International Journal of Information Management 62 (2022) 102430

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

International Journal of Information Management

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

Review

Analyzing e-government design science artifacts: A systematic

literature review
Lemuria Carter a, *, Victoria Yoon b, Dapeng Liu c
a
Department of Information Systems & Technology Management, Business School, UNSW Sydney, Room 2096, Level 2 Quadrangle Building, Sydney 2052, Australia
b
Department of Information Systems, Virginia Commonwealth University, 301 West Main Street, P.O. Box 844000, Richmond, VA 23284-4000, United States
c
Department of Information Systems & Technology Management, Business School, UNSW Sydney, Room 2116, Level 2 Quadrangle Building, Sydney 2052, Australia

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Design science as a research paradigm is gaining popularity in the information systems (IS) discipline. E-gov­
E-government ernment research explores IS artifacts designed to improve the quality and efficiency of public administration
Design science and service. This paper utilizes the E-government Design Research Model (EgovDR Model) to review e-gov­
E-government designs
ernment designs. Through a comprehensive literature review, this paper identifies prototypical e-government
Digital government
tasks for design science implementation and the corresponding solutions. We demonstrate whether and how the
Literature review
Relevance development and evolution of e-government designs continue to gain relevance in design science research.
Rigor Additionally, this paper identifies and analyzes the theories employed in the literature to illustrate how the
EgovDR Model has facilitated e-government designs in increasing rigor over time. Our findings indicate the
majority of the workpractice tasks in existing e-government designs are decision-support tasks.

1. Introduction e-government projects (Bekkers & Homburg, 2007).

E-government is a global phenomenon that impacts practitioners,
scholars, and citizens. It leverages the capabilities of information sys­
tems (IS) and information technology (IT) to deliver public service and
administration at the local, municipal, or even national level. More
specifically, e-government offers communication channels and man­
agement platforms for agencies, businesses, citizens and their interac­
tion, separately or collectively (Grant & Chau, 2006). IS scholars
contribute to advancing the knowledge base of e-government, not only
through empirically studying the factors driving e-government adop­
tion, but also by designing new information systems for the public
sector.
Government agencies increasingly initiate IS projects to upgrade
services, enhance the citizen experience and promote trust. These IT/IS
artifacts have had a clear, positive impact on efficiency and productivity
(Danziger & Andersen, 2002). E-government policies increasingly sup­
port the use of information communication technologies (ICTs) to
re-organize the public sector, resulting in utility gains and cost savings
(Cordella & Iannacci, 2010). Thanks to government policies driving ICT
use and the development of new information systems, public agencies
are experiencing digital transformation driven by successful
The design science paradigm has received more attention from IS
scholars over the past few decades. The research principles proposed in
Hevner, March, Park, & Ram (2004) have had a tremendous impact on
IS research, especially on design science research. IS scholars increas­
ingly develop and evaluate innovative IS designs within the problem
solving paradigm of design science with more explicit definitions of the
design constructs, theories, models, methods, and instantiations (Goes,
2014). Design science research (DSR) is inherently a problem solving
process (Baskerville, Baiyere, Gregor, Hevner, & Rossi, 2018; Gregor &
Hevner, 2013; Hevner et al., 2004; Peffers, Tuunanen, Rothenberger, &
Chatterjee, 2007; Simon, 1996). Lukyanenko & Parsons (2020) posit it is
important to effectively formulate components of the design theory (e.
g., constructs, kernel theory) to increase design clarity and accessibility
for practitioners.
Deng and Ji (2018) call for a systematic review of design science in
diverse areas. E-government is one field with a growing interest in
Design Science Research (Goldkuhl, 2016). In the past decade, the
increasing importance of e-government has led researchers to design
digital solutions for public administration (Fedorowicz & Dias, 2010).
De Leoz and Petter (2018) state “design science in IS offers researchers
opportunities to solve problems and achieve socially oriented goals

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: Lemuria.Carter@unsw.edu.au (L. Carter), vyyoon@vcu.edu (V. Yoon), dapeng.liu@unsw.edu.au (D. Liu).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2021.102430
Received 12 April 2021; Received in revised form 16 September 2021; Accepted 17 September 2021
Available online 6 October 2021
0268-4012/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
L. Carter et al.
while creating new knowledge. The complete social impacts of any
artefact are unlikely to be known until the artefact is implemented in an
environment with a social structure” (p. 166). Gil-Garcia, Dawes, &
Pardo (2018) highlight the need for more research on the role of digital
innovation in the public sector. Goldkuhl (2016) posits general in­
troductions to DSR do not state anything specific in relation to how to
apply DSR in e-government. vom Brocke, Winter, Hevner, & Maedche
(2020) highlight the need for subcommunities within the IS discipline
(e.g., e-government) to build their own knowledge bases. Goldkuhl
(2016) calls for “a special treatment of design research in e-government”
(p.445).
To-date, there have been few reviews of design science research in e-
government that analyze and organize the characteristics of e-govern­
ment designs. This gap in the literature results in a fragmented and
incoherent view of the research area. To support e-government in
keeping pace with the innovations and developments of ICT and in
realizing more successful e-government designs, a synthesis of design
knowledge, theories, and e-government solutions is needed. vom Brocke
et al. (2020) call for research to articulate the accumulation and evo­
lution of design knowledge in an organized manner as there is a vast,
growing body of DSR contributions. To address this gap, we conduct a
systematic review of the literature. In particular, this study (1) identifies
e-government designs, (2) analyzes their characteristics using the
EgovDR model, (3) assesses e-government DSR domain knowledge (e.g.,
design theories, policies), and (4) highlights opportunities for future
design knowledge contribution in this multidisciplinary domain.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. We present our
research method and procedures in Sections 2 and 3, respectively. In
Section 4, we interpretatively synthesize, frame and analyze e-govern­
ment designs and their features, drawing on the EgovDR model. Sections
5 and 6 discuss our findings on e-government designs and their impli­
cations in relation to the EgovDR model. Section 7 concludes with our
key recommendations for the EgovDR model in future research.
2. Theoretical background
2.1. Design science research
Simon (1996) refers to design science as the science of the artificial,
generating a body of knowledge about artificial objects and phenomena
designed to satisfy desired goals. Design science research aims to
generate prescriptive knowledge in relation to the design of an artifact,
such as information systems, software, methods (Hevner et al., 2004;
vom Brocke et al., 2020). The generated design knowledge presents
means-end mappings between problem and solution spaces as reflected
in the design artifact (Hevner et al., 2004; Jones & Gregor, 2007; vom
Brocke et al., 2020).
Hevner et al. (2004) present the DSR guidelines to the information
systems discipline. According to the guidelines, DSR in IS designs novel
artifacts intended to solve identified organizational problems (Hevner
et al., 2004). DSR involves a series of development and evaluation it­
erations. Ideally, design-science research produces verifiable theoretical
and practical contributions. The design process starts with identifying a
problem to which a suggested solution is to be found (Takeda, Veer­
kamp, & Yoshikawa, 1990). A suggested solution is then proposed,
developed, and assessed. Complementing Hevner et al. (2004), Hevner
(2007) presents three closely related cycles of activities, namely the
relevance cycle, design cycle, and rigor cycle, as an embodiment of the
DSR framework for understanding, conducting, and evaluating DSR. The
relevance cycle entails gathering requirements from the environment.
The design cycle includes designing and evaluating design artifacts or
processes. In the rigor cycle, designs are grounded in and contribute to
the knowledge base. On the one hand, DSR highlights the environment
that describes the problem space in which the challenges and opportu­
nities define organizational needs. An instantiation of a design artifact
within that environment can be considered as a reflection of DSR
2
International Journal of Information Management 62 (2022) 102430
relevance (Hevner, 2007). On the other hand, DSR is grounded in the
knowledge base through which artifacts are constructed and evaluated.
Accordingly, rigor can be achieved by appropriately applying existing
theories and methods (Hevner, 2007).
2.2. E-government design research model
Goldkuhl (2016) proposes an EgovDR model, extending general DSR
principles (Baskerville et al., 2018; Gregor & Hevner, 2013; Hevner
et al., 2004; Hevner, 2007; Peffers et al., 2007) by incorporating the
“policy character” of e-government, which impacts how e-government
design research is conducted. The EgovDR model highlights three
essential elements: theory, policy, and workpractice. In the EgovDR
model, a theory (e.g., kernel theory) may refer to “any descriptive theory
that informs artifact construction” in DSR (Gregor & Hevner, 2013, p.
340). An informing theory is an important design component that has
been emphasized by DS guidelines. Goldkuhl (2016) highlights the
impact of the theorizing process toward design work, positing that one
key principle in DS is the “theory-ingrained artifact.” Designs are
encouraged to be informed by theories. These informing theories attri­
bute DSR to scientific rigor, underpin design science research and inform
design solutions with “appropriate natural, social, and human laws,
constraints, and capabilities” (Baskerville et al., 2018, p. 361). From the
perspective of knowledge, DS is a process of developing and testing IS
artifacts, bound to the testing and refinement of the kernel theories. In
DS, informing theories serve e-government designs in that “kernel the­
ories advise design solutions” and “kernel theories provide theoretical
grounding for the artifact” (Kuechler & Vaishnavi, 2008, p. 491).
Second, policy is a fundamental characteristic in e-government
design initiatives in that public administration is often implemented on
the basis of legal regulations and policy declarations (Goldkuhl, 2016).
E-government initiatives often feature political governance (Yildiz,
2007) and facilitate public administration based on policy declarations
and legal regulations. Therefore, e-government DSR scholars advocate
that artifacts conform to policies of some type (Goldkuhl, 2016).
Third, according to Goldkuhl (2016), e-government workpractice
can be conceptualized as work procedures and operations in relation to
e-government stakeholders which address the generic or specific goals of
governmental tasks and services. An e-government design is an “insti­
tutional reality comprising the IT artifact and its surrounding work­
practice context” (Goldkuhl, 2016, p. 446). In other words,
e-government workpractice provides the context in which e-government
designs develop and implement “e” initiatives for the public sector.
Accordingly, e-government design research is expected to follow
three fundamental principles: policy principle, co-design principle, and
theorizing principle (Goldkuhl, 2016, p. 449):
• The policy principle expresses the need to base the design in public policy.
Procedurally, this is conducted through policy analysis in the EgovDR
model, where the policy background (values, regulations) is investigated.
One major result of an egov DR endeavor should be a policy-ingrained
artifact
• The co-design principle expresses the need to make a combined and in­
tegrated analysis and design of the workpractice and the IT artifact.
Procedurally, this is expressed in the EgovDR model through workpractice
analysis, co-design of workpractice and IT and co-evaluation of work­
practice and IT.
• The theorizing principle expresses 1) the need to work in parallel with
theorizing during and as a support to the design process and 2) the need to
produce explicit theoretical results from design research.
3. Methodology
To explore the development and evolution of e-government designs,
we conducted a literature review. Fig. 1 presents the two-step process of
journal and article selection.
L. Carter et al. International Journal of Information Management 62 (2022) 102430

Fig. 1. Journal and article selection process.

Step 1. : Journal Selection.

Table 1
In line with extant literature reviews (Bélanger & Carter, 2012; A list of journals included in our systematic literature review.
Gil-Garcia et al., 2018; Lee, Park, Gregor, & Yoon, 2021; Matavire & Source Journal Reference
Brown, 2013; Sidorova, Evangelopoulos, Valacich, & Ramakrishnan,
AIS Senior Scholars’ European Journal of Information AIS (2018)
2008; Sørensen & Landau, 2015) we selected leading journals from In­
basket (in alphabetic Systems
formation systems and public administration. To capture the leading order) Information Systems Journal
journals in the information systems discipline, we included journals in Information Systems Research
the “Senior Scholar Basket of 8,” the three additional journals proposed Journal of AIS
Journal of Information Technology
for inclusion in the basket–Decision Support Systems, Information and
Journal of MIS
Management, and Information and Organization (Fitzgerald, Dennis, Journal of Strategic Information
An, Tsutsui, & Muchala, 2019)–and the journal with the highest 2019 Systems
Clarivate Impact Factor in IS field (JCR, 2019): International Journal of MIS Quarterly
Information Management. Highest Impact Factor in International Journal of Information Elsevier (2020)
IS Management
As e-government stands at the intersection of public administration
Proposed journals for Decision Support Systems Fitzgerald et al.
and information systems, we included e-government dedicated journals, inclusion in the basket Information and Management (2019)
such as Government Information Quarterly, Information Polity, Trans­ Information & Organization
forming Government, International Journal e-Government Research, Journal E-government dedicated Government Information Quarterly Scholl &
of Information Technology and Politics, Electronic Government and Euro­ journals Information Polity Dwivedi
Transforming Government (2014)
pean Journal of e-Government. Scholl & Dwivedi (2014) identified these International Journal e-Government
journals as premier publication outlets for e-government research. We Research
also included the top eight public administration (PA) journals accord­ Journal of Information Technology
ing to Gil-Garcia et al. (2018). and Politics
Electronic Government
In total, we examined 27 journals (12 IS, 8 PA and 7 EGOV), as listed
European Journal of e-Government
in Table 1. We searched all databases within ProQuest (e.g., ABI/ Leading PA journals Governance: An International Gil-Garcia et al.
INFORM Complete, ProQuest SciTech Collection, and Worldwide Po­ Journal of Policy, Administration (2018)
litical Science Abstracts) for articles published between 2000–August and Institutions
2020. International Public Management
Journal
Step 2:. Article Selection Process. Journal of Policy Analysis and
Management
Design-oriented e-government studies may not be simply self- Journal of Public Administration and
identified as “design science” (Fedorowicz & Dias, 2010). According to Theory
Public Administration
Fedorowicz & Dias (2010), design-oriented research aims to solve a
Public Administration Review
problem of “a specific and significant deficiency that requires both Public Management Review
diagnosis and prognosis, rather than a very generic phenomenon of in­ The American Review of Public
terest” (p.2). We defined the search terms (see Tables 2.A and 2.B) after Administration
reviewing other literature reviews in e-government and public admin­
istration (Fedorowicz & Dias, 2010; Gil-Garcia et al., 2018; Goldkuhl,
Second, we filtered articles that do not include at least one of the
2016).
design science terms in the abstract and retained 3562 articles.
We targeted articles where e-government artifacts were clearly
Third, following Fedorowicz and Dias (2010) as well as Goldkuhl
directed by design science methodology. To identify design-oriented e-
(2016), we used guidelines 1–6 from Hevner et al. (2004) as criteria for
government studies, we first conducted a search using e-government
assessing the design science oriented papers. Additionally, DSR scholars
keywords in the title, abstract and full text. This search resulted in 9549
have been contributing to developing both IT and IS artifacts to facilitate
articles from the aforementioned 27 journals.

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L. Carter et al. International Journal of Information Management 62 (2022) 102430

Table 2.A Table 2.C

E-government keywords. Assessment criteria.
Keywords Articles Concept Assessment Criteria

“e-government,” “digital government,” “electronic government,”
“government,” “smart city,” “public administration,” “federal,”
“municipal,” “citizen,” “public,” “e-governance,” “digital governance,”
“electronic governance,” “e-services,” “online services,” “electronic
vote,” “e-democracy,” “e-policy,” “jurisdiction,” and “e-management” in
the title, abstract and full text.
Table 2.B
Design science keywords.
Keywords
“design science,” “design artifact,” “design artefact,” “artifact,” “artefact,”
“design,” “framework,” “algorithm,” “approach,” “method,” “model,”
“system,” “solution,” “architecture,” “process,” and “tool.”
e-government development. IT and IS artifacts both regard information,
while the IS regards systems and the IT regards technology (Lee,
Thomas, & Baskerville, 2015). We were interested in the IT and IS design
artifacts and used Lee et al. (2015)’s conceptualization to scope our
assessment (see Table 2.C). Further, we followed Goldkuhl (2016)’s
stance and used the four proposed categories to identify e-government
relevant IT/IS designs. Notably, some articles retrieved during the
search process only provided an in-depth analysis or evaluation of
existing e-government artifacts (i.e., challenges, comparison, or lessons
learned) rather than designing innovative solutions (Andersson,
Grönlund, & Åström, 2012; Cao, Ewing, & Thompson, 2012; Fedor­
owicz, Gogan, & Williams, 2007); thus, these articles were not included
in our reviewed corpus. Our final round assessment yielded 66 articles
which propose a variety of IT/IS designs in e-government.
In addition, we noted two literature reviews investigating DS in e-
government (Fedorowicz & Dias, 2010; Goldkuhl, 2016). Following the
DS guidelines presented in Hevner et al. (2004), Fedorowicz and Dias
(2010) reviewed a decade sample of e-government papers from the dg.o
conference and conducted an in-depth assessment of those papers.
Goldkuhl (2016) investigated the features of e-government design
research and proposed an EgovDR model in which a variety of design
activities were highlighted in terms of “theorizing, policy analysis,
workpractice analysis, co-design and co-evaluation of IT artifact and
workpractice.” Goldkuhl (2016)’s model was validated using four dg.o
papers identified in Fedorowicz and Dias (2010). These two articles
were not included in the literature analysis because they did not meet
the criteria for inclusion (see Table 2.C).
4. Literature analysis
We analyzed the literature by identifying top publication outlets,
charting publication trends and performing a lexical analysis. Decision
Support Systems and Government Information Quarterly are the most
popular publication outlets for e-government DSR. Four journals in the
“Senior Scholars Basket of 8′′ – MIS Quarterly, Journal of the Association
for Information Systems, European Journal of Information Systems, and
Information Systems Research – have published studies presenting e-
government designs. Table 3 illustrates the outlets for e-government
designs in premier IS and e-Government journals. Fig. 2 illustrates an
upward trend in the number of articles published per year from 2004 to
2014, with a sharp decline in 2015.
Notably, our search included the top eight PA journals listed in
Gil-Garcia et al. (2018); however, no articles in e-government designs
were found. Romme & Meijer (2020) state “the design perspective is still
a niche approach” in public administration research. While researchers
in PA have started the discourse of developing a design science frame­
work for PA (Romme & Meijer, 2020), there is an opportunity for growth
9549 Design Science Hevner et al. (2004) present a framework for IS design research,
including seven guidelines to present and assess IS designs (p.
227):
Guideline 1: Design as an artifact
Design science research must produce a viable artifact in the
form of a construct, a model, a method, or an instantiation;
Guideline 2: Problem relevance
The objective of design science research is to develop
technology-based solutions to important and relevant business
problems;
Guideline 3: Design evaluation
The utility, quality, and efficiency of a design artifact must be
Articles
rigorously demonstrated via well-executed evaluation methods;
3562 Guideline 4: Research contributions
Effective design science research must provide clear and
verifiable contributions in the areas of the design artifact, design
foundations and/or design methodologies;
Guideline 5: Research rigor
Design science research relies upon the application of rigorous
methods in both the construction and evaluation of the design
artifact;
Guideline 6: Design as a search process
The search for an effective artifact requires utilizing available
means to reach desired ends while satisfying laws in the problem
environment;
Guideline 7: Communication of research
Design science research must be presented effectively both to
technology-oriented as well as management-oriented audiences.
We used these guidelines 1–6 to assess whether an article is
design-oriented or not.
IT/IS Design Both ‘information system’ (IS) and ‘information technology’ (IT)
Artifact artifact regard information, while “the former regards systems (a
set of entities with relations between them’), and the latter
regards technology (‘a body of science-based technical
knowledge’)” (Lee et al., 2015).
Specifically, technology, information and social factors interact
together in an IS design artifact (Lee et al., 2015).
We are interested in both IT and IS artifacts and followed Lee
et al. (2015)’s conceptualization to scope our assessment.
E-government E-government stands at an intersection of information systems
and public administration, covering digital innovation and
transformation regarding “(1) internal working structures of
single authorities (2) interaction with other agencies (often
called G2G), or (3) interaction with citizens or other actors
(often called G2C or G2B) or (4) transformation of a societal
sector” (Goldkuhl, 2016, p. 446).
We followed Goldkuhl (2016)’s stance and used the listed four
ranges to identify e-government relevant designs.
Table 3
Top publication outlets for e-government designs.
Journal Count
Decision Support Systems 34
Government Information Quarterly 12
Journal of the Association for Information Systems 8
MIS Quarterly 6
European Journal of Information Systems 2
International Journal of Information Management 2
Information Systems Research 2
in this area.
To extract frequent words and phrases from the literature, we con­
ducted a lexical analysis. In this step, we analyzed the frequency of
words/phrases used in the combination of abstracts and titles, assuming
that abstracts may reflect essential information on a given study. In this
analysis, we considered words/phrases in the format of n-gram
(n < = 3). Table 4 ranks word/phrase frequencies and the percentage
over the total number of articles. If the word appeared more than once in
one article, we counted it only once.

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L. Carter et al. International Journal of Information Management 62 (2022) 102430

Fig. 2. Publication count by year.

For each article selected, we extracted three elements of the EgovDR

Table 4
model which collaboratively organize and articulate relevance and rigor
Word frequency.
in e-government designs: the workpractice, policy, and theory (Table 5).
Rank N-grams (n < = 3) Frequency % To inspect these elements with respect to the implications of the three
1 approach 30 45.45% fundamental principles articulated in Goldkuhl (2016), we synthesized
2 information 28 42.42% and analyzed the extracted data.
3 model 27 40.91%
4 design 24 36.36%
5 data 22 33.33% 5. Findings
6 method 20 30.30%
7 process 19 28.79% 5.1. Workpractice and solutions in e-government designs
8 government 18 27.27%
9 problem 17 25.76%
In line with Goldkuhl (2016), this study conceptualizes e-govern­
10 analysis 17 25.76%
11 framework 16 24.24% ment workpractice as work procedures and operations in relation to
12 need 15 22.73% e-government stakeholders. Specifically, the e-government work­
13 application 15 22.73% practice aims to address a generic or specific governmental task. Our
14 management 14 21.21%
synthesis of e-government workpractice aims to explore the evolution of
15 technique 13 19.70%
16 decision support 13 19.70%
e-government designs from a retrospective perspective and illustrates
17 network 12 18.18% how the e-government design has changed over time – developing and
18 case study 12 18.18% implementing “e” initiatives for the public sector. We used four the­
19 evaluation 12 18.18% mes—e-democracy, e-management, e-service, and e-policy—to review
20 service 11 16.67%
the identified articles, each of which addresses an e-government work­
practice issue (Gil-Garcia et al., 2018). This synthesis delivers a reflec­
Noticeably, some keywords are frequently used to describe design tion of workpractice focus in e-government DSR. According to Rowe
knowledge, specifying design “approach,” “design,” “method,” “model,” (2014), a review framework facilitates literature mapping and catego­
and “framework” (Gregor & Hevner, 2013; Hevner et al., 2004). Addi­ rization. Such a framework can be selected by the researchers from an
tionally, the reviewed articles indicate the relevance of the design existent one (Rowe, 2014).
problem to real-world practice by using the keywords “application,” Our synthesis is underpinned by the four themes framework as
“problem,” “need.” We also notice the term “decision support” was suggested in Gil-Garcia et al. (2018) which categorizes the contributions
among the list of frequently used phrases. This suggests e-government of PA research into the aforementioned four main categories (see Table 6
designs leverage ICT tools for solutions to support judgments, decisions, column 1).
and courses of action in the e-government context. The relatively high The findings indicate e-management is the largest workpractice
frequency of “evaluation” and “case study” suggest that these e-gov­ category. This category includes design artifacts that support decision-
ernment designs may prefer the case study methodology to assess a making among public sector managers and government officials. Of
design artifact tailored to a specific workpractice (e.g., to illustrate and the 66 papers, 44 articles (66.67%) focus on e-government practice
showcase the proposed design artifact performing in terms of efficacy
and efficiency).
Table 5
In this study, we utilized content analysis (Krippendorff, 2004) to
Data extraction items.
review e-government design science research. Social scientists employ
Principles Requirements Data extraction item
qualitative content analysis to identify patterns (Hsieh & Shannon,
2005). While practices of content analysis vary between scholarly Policy base the design on public policy policy
communities, all involve text labelling, analysis and interpretation to Principle
Co-Design make a combined and integrated workpractice
uncover meaningful patterns (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005). With content
Principle analysis and design of the workpractice
analysis, a researcher can statistically estimate the proportions of pat­ and the IT artifact
terns in the text and interpret the results. Further, we used the three Theorizing 1) work in parallel with theorizing informing theory;
cycles of Hevner (2007) and the EgovDR model of Goldkuhl (2016) to Principle during the design process and as a explicit theoretical
support to the design process; and 2) results
guide the analysis.
produce explicit theoretical results

5
L. Carter et al.
Table 6
E-government design workpractice themes.
Workpractice Percentage in E-government Percentage in PA research (
category designs (this paper) Gil-Garcia et al., 2018)
E-democracy 5% 42%
E-management 67% 27%
E-service 18% 25%
E-policy 11% 5%
related to e-management, with frequent elements and topics phrases,
including risk management, government planning, and emergency and
extreme event management. Nine studies in the literature propose de­
signs facilitating emergency and extreme event management. Across the
world, a variety of natural and man-made disasters and extreme events
occur regularly, such as floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, nuclear leaks,
explosions, and fires (Huang & Li, 2009). These disasters, directly and
indirectly, cause the loss of human lives and property, damage economic
development, and affect social stability (Jonkman, 2005). Effective
management and appropriate responses to these extreme events and
emergencies are of critical importance for all governments (Harrald,
2006). The reviewed e-government designs facilitate emergency man­
agement in various ways, from the early warning of an emergency (Wu
& Cui, 2018) to the analysis of and response to an emergency for the
stabilization of the situation (Arora, Raghu, & Vinze, 2010; Rakes,
Deane, Rees, & Fetter, 2014; Wu, Li, Shen, & He, 2020). For instance,
Rakes et al. (2014) design a model that helps to assign families to
housing units after an extreme disaster. Informed by activity theory,
Chen, Sharman, Rao, and Upadhyaya (2013) develop a data model for
managing fire-related extreme events.
Six designs focus on assessing and protecting information security
and privacy (Airoldi, Bai, & Malin, 2011; Bélanger, Crossler, Hiller,
Park, & Hsiao, 2013; Fielder, Panaousis, Malacaria, Hankin, & Smeraldi,
2016; Lee, Cho, & Lim, 2018; Oetzel & Spiekermann, 2014; Shin, Lee, &
Kim, 2018). Governments collect a massive volume of information on
their stakeholders through everyday transactions. Information security
and privacy protection are essential to all e-government initiatives
aiming to establish virtual government environments that are secure for
both external communication with citizens and internal communication
with government agencies in collaboration (Ebrahim & Irani, 2005).
Therefore, understanding and enhancing information security is an
imperative research task for both practitioners and researchers of
e-government (Tanaka, Matsuura, & Sudoh, 2005).
In addition to the risks related to information security and privacy
issues, ten designs provide solutions that digitally facilitate risk man­
agement in terms of risk and uncertainty identification, analysis,
profiling and mitigation in a variety of disciplinary applications,
including healthcare (Cao et al., 2012; Chen et al., 2016; Kartseva,
Hulstijn, Gordijn, & Tan, 2010; Lin, Chen, Brown, Li, & Yang, 2019),
financial systems and activities (Abbasi, Albrecht, Vance, & Hansen,
2012; Hájek, 2011; Hu, Zhao, Hua, & Wong, 2012; Zhai, Cao, Yao, Ding,
& Li, 2017), and facilities (Hu, Liu, & Lu, 2017). For instance, Hu et al.
(2012) develop a network-based design modelling and analyzing risks in
banking systems. In another instance of Lin et al. (2019), a Bayesian
learning design is developed for risk profiling in chronic care.
Three designs focus on government planning. Planning is of critical
importance to public administration at the local, state, and federal
levels. Flawed plans may lead to “pains.” Enable by ICTs, artifacts under
review manifest solutions to improve the capability of government
planning in terms of urban infrastructure planning (Coutinho-Ro­
drigues, Simão, & Antunes, 2011) and project planning (Batini, Viscusi,
& Cherubini, 2009; Sarantis, Charalabidis, & Askounis, 2011).
There are also a wealth of minor topics in the planning category.,
including procurement (Chen, Huang, & Kauffman, 2011), power sys­
tem management (Ketter, Peters, Collins, & Gupta, 2016), open linked
data (Lnenicka & Komarkova, 2019), and knowledge management
6
International Journal of Information Management 62 (2022) 102430
(Chen, Gangopadhyay, Holden, Karabatis, & McGuire, 2007). For
example, Ketter et al. (2016) develop a multiagent competitive gaming
platform to address societal challenges in traditional power systems.
Chen et al. (2007) present a data integration method for water quality
management, allowing users to integrate water monitoring data across
federal, state, and local government organizations.
Of 66 articles, 18.18% are e-service focused, referring to topics such
as service delivery, accessibility, and quality spanning over a diverse
variety of disciplines including public logistics (Hu & Sheng, 2014),
tourism (Al-Hassan, Lu, & Lu, 2015), healthcare (Li, Vo, Randhawa, &
Fick, 2017), m-government services (Amailef & Lu, 2013), accessible
network with low cost (Sedoyeka & Hunaiti, 2011). These reviewed
design artifacts manifest innovations, enhancement and/or redesign of
e-service.
The third most common category is e-policy (10.61%) with work­
practices focusing on digitally enabling policy analysis and creation.
Government policies serve as declarations of a government’s course of
action (Kingdon & Thurber, 1984). Governments have been leveraging
ICTs to conducting evidence-based policy making and evaluation,
grounding policy making in more reliable knowledge and data with the
assistance of digital tools (Sanderson, 2002). For instance, studies within
our literature review propose design artifacts to facilitate water re­
striction policy analysis (Recio, Ibáñez, Rubio, & Criado, 2005), tax
policy evaluation (Goumagias, Hristu-Varsakelis, & Saraidaris, 2012)
and the visualization of complex policies (e.g., the American Recovery
and Reinvestment Act) (Rios-Berrios, Sharma, Lee, Schwartz, & Shnei­
derman, 2012).
Finally, three papers (4.55%) fall under the category of e-democracy.
E-democracy refers to e-government efforts offering the electronic
community access to political processes (Lee, Chang, & Berry, 2011) to
increase transparency, participation, and accountability (Gil-Garcia
et al., 2018). Of the three studies, one article proposes an approach to
secure electronic elections (Fernandez, La Red, & Peláez, 2013) while
the other two articles are relevant to workpractice promoting e-de­
mocracy from the perspective of encouraging e-participation. For
instance, Kavanaugh et al. (2014) develop a local news aggregation
system to facilitate broad civic participation in collective decision
making (e.g., sustainable outcomes and quality of life), incorporating
opinions spanning numerous disparate and decentralized websites and
resources and improving social interaction and information exchange
between citizens. Sobkowicz, Kaschesky, & Bouchard (2012) present an
opinion formation framework incorporating content analysis of social
media. These three designs employ ICT to reduce democracy costs and
improve democracy efficiency by enhancing the information-processing
capacity of e-government. These designs ultimately benefit the public
via increased government information transparency and openness. In
this sense, support for public participation aims to achieve a broader
view of support for democracy. Noticeably, e-participation engages
citizens, eliminating the limits of time, space and other physical con­
straints using ICTs, extending rather than replacing traditional practice
(Hacker & Van Dijk, 2000).
In summary, e-government designs aim to develop applicable solu­
tions to important and relevant public administration challenges. E-
government as an interdisciplinary research field, in the past decade, has
made efforts to address problems in the four research themes as dis­
cussed, coordinating e-government designs in the referred four di­
mensions shown in Fig. 3. These themes represent the e-government
design research interests/highlights over the past years. Additionally,
Table 6 provides a convincing comparative analysis that e-government
design researchers’ interests may be different from those of public
administration researchers. The time-series visualization shows that e-
management is the most prevelant topic in e-government DSR; this focus
has endured for more than a decade. Another interesting finding is that
designs highlighting e-democracy arose between 2012 and 2014.
L. Carter et al.
Fig. 3. E-government design categories.
5.2. Theory informing e-government designs
An informing theory in DSR, which is an important design compo­
nent, is a descriptive theory that informs the artifact construction pro­
cess (Gregor & Hevner, 2013). A valid informing theory underpins a
design with appropriate laws, constraints, and capabilities that advise
scientific rigor (Baskerville et al., 2018) and attributes DSR to solid
theoretical grounding (Kuechler & Vaishnavi, 2008).
Table 7 synthesizes the theories employed in the e-government de­
signs. It indicates e-government DSR in leading journals has been
incorporating informing theories to develop artifacts for public sector
use. Of 66 reviewed designs which all reflect, to a certain degree, the
notions on DSR theorization in Hevner (2007) and Goldkuhl (2016) and
design-centric theorizing activities, 32 (48.48%) explicitly specify
informing kernel theories. A further inspection (Fig. 4) reveals that the
studies in International Journal of Information Management and
77.78% e-government DSR studies published in the Senior’s Basket
journals explicitly incorporate informing theory in the DSR theorization
process, while Decision Support Systems and Government Information
Quarterly have a relatively low rate at 41.18% and 16.67%, respec­
tively. A plausible explanation is that the designs published by Decision
Support Systems and Government Information Quarterly are geared more
towards practice-oriented work.
A time-series visualization of informing theory inclusiveness ratio (in
Fig. 5) reveals continuous efforts to ingrain informing theory into e-
government design solutions over the years. Given that the employment
of “kernel theory” is a componential reflection of DS rigor, this study
calls for DSR in e-government to include clear theory statements and to
illustrate the incremental rigor in regard to the requirements from the
DSR framework and EgovDR Model.
5.3. Policy informing e-government designs
Policy is one determinant of the way in which DSR is conducted and
is also considered a major characteristic of an e-government design
(Goldkuhl, 2016), on account of the fact that e-government features
political governance (Goldkuhl, 2016; Yildiz, 2007). In this section, we
investigate the policy inclusiveness of each study to demonstrate how
policies inform e-government design in IS research. A policy is an
embodiment and a reflection of legal issues (e.g., laws and legal regu­
lations) and normative issues. Our conceptualization of policy inherits
that from Goldkuhl (2016), encompassing “laws, regulations, policy/­
strategy declarations, workpractice goals and other value-statements”
(p.446).
Our study identifies policy-relevant statements in the reviewed ar­
ticles and synthesizes these policies. Notably, while all the reviewed
articles manifest policy-relevant statements, only 38 of 66 (57.58%)
studies provided direct and explicit policy statements (e.g., specific
7
International Journal of Information Management 62 (2022) 102430
policies, laws, regulations, or government standards) while the other
42.42% provide only implicit statements indicating workpractice goals.
For an instance of explicit policy inclusiveness, Bélanger et al. (2013)
develop a legal sound design for protecting children’s online privacy
called Parental Online Consent for Kid’s Electronic Transactions
enforcing the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, providing “a
reliable, trustworthy technology option for obtaining verifiable parental
consent as required by COPPA” (p.1162). To fully ingrain the informing
policy, Bélanger et al. (2013) identify five imperative legal requirements
which accordingly recognize five design principles that are followed to
design the artifact. As an instance of implicit policy inclusion, Ku &
Leroy (2014) develop a decision support system to automate crime
report analysis in consideration of the workpractice goal that law
enforcement agencies aim to efficiently and effectively analyze text re­
ports and provide timely decisions. In Table 8, we provide a sample of
the e-government DS studies that clearly clarify the inclusiveness of
policy and internalize the policies into the designs.
A time-series visualization of informing policy inclusiveness ratio (in
Fig. 6) reveals that e-government DSR in recent years uses implicit
policy statements (i.e., workpractice goals) more often than in the early
years. A plausible reason could be the consideration of design general­
izability. While the employment of explicit “informing policy” can well
define the relevance of e-government designs, the implemented arti­
fact’s generalizability could possibly be disdained if the design is over-
specialized.
6. Discussion
In response to Goldkuhl (2016)’s call for a deep analysis of e-gov
design research to assess the EgovDR model, this literature review makes
four important contributions. First, we present a systematic review to
evaluate the existent e-government designs. As a part of this evaluation,
we synthesize and assess e-government designs, in terms of work­
practice, informing theory and in-grained policies. Second, we frame the
contributions of existent e-government designs to IS knowledge and
workpractice, specifically in relation to design relevance and rigor.
Third, we present the research trends revealed in e-government DS
publications and posit that opportunities exist for future
theory-informed and policy in-grained designs. In particular, we high­
light the need for research with strong theoretical grounding. Four,
drawing upon Hevner (2007) and Goldkuhl (2016), we reveal funda­
mental components of rigor and relevance of DSR in e-government for
future e-government design artifacts.
6.1. Towards a comprehensive conceptualization of e-government designs
in IS research
Our study shows e-government designs over the past decade have
L. Carter et al.
Table 7
Theories in e-government designs.
Journal Articles with Kernel theory
informing
theory/total
Decision Support 14/34 Bayes’ Theorem (a statistical theory
Systems determining conditional probability)
(De Cnudde & Martens, 2015)
Channel Theory (a theory modeling
the flow of information) (Etudo,
Yoon, & Liu, 2017)
Duality Theory (a theory suggesting
the connection of two related
programming problems (the primal
and the dual) (Hu et al., 2017)
“Fundamental labor economics
theories” (Li, Xu, Zhang, & Lau,
2014, p. 117)
Game Theory (a theory modeling the
ways in which interacting economic
agents produce outcomes) (Chen
et al., 2011; Fielder et al., 2016;
Goumagias et al., 2012)
a combination of “legal, technical,
and behavioral kernel theories” (
Bélanger et al., 2013, p. 1165)
Market Impact Theory (a theory
suggesting that the aggressiveness of
the quotes and the order sizes
determine the market effects) (Zhai
et al., 2017)
Mutual Information Theory (a theory
to measure a relationship between
two random variables that are
sampled simultaneously) (Kaza &
Chen, 2008)
“Self-information in information
theory” (Airoldi et al., 2011, p. 11)
Structuration Theory (a theory of
social action in terms of action and
structure) (Nelson & Sen, 2014)
Social Disorganization Theory (a
theory modeling the relationship
between community structure, social
control, and crime), Crime Pattern
Theory (a theory interpreting the
distribution of Crimes) (Kadar,
Maculan, & Feuerriegel, 2019)
Behavioral Model of Health Services
Use (a model of healthcare service
utilization) (Li et al., 2017)
European Journal of 2/2 Privacy Impact Assessment Process
Information Systems Model (a model guiding the
identification and management of the
privacy risks) (Oetzel &
Spiekermann, 2014)
Agency Theory (a theory suggesting
the relationship between two parties:
the principal and the agent),
Accounting Control Theory (a theory
describing how to mitigate risks
posed by control problems in an
organization), Value Model (a
conceptual model of the value
transfers in a network) (Kartseva
et al., 2010)
Government 2/12 Theory of Ontology Evolution (a
Information theory guiding the ontology
Quarterly modification while keeping ontology
consistency) (Apostolou, Mentzas,
Stojanovic, Thoenssen, & Lobo,
2011)
Double-loop Learning Theory (a
theory emphasizing continuous
learning and experimentation, with a
constant) (Reddick, Chatfield, & Ojo,
2017)
8
International Journal of Information Management 62 (2022) 102430
Table 7 (continued )
Journal Articles with Kernel theory
informing
theory/total
MIS Quarterly 4/6 Utility Theory (a theory quantifying
the utility of various attributes) (
Chou, Zahedi, & Zhao, 2014)
Activity Theory (a theory suggesting
the use of interacting activity systems
to analyze social activities) (Chen
et al., 2013)
Modern Portfolio Theory (a theory
defining a financial asset’s risk) (Hu
et al., 2012)
Meta-learning Theory (a theory
defining a specialized form of
machine learning that is able to learn
about the learning process) (Abbasi
et al., 2012)
International Journal of 2/2 Ortony-Clore-Collins (OCC) Model of
Information Emotions (a theory distinguishing 22
Management emotion types) (Wu et al., 2020)
A series of theories and models on
Government Enterprise Architecture
Framework (GEAF) (Lnenicka &
Komarkova, 2019)
Information Systems 2/2 Game Theory (a theory modeling the
Research ways in which interacting economic
agents produce outcomes) (
Greenwald, Kannan, & Krishnan,
2010)
Actor-network Theory (a social
theory to understand humans and
their interactions in a network of
actors) (Yang, Su, & Yuan, 2012)
Journal of the 6/8 Prevention Motivation Theory (a
Association for theory maintaining that people take
Information Systems protective actions in fear of a severe
threat), Analogical Social Norm
Theory (a theory to infer implicit
social norms) (Lee et al., 2018)
Focus Theory of Collaboration (a
causal model for group productivity)
(Mittleman, 2009)
Activity Theory (a theory suggesting
the use of interacting activity systems
to analyze social activities) (Chen,
Sharman, Chakravarti, Rao, &
Upadhyaya, 2008; Valecha, Rao,
Upadhyaya, & Sharman, 2019)
Theory of Social Identity (a theory
suggesting that the social role an
individual takes indicates the social
identity) (Xu, Wang, Li, & Chau,
2007)
Representation Theory (a theory
suggesting a structured
understanding of conceptual
modeling grammars and conceptual
models) (Liu, Etudo, & Yoon, 2020)
presented innovative solutions to facilitate public administration and
service delivery for both external and internal stakeholders. Leading IS
journals indicate increasing interest in e-government designs developed
between 2008 and 2014, evidenced by the increasing number of pub­
lications, as well as the breadth of techniques, theory, and application
areas covered. E-government designs revitalize communication between
stakeholders and government, enabling communities of interest to
harness ICTs (e.g., machine learning, natural language processing) to
make better decisions, and incorporate feedback from the public into
policy making and assessment. These designs have been complementing
or replacing the traditional government platforms and administration
methods, therefore impacting relationships between citizens and gov­
ernment agencies, benefiting stakeholders in terms of improving trans­
parency, lowering cost, and increasing convenience. The reviewed e-
L. Carter et al.
Fig. 4. Box plot - informing theory by journal.
government designs reveal five fundamental components of rigor and
relevance of DSR in e-government (Fig. 7). This conceptualization in­
tegrates principles from Hevner (2007) and Goldkuhl (2016) to high­
light the core elements that support decision making in the public sector.
It can serve as a comprehensive, yet parsimonious foundation for future
e-government design artifacts.
E-government DSR develops artifacts in an integral context, where
human actors, technologies and policies interact to govern the work­
practice. In our observation, the majority of the workpractice tasks in
existing designs are decision-support tasks. Decision support systems
enable government decision makers, by leveraging useful and integrated
information, to make better managerial decisions in a given context (e.
g., resources, policies, and emergencies) with higher efficacy and effi­
ciency (Shim et al., 2002).
E-government designs have been characterized by a wide variety of
technologies. The emergence and employment of ICTs support e-gov­
ernment for faster and more secure information communication, effi­
cient data storage, retrieval, and exchange, and enhanced service
quality. In particular, in our observation, these designs are more towards
technology driven, rather than technology drivers. In our literature
Fig. 5. Informing theory inclusiveness.
9
International Journal of Information Management 62 (2022) 102430
review, the designs highlight the employment of mature techniques such
as machine learning, semantic web, UML, and so on. For example, Kaza
& Chen (2008) present an ontology-based solution for public safety in­
formation sharing and integration, employing the natural language
corpus of WordNet and mutual information between language instances
to map ontologies.
6.2. E-government & design science research: a path forward
IS scholars have been making extensive efforts to develop novel so­
lutions to facilitate e-government. Our findings reveal that e-govern­
ment design efforts inclusively cover all identified e-government
aspects, as shown in Table 6 (e.g., e-democracy, e-management, e-ser­
vice, and e-policy). These novel designs accommodate and trigger
changes in public services, processes, and the key roles of governments.
Additionally, these e-government designs can empower government
decision-makers, leveraging useful information, to make better de­
cisions when facing various alternative solutions in managerial opera­
tions or public services. After reviewing the extant literature on e-
government designs, we identify four critical next steps for the DSR
community interested in e-government designs.
First, through this literature review, we discover some studies do not
explicitly specify their research methodology as “design science” when
they conduct DSR. As DSR is a clearly defined research paradigm, au­
thors should consider including “design science” in their keywords and
abstracts. While this recommendation is simple and pragmatic, it is a
critical next step in order for the community to build a knowledge base
of e-government designs.
Second, our review did not reveal any design science publications in
the leading eight public administration journals. This finding is consis­
tent with that of Gil-Garcia et al. (2018) in that top PA journals show
interests in quantitative research (69%), qualitative research (12%),
mixed research (8%) and literature review (10%) (p.640). A plausible
explanation is that DSR is the methodology that IS community has
significantly contributed. The research traditions in public administra­
tion may not be necessary to accept DSR as the innovative method that
can be used in traditional PA research. However, we note that PA
scholars may have unique and valuable perspectives on viewing and
defining design science studies. It is possible that design science is
viewed and described differently. Given the interdisciplinary nature of
e-government research, there is a need for more research that leverages
the unique perspectives of both information systems and public
administration scholars. IS researchers should work collaboratively with
L. Carter et al. International Journal of Information Management 62 (2022) 102430

Table 8 design secure, transparent and trustworthy voting solutions. A recent

Sample of explicit policies in e-government designs. report by Pew Research Center suggests, over the next decade, there will
Source Policy Solution be more digital innovation geared towards enhancing democracy
(Vogels, Rainie, & Anderson, 2020). As aforementioned, only 5% of
Goumagias et al. Tax policies A dynamic, Markov-based
(2012) decision support system for e-government designs in top IS outlets address e-democracy (see
predicting the behaviors of risk- Table 6). This finding highlights an opportunity for the IS discipline to
neutral enterprises in Greece develop enhanced solutions to facilitate e-democracy.
and evaluating tax policies (p.
76)
Nelson & Sen Government-mandated An automated business rules 6.3. E-government designs and new technologies
(2014) quality standards management system to
implement government- Governments continue to refine public administration practices to
mandated quality standards for
health care providers
handle technological change. E-governments initiatives manifest fruitful
Bélanger et al. The Children’s Online A tool for protecting children’s technological transformation that synergizes with policies, work pro­
(2013) Privacy Protection Act privacy online called POCKET, cesses, governance, and mindset. Technological innovations drive public
(COPPA) which automatically and legally services to redesign functions. These e-government designs cover a va­
enforces COPPA
riety of topics with a wide range of technological enablers. As key
Zhai et al. (2017) Regulations - MiFID II An intelligent hybrid model for
detecting disruptive trading technological enablers of e-government are in place, the public sector
activity, defined by the can take advantage of these opportunities.
Commodity Futures Trading While advancements in ICT (e.g., machine learning, natural language
Commission and EU regulation processing, ontology-related innovations) are enabling e-government
(MiFID II)
Yu, Taduri, Government-mandated A framework of information
designs, we observe a shortage of designs incorporating state-of-the-art
Kesan, Lau, & quality standards for retrieval for documents on techniques (e.g., deep learning, blockchain, speech recognition, relation
Law (2012) healthcare provider patent laws and regulations extraction) to facilitate e-government workpractice. This gap highlights
Etudo et al. US XBRL jurisdiction, the An ontology mapper leveraging an opportunity for researchers to utilize emerging technologies to
(2017) U.S. GAAP Financial Calculation Linkbase to address
advance e-government designs. Future researchers should develop
Reporting Taxonomy XBRL interoperability
(UGT) participatory design artifacts empowered by blockchain, advanced NLP,
and cutting-edge AI solutions for e-government. For example, design
researchers can develop and refine domain chatbots to connect citizens
PA researchers and practitioners in the public sector to develop a with public services 24/7. These domain chatbots may intelligently
knowledge base that will enhance citizen-to-government interaction. As support citizens and provide instant answers for regulations, laws, pol­
aforementioned, the number of articles published per year from 2004 to icies, municipal activities, community events, holidays, and others.
2014, with a noticeable decline since 2014. Editors should consider
commissioning special issues on public sector innovations, perhaps in
collaboration with leading scholars from public administration and
political science, that welcome design-oriented research to help mitigate
the decline.
Finally, e-government platforms and systems offer users wider and
deeper participation in complex political processes. As the development
of ICT enables stakeholders to increasingly interact with e-government
and propose their opinions, e-government is becoming more citizen
friendly (Sun, Ku, & Shih, 2015). Public participation, or engagement,
involvement, and empowerment, is encouraged and often claimed to
relate to service effectiveness and efficiency, government administration
quality, or problem-solving legitimacy (Innes & Booher, 2004). In light
of societies’ growing reliance on digital innovation, e-democracy rep­
resents an opportunity for IS scholars to partner with governments to Fig. 7. The components of E-government designs.

Fig. 6. Informing policy inclusiveness.

10
L. Carter et al.
These machine learning techniques enable chatbots to provide custom­
ized feedback and useful insights, even for complicated issues, helping
citizens with troubleshooting, online tax filing, and license renewal
during a pandemic. Additionally, IS designers can pioneer public service
development with blockchain technology to reduce bureaucracy and
increase administration efficiency. IS designers can also work on digital
identity systems leveraging NLP techniques and linked data to facilitate
state-level identity management and crime analysis. Additionally, IS
designers can develop IoT applications that automate and augment
public services.
7. Conclusion
Acknowledging that Fedorowicz and Dias (2010) as well as Goldkuhl
(2016) reviewed a ten-year sample of e-government conference papers
from the Annual Digital Government Conference concerning the use of a
design research approach, this study contributively identifies impactful
e-government designs published in leading IS and e-government jour­
nals. Using a historical lens, we illustrate how e-government designs
have evolved over time. This article provides a synopsis of existing
research and highlights emerging trends, gaps and areas for future study.
Our review of e-government designs lend themselves to synthesis and
“best practice,” recognizing and analyzing the shared underlying ele­
ments. Notably, our review is based on a search within the leading IS
journals. We call for future research to include both journal articles and
conference papers (e.g., using the Digital Government Reference
Library).
E-government designs in IS literature manifest policy ingrained and
theory informed artifacts. E-government designs have been adopting
and advised by “kernel theories.” Meanwhile, as e-government
increasingly serves as a fundamental tool for public administration and
service, its implementation is highly affected by policy, regulation, and
legislation, which accordingly impact e-government designs. The e-
government initiatives reviewed in the literature aim at raising and
upgrading government performance, enhancing governmental infor­
mation management, improving the effectiveness of collaboration,
broadening public participation, and therefore, improving the stake­
holder experience. Moreover, artifacts engaging stakeholders and
incorporating their opinions help to facilitate decision making.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Lemuria Carter: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – review
& editing, Project administration. Victoria Yoon: Methodology, Writing
– review & editing. Dapeng Liu: Conceptualization, Methodology,
Investigation, Data curation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review &
editing.
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