4SD problem to reach out to minority groups; or
turning the SD problem of developing sustainable communities into

21% Literature review 40%

32% Primary
Document analysis 36%
Secondary
Both Interview 27%
47% Questionnaire 25%
Observation 12%
Case study 11%
1%
Web content 6%
7% 1 method
Simulation 4%
2 methods
46% Focus group 4%
3 methods
46% Other 2%
4 methods
0% 10% 20% 30% 40%

Fig. 9. Data collection methods applied by the analyzed papers.

 E. Estevez, T. Janowski / Government Information Quarterly 30 (2013) S94–S109 S103

50% 42% Finally, in addition to determining the state of EGOV4SD research,

40% the application of the research assessment framework from Section 4
helped validate the conceptual framework from Section 2. All EGOV
30%
16% dimensions presented in Table 1 and all SD dimensions presented in
20% 12% 12% 12%
5% Fig. 2 were validated through various EGOV4SD research problems,
10% 0% listed for all EGOV and SD dimensions in Tables 6 to 14. In addition,
0% the choice of the primary and secondary domains for EGOV4SD was
ed ed ed ed ed ed on
e validated through defining and applying criteria to select publications
bas bas as as as as N
y- k- -b a-
b -b y-
b that can contribute to EGOV4SD research.
r or el pt or
eo od he
m ce eg
Th ew M on at
am Sc C C
Fr 9. Conclusions

Fig. 10. Theoretical foundations of the analyzed papers. In order to make progress in a new research area like Electronic
Governance for Sustainable Development (EGOV4SD), there is a
need to build a good understanding of the underlying concepts and
the EGOV4SD problem to support such communities through partici- to assess the state of this area and its immediate neighborhood. In
patory planning and governance. order to fulfill this need, this paper was set out to achieve three
Our findings show that critical philosophy is rarely applied in main objectives: 1) to propose a conceptual framework for EGOV4SD,
EGOV4SD research. Considering that the main purpose of the critical 2) to define a research assessment framework for EGOV4SD based
philosophy is not only to study existing social world but also to upon the conceptual framework, and 3) to determine the state of
change it, and that the SD concept was conceived to impact a radical EGOV4SD research by applying the research assessment framework.
change in the ways of pursuing socio-economic development, critical These objectives were fulfilled as follows. First, Section 2 presented a
philosophy is a good match for EGOV4SD research and its adoption conceptual framework for EGOV4SD, building upon a conceptualization
could lead to more meaningful contributions. of EGOV and existing SD models. The framework identified two per-
Our findings show that the EGOV4SD research pursues a clear spectives — EGOV and SD; five dimensions in the EGOV perspective —
multi-disciplinary approach. The challenge ahead is to explore if such re- government, technology, interactions, customers and society; four
search could become inter- or trans-disciplinary (Kajikawa, 2008). To this dimensions in the SD perspective — social, economic, environmental
end, despite the maturity of many disciplines contributing to EGOV4SD and institutional sustainability; and six underlying domains —
research, there is a clear need to strengthen theoretical foundations. Governance (GOV), Sustainable Development (SD), Information
The research assessment framework proposed in Section 4 divides and Communication Technology (ICT), Electronic Governance
the result construct into contributions to theory and contributions to (EGOV), Governance for SD (GOV4SD), and ICT for SD (ICT4SD). Sec-
practice. The latter includes the area of contribution (OECD classifica- ond, Section 4 proposed an EGOV4SD research assessment frame-
tion) and the type of contribution (two added categories include pol- work with six major constructs – problem, philosophy, research,
icy recommendations and capacity-building). A revised version of the data, process and results – to assess the whole research process
framework could explicitly consider the area and type constructs, and from problem formulation, through the application of research ap-
expand the latter into best practice, policy recommendation, lesson proaches, methods, processes for collecting and analyzing data,
learnt, tool and other categories. and disciplines; to contributions to theory and practice. Third,

0 10 20 30

1 author 29 7% 7%
14%
2 authors 30 practitioners
1 discipline
3 authors 13 2 disciplines
3 disciplines
4 authors 7 72%

4+authors 2

39
40
35
35
30
25
20
15
9
10 6 7 7
4 4 3 4 4 4 5 4 3
5 2 2 2 3 1 1 2 3 1 1 1 3
1 1 2 1 1 1
0
Australia
Botswana
Brazil
Canada
China
Egypt
Finland
France
Germany
Ghana
India
Iran
Ireland
Italy
Kazakhstan
Laos
Malawi
Malaysia
Mexico
Netherlands
Nigeria
Pakistan
Poland
Spain
Sudan
Sweden
Taiwan
Tanzania
Thailand
Turkey
UK
USA
Vietnam

Fig. 11. Composition of the research teams of the analyzed papers.

S104 E. Estevez, T. Janowski / Government Information Quarterly 30 (2013) S94–S109

Public Administration 9%
Business 8%
Management 7%
Information Systems and Information… 6%
Estate Management 6%
Geography 5%
Economics 5%
Communications 5%
Computer Science 5%
Environment 4%
Chemistry 3%
Architecture 3%
Urban Planning 3%
Statistics 3%
Sustainable Development 3%
Psychology 3%
Maritime Science 3%
Development and Environment 3%
Built Environment 3%
Tourism & Hospitality Management 2%
Surveying and Geoinformatics 2%
Humanities 2%
Political Science 1%
Ecosystem Science and Management 1%
Science and Technology 1%
Public Health 1%
Physics and Biochemical Sciences 1%
Forest 1%
Ecological Economic and Natural Resources 1%
Cognitive Sciences 1%
Civil and Environment Engineering 1%
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 1%
Agriculture 1%
0% 1% 2% 3% 4% 5% 6% 7% 8% 9%

Fig. 12. Academic disciplines among research teams of the analyzed papers.

Sections 5 and 6 documented how data was collected and analyzed
using the research assessment framework, while the state of
EGOV4SD research was described in Section 7.
The main contribution of the paper is to build a good understand-
ing of the nature and state of the EGOV4SD research domain, and
to establish a foundation for further EGOV4SD research. The paper re-
vealed that despite the growing interest in EGOV and SD research and
a strong potential for applying EGOV research to further SD objec-
tives, research at the intersection of both domains is scarce and al-
most entirely practiced within the contributing domains. Due to this
fragmentation, research problems are driven by the main focus of
such domains, and a truly inter-disciplinary EGOV4SD research agen-
da is yet to emerge.
Future work includes developing a research agenda to advance the
state of EGOV4SD research, as captured in this paper; exploring research
problems at the intersection of the EGOV and SD dimensions as a basis
for inter-disciplinary EGOV4SD research; and applying the assessment
framework to other combined domains like e.g. EGOV and Education.
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank Adegboyega Ojo for collaboration and
contribution to the EGOV4SD conceptual framework. This work was
partly funded by the Macao Foundation and the Macao SAR Govern-
ment as part of the e-Macao Program.

80%
68% Capacity-building 49%
70%
Monitoring and evaluation 2%
60%
Indicators and targets 1%
50%
40% Stakeholders participation 2%
30% Local and regional… 6%
17% Coordination and… 0%
20%
8% 9%
10% 4%
1% 0% 3% Analysis and assessment
0% Inter-generational… 0%
Policy integration 4%
Policy recommendations 31%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%

Fig. 13. Contributions of the analyzed papers to theory and practice.

 E. Estevez, T. Janowski / Government Information Quarterly 30 (2013) S94–S109
Appendix A
Table 6
EGOV research problems — government dimension.
Alignment of strategies between central and local gov.
(Jiménez Fernández de Palencia & Pérez-Foguet, 2010)
Assessing policy priorities (Zeijl-rozema & Martens,
2011)
Awareness for policy making (Dolan, 2011)
Bio-fuel policies (Galadima et al., 2011)
Capacity-building on existing legislation
(Peekhaus, 2011)
Citizen adoption (Orgeron & Goodman, 2011)
Compensation policies (Famuyiwa & Omirin, 2011)
Controlling mining activities (Lawal, 2011)
Coordination (van Os, 2011)
Corruption control (Bhuiyan, 2011)
Country revenue distribution (Akinola & Adesopo, 2011) Land law (Oni & Ajayi, 2011)
Desertification programs (Williams, 2011)
Ecological footprint (Sasanpour & Mehrejani, 2011)
e-Governance implementation (Bhuiyan, 2011)
Enhanced efficiency (Naik, Joshi, & Basavaraj, 2012)
Ensuring accessibility to government websites
(Olalere & Lazar, 2011)
Environment issues in government agenda
(Gil-Egui, Vásquez, Mebus, & Sherrier, 2011)
Environmental court (Gupta, 2011)
Establishment of a port authority (Liou, Liu, Chang,
& Yen, 2011)
Frontier of effective regulation (Bannister & Wilson, Planning land use (Adebayo & Oni, 2011)
2011)
Grants for non-profit organizations (Kvasny & Lee,
2011)
Housing policies (Ahmad, Wan Abd Aziz, Hanif, & Mohd Policy formulation (Shangodoyin & Lasisi, 2011)
Ahmad, 2011; Oni & Ajayi, 2011)
Housing services (Aluko, 2011)
Impact assessment of e-Governance (Srivastava, 2011)
Implementing innovations (Nautiyal, 2011)
Incentive-based policies (Sorrentino & Simonetta,
2011)
Table 7
EGOV research problems — technology dimension.
Access in rural areas (Liu, 2012)
Artificial intelligence (Bannister & Wilson, 2011)
Broadband deployment (LaRose, Strover, Gregg,
& Straubhaar, 2011)
Buy ICT (van Os, 2011)
Closed circuit television (Bannister & Wilson,
2011)
Communication infrastructure (Sarfi & Tao, 2011)
Cyborg technology (Bannister & Wilson, 2011)
e-Learning platform (Shyu & Huang, 2011)
Table 8
EGOV research problems — interactions dimension.
Agreements between national-local governments
(Wongsuryrat, Chunkao, Prabuddham, & Daungsavat, 2011)
Channel choice (Reddick & Turner, 2012)
Citizens and political parties (Cunliffe, 2011)
Infrastructure development (Bhuiyan, 2011)
Infrastructure provision (Famuyiwa & Omirin, 2011)
Innovation (Bubou & Okrigwe, 2011)
Institutional challenges (Danquah, Abass, & Nikoi, 2011)
Institutions (Alipour et al., 2011)
Inter-local government collaboration (van Os, 2011)
Internal efficacy of public policy (Sorrentino & Simonetta,
2011)
Investment in human capital (Oluwatobi & Ogunrinola,
2011)
Lack of mechanisms to ensure compliance of regulations
(Olalere & Lazar, 2011)
Land administration (Aluko, 2011)
Legislation anti-corruption (Oyewobi et al., 2011)
Legislative interventions for transnational investment
(Chukwuemeka, Anazodo, & Nzewi, 2011)
Making available public-safety data (Graves, 2011)
Measurement (Shangodoyin & Lasisi, 2011; Zeijl-rozema &
Martens, 2011)
Monitoring construction industry (Oyewobi et al., 2011)
Municipal government (van Os, 2011)
Oversight institutions (Peekhaus, 2011)
Oversight of private companies involved in service delivery
(Ezebilo, 2011)
Policies for digital divide (Ferro, Helbig, & Gil-Garcia, 2011)
Policy intervention (Ayoola, 2011; Gangte, 2011)
Policy monitoring for environmental impact assessment
(Kosamu, 2010)
Political leadership (Hale & McNeal, 2011)
Providing access to small communities (Sedoyeka &
Hunaiti, 2011)
Electronic channels for public service (Reddick &
Turner, 2012)
GIS (Samat et al., 2011)
Infrastructure development (Bhuiyan, 2011)
Integrating data from various sources (Graves, 2011)
Internet access and internet use (Ferro et al., 2011)
Open source appropriate technologies (Zelenika &
Pearce, 2011)
Radio frequency identification (RFID) (Bannister &
Wilson, 2011)
Role of technology in industrial ecological systems
(Scheel & Vazquez, 2011)
Governance of healthcare systems (Chahal &
Eldabi, 2011)
Improving communication with stakeholders
(Savanick Hansen, Bucki, & Lee, 2011)
Inter-municipal partnership (Sorrentino &
Simonetta, 2011)
S105
Providing broadband access (Jayakar & Park, 2012)
Providing broadband access to rural communities (2)
Public policy (Alipour, Vaziri, & Ligay, 2011)
Public value (Karunasena & Deng, 2012)
Quality in construction services (Oyewobi, O Ganiyu, a
Oke, W Ola-Awo, & a Shittu, 2011)
Required intervention (Danquah et al., 2011; Idowu,
Omirin, & Osagie, 2011)
SD planning (Lempert & Nguyen, 2011)
Service quality (Orgeron & Goodman, 2011)
Services — delivered by private sector (Ezebilo, 2011)
Services — education for SMEs (Shyu & Huang, 2011)
Services — electricity (Sarfi & Tao, 2011)
Services — electronic to elderly (Niehaves, 2011)
Services — landscaping (Booth & Skelton, 2011)
Services — public transport (Soltani & Ivaki, 2011)
Services — to disabled people (Goldkuhl, 2011)
Services — to migrant farmer workers (Wang & Chen,
2012)
Services — to rural population (Liu, 2012; Naik et al.,
2012)
Services — waste disposal (Idowu et al., 2011)
Services — (Danquah et al., 2011; Fielmua, 2011)
Social-media policies (Bertot, Jaeger, & Hansen, 2012)
Societal aging (Niehaves, 2011)
Tax collection (Hale & McNeal, 2011)
Urban development (Nour, 2011a, 2011b)
Urban planning (Aluko, 2011; Famuyiwa & Omirin,
2011; Samat, Hasni, & Elhadary, 2011)
Value created by e-Government (Srivastava, 2011)
Waste management strategy (Ezebilo, 2011)
Social media (Nam, 2011)
Software system to monitor wildlife crime (Chandran,
Krishnan, & Nguyen, 2011)
Support for innovation (Scheel & Vazquez, 2011)
Ubiquitous computing (Bannister & Wilson, 2011)
Understanding how people approach IT (Ferro et al., 2011)
Use of GIS to identify demand and supply of broadband
access (Oyana, 2011)
Use of GIS to study gully erosion hazards (Nwilo, Olayinka,
Uwadiegwu, & Adzandeh, 2011)
Wireless communication and mobile computing (Bannister &
Wilson, 2011)
Public computing centers (Jayakar & Park, 2012)
Regulated-based interactions for service delivery
(Goldkuhl, 2011)
Tele-centers (Naik et al., 2012)
(continued on next page)
S106 E. Estevez, T. Janowski / Government Information Quarterly 30 (2013) S94–S109

Table 8 (continued)

Designing proper interfaces for people with disabilities,
low literacy and low computer skills (Hornung &
Baranauskas, 2011)
Governance agreements at international level
(Chandran et al., 2011)
Governance agreements at local, national level
(Chandran et al., 2011)
Governance for tourism development (Alipour et al., 2011)
Inter-state government arrangements (Hale & Urban governance (Jiboye, 2011)
McNeal, 2011)
Monitoring citizen behavior (Bannister & User interface (Hornung & Baranauskas, 2011)
Wilson, 2011)
Political interactions (Nam, 2011) Virtual communities (Meijer, Grimmelikhuijsen,
& Brandsma, 2012)
Public private partnerships (Idowu et al., 2011)

Table 9
EGOV research problems — customer dimension.

Access for women (Brännström, 2012)
Access to broadband (LaRose et al., 2011)
Access to information (Peekhaus, 2011)
Access to internet (Nam, 2011)
Accessibility to impaired people (Olalere & Lazar, 2011)
Acquiring IT basic skills (Ferro et al., 2011)
Adoption of e-services (Orgeron & Goodman, 2011)
Affordable housing (Ahmad et al., 2011)
Citizen empowerment (Sarfi & Tao, 2011)
Cost of public service (Ezebilo, 2011)
Electricity services (Sarfi & Tao, 2011)
Expat needs (Meijer et al., 2012)
Home ownership (Ahmad et al., 2011)
Property value (Adebayo & Oni, 2011)
Public service support (Meijer et al., 2012)
Resident's value (Faehnle, Bäcklund, & Tyrväinen, 2011)
Value created by e-Government (Srivastava, 2011)
Values (Mahadi, Abdul Hadi, & Sino, 2011)
Water services (Danquah et al., 2011; Jiménez Fernández
de Palencia & Pérez-Foguet, 2010)

Table 10
EGOV research problems — society dimension.

Awareness of SD efforts (Horhota, Stratton, Halfacre,
& Asman, 2011)
Community development (Gangte, 2011)
Community management (Fielmua, 2011)
Community ownership (Fielmua, 2011)
Community participation (Nour, 2011a)
Democratic divide (Nam, 2011)
Digital divide (Brännström, 2012; Niehaves, 2011)
Digital inclusion to rural or small communities
(Sedoyeka & Hunaiti, 2011)
Education (Oluwatobi & Ogunrinola, 2011)
Environmental awareness (Wongsuryrat et al., 2011)
Environmental justice (Gupta, 2011)
Free online education (Shyu & Huang, 2011)
Gender equality in access to ICT (Brännström, 2012)
Green areas (Booth & Skelton, 2011)
Hackathons for innovation (Graves, 2011) Participatory approach in developing a strategy for
sustainability (Savanick Hansen et al., 2011)
Historic urban centers (Naeem, 2011) Poverty reduction (Akinola & Adesopo, 2011; Bhuiyan, 2011;
Imobighe, 2011)
Housing (Oni & Ajayi, 2011) Problems caused by globalization (Lempert & Nguyen, 2011)
Human capital (Oluwatobi & Ogunrinola, 2011) Security (Lempert & Nguyen, 2011)
ICT literacy of vulnerable groups (Wang & Chen, 2012) Self-governance (Akinola & Adesopo, 2011)
Inclusion (Jayakar & Park, 2012) Societal aging (Niehaves, 2011)
Inclusion for rural areas (Liu, 2012; Naik et al., 2012) Sustainability approach (Clifton & Advanced, 2011)
Indicators (Shangodoyin & Lasisi, 2011) Sustainable urban growth (Jiboye, 2011)
Inequality in service delivery (Soltani & Ivaki, 2011) Technology-business incubator (Bubou & Okrigwe, 2011)
Innovation (Scheel & Vazquez, 2011) Urban environment (Sasanpour & Mehrejani, 2011)
Lifestyle (Williams, 2011) Urban growth (Samat et al., 2011)
Online political activism (Nam, 2011) Use of minority languages (Cunliffe, 2011)
Organizational divide (Kvasny & Lee, 2011) Vulnerable communities suffering from natural processes
(Dolan, 2011)
Participation in urban planning (Nour, 2011b)

Table 11
SD problems — economy dimension.

Alternative energy sources (Galadima et al., 2011)
Business opportunities by identifying demand
(Oyana, 2011)
Changes in economic activities (Williams, 2011)
Decrease in revenue tax for societal aging (Niehaves, 2011) Investment on education and business opportunities
Distribution of revenues (Akinola & Adesopo, 2011)
Economy of scale for municipal/local small governments
(Sorrentino & Simonetta, 2011)
Electricity cost (Sarfi & Tao, 2011)
Gathering accurate and reliable data (Naik et al., 2012)
Growth (Lempert & Nguyen, 2011)
Healthy development of construction sector (Oyewobi
et al., 2011)
Infrastructure development (Bhuiyan, 2011; Famuyiwa &
Omirin, 2011)
(Oluwatobi & Ogunrinola, 2011)
Public private partnership (Liu, 2012)
Property tax (Oni & Ajayi, 2011)
Protecting national interests (Chukwuemeka et al., 2011) Tourism industry (Alipour et al., 2011)
Rural development (Adebayo & Oni, 2011)
Stakeholders revenue (Lawal, 2011)
Support to SMEs (Shyu & Huang, 2011)
Sustainability of public computing centers (Jayakar &
Park, 2012)
Sustainable community-owned WiMAX networks
(Sedoyeka & Hunaiti, 2011)
Tax collection for e-Commerce activities (Hale &
McNeal, 2011)

Table 12
SD research problems — environment dimension.

Access to information of genetically engineered plants
(Peekhaus, 2011)
Alternative energy sources (Galadima et al., 2011)
Building sustainable landscaping (Booth & Skelton, 2011)
Clean water in rivers (Danquah et al., 2011)
Combating desertification (Williams, 2011)
Controlling CO2 emissions (Ayoola, 2011)
Depletion of resources (Lempert & Nguyen, 2011)
Ecological footprint measure (Sasanpour & Mehrejani, 2011)
Electricity generation (Sarfi & Tao, 2011)
Environment protection (Gupta, 2011)
Environment protection from tourism (Alipour
et al., 2011)
Environmental information in government websites
(Gil-Egui et al., 2011)
Environment-friendly mining activities (Lawal, 2011)
Extinction of dugongs (Wongsuryrat et al., 2011)
Gully erosion prevention (Nwilo et al., 2011)
Illegal wildlife trade (Chandran et al., 2011)
Impact assessment (Kosamu, 2010)
Preventing damages in coasts (Dolan, 2011)
Prioritization of environmental issues in
governments agenda (Gil-Egui et al., 2011)
Recycling practices (Horhota et al., 2011)
Reducing CO2 (Scheel & Vazquez, 2011)
Reducing waste (Scheel & Vazquez, 2011)
Urban planning (Faehnle et al., 2011)
Waste disposal (Idowu et al., 2011)
 E. Estevez, T. Janowski / Government Information Quarterly 30 (2013) S94–S109 S107

Table 13
SD research problems — social dimension.

Access for people with low literacy or low computer
skills (Hornung & Baranauskas, 2011)
Access to innovative solutions through inter-municipal
partnerships (Sorrentino & Simonetta, 2011)
Access to internet (Oyana, 2011)
Access to water (Fielmua, 2011)
Acquiring basic IT skills (Ferro et al., 2011)
Better housing (Oyewobi et al., 2011)
Broadband access through public places (Jayakar
& Park, 2012)
Community support (Meijer et al., 2012)
Community values (Mahadi et al., 2011)
Cultural heritage preservation (Naeem, 2011)
Data related to public safety (Graves, 2011)
Democratic divide (Nam, 2011)
Digital divide (Ferro et al., 2011; Liu, 2012)
Digital inclusion (2) (Sedoyeka & Hunaiti, 2011)
(Niehaves, 2011)
Electronic public services for migrant farmer workers
(Wang & Chen, 2012)
Employment (Bubou & Okrigwe, 2011)
Equity for accessing online services (Olalere & Lazar,
2011)
Gathering accurate and reliable data (Naik et al., 2012)
Gender and digital divide (Brännström, 2012)
Housing for urban poor (Ahmad et al., 2011)
Housing in work proximity (Adebayo & Oni, 2011)
Human development (Oluwatobi & Ogunrinola, 2011)
Improving life conditions in rural areas (LaRose et al.,
2011)
Inequality in service delivery (Soltani & Ivaki, 2011)
Land property (Oni & Ajayi, 2011)
Life-long continuous learning (Shyu & Huang, 2011)
Modeling healthcare systems (Chahal & Eldabi, 2011)
Personal values (Faehnle et al., 2011; Mahadi et al., 2011)
Poverty reduction (Bhuiyan, 2011)
Preserving culture (Lempert & Nguyen, 2011)
Promoting wealth from revenues of local resources
(Akinola & Adesopo, 2011)
Services for disabled people (Goldkuhl, 2011)
Services to elderly (Niehaves, 2011)
Social value creation (Srivastava, 2011)
Supporting non-profit organizations (Kvasny & Lee, 2011)
Use of minority languages (Cunliffe, 2011)
Water sanitation (Danquah et al., 2011)

Table 14
SD research problems — institutional dimension.

Access to government information (Peekhaus,
2011)
Adoption of e-Government (Orgeron &
Goodman, 2011)
Assessment of innovation considering 3 SD
dimensions (Nautiyal, 2011)
Capacity for assessment and monitoring
(Kosamu, 2010)
Community engagement (Imobighe, 2011)
Coordination (van Os, 2011)
Control of corruption (Bhuiyan, 2011)
Cultural heritage preservation (Naeem, 2011)
Digital divide (Reddick & Turner, 2012)
e-Government adoption (Reddick &
Turner, 2012)
Embedding emerging ICT for service delivery
(Bannister & Wilson, 2011)
Enabling environment (Zelenika & Pearce, 2011)
Frontier of effective regulation (Bannister & Wilson, 2011)
Governance (Jiménez Fernández de Palencia & Pérez-Foguet,
2010)
Governance between central and local government levels
(Jiménez Fernández de Palencia & Pérez-Foguet, 2010)
Incentive-based policy (Sorrentino & Simonetta, 2011)
Inter-municipal partnership (Sarfi & Tao, 2011; Sorrentino
& Simonetta, 2011)
Land administration (Aluko, 2011)
Models for local and regional governance (Chandran et al.,
2011)
Monitoring development (Shangodoyin & Lasisi, 2011)
Monitoring system for SD (Zeijl-rozema & Martens, 2011)
Open data (Graves, 2011)
Participation (Nour, 2011a)
Port safety (Liou et al., 2011)
Public value (Karunasena & Deng, 2012; Srivastava, 2011)
SD strategy (Clifton & Advanced, 2011)
Short- versus long-term benefits (Lempert & Nguyen,
2011)
Strategic plan for sustainability (Savanick Hansen et al.,
2011)
Sustainable communities (Gangte, 2011)
Urban infrastructure (Jiboye, 2011)
Urban planning (2) (Nour, 2011b; Samat et al., 2011)
Usage and promotion of social media (Bertot et al., 2012)
Waste management (Ezebilo, 2011)

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Elsa Estevez is an Academic Program Officer at UNU-IIST and a Senior Researcher at UNU-
IIST Center for Electronic Governance (EGOV). She has many years of industrial, academic
and management experience in Information Technology in the banking, commerce, gov-
ernance and pharmaceutical sectors. In the EGOV Center, Elsa manages research and de-
velopment projects, and organizes and teaches courses, workshops and schools; she
directly contributed to EGOV awareness- and capacity-building in 20 developing and tran-
sition countries. In particular, Elsa chaired the jury of the 2nd Gulf Cooperation Council e-
Government Award in Kuwait in 2011, and co-chaired 5 editions of the International Con-
ference series on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance (ICEGOV) and 9 editions of
the Workshop on Software Engineering, part of the Argentinean Congress on Computer
Sciences. Her projects and activities were funded by Macao Foundation, IDRC and several
national governments. Her research findings and policy analysis are published in many
conference proceedings, journals, books and reports. She holds PhD in Computer Science
from the National University of the South, Argentina.
Tomasz Janowski is a Senior Research Fellow at UNU-IIST where he founded and heads
the Center for Electronic Governance. He directs research on Electronic Governance
(EGOV) policy and practice, transfers research results into instruments for public man-
agers and policy makers, and applies such instruments in practice. Under his leadership,
the Center contributed to EGOV awareness and capacity-building in 35 developing and
transition countries. Tomasz is one of the earliest proponents of connecting EGOV re-
search and practice — he founded and coordinates the International Conference series
on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance (ICEGOV). He is an Associate Editor of
Government Information Quarterly (Elsevier), co-chairs the EGOV Interest Group at the
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), and chaired 16 international conferences in the ar-
ea. Tomasz has received funding for his projects from Macao Foundation, World Bank,
Microsoft, UNDP, European Commission and several national governments. His research
findings and policy analysis are published in many conference proceedings, journals,
books and reports. He holds PhD in Computer Science from the University of Warwick.