Digital government transformation and internet portals: The co-evolution of technology, organizations, and institutions

Researchers and practitioners around the world recognize the potential of information technologies to promote government transformation. This transformation has been understood in at least two different ways: (1) as a transformation of internal processes and (2) as a transformation of the relationships between governments and other social and political actors (institutional transformation). Unfortunately, there is little or no evidence of such transformation, and current studies reveal that for this transformation to happen, a better understanding of the complex relationships between information technologies, organizations, and institutions is still required. This paper presents a theory of the co-evolution of technology, organizational networks, and institutional arrangements in the transformation of government. The theory uses the grammars of system dynamics and builds upon institutional approaches to understand interactions among all these variables in the development of information and communication technologies in government. Although the theory suggests the relevance of some specific reinforcing processes in this transformation, the endogenous view used in the theory empowers all stakeholders by illustrating how transformation could be promoted from any individual position involved in the process of developing digital government applications.