Measuring e-Governance as an innovation in the public sector

Since 2001, the United Nations (UN) and affiliated organizations have measured e-Government initiatives of more than 178 Member States of the UN, by devising “e-Government Readiness Index” (e-GRI) and “e-Participation Index” (e-PI). The UN has published rankings for its Member States in terms of e-GRI and e-PI, through e-Government Readiness Assessments (Surveys). Member States of the UN and digital government research community as well as academicians and practitioners regularly use the e-GRI and e-PI as a point-of-reference; this fact alone signifies the importance of evaluating the existing UN methodologies assessing e-Governance. Since e-Governance is one of the greatest innovations in the public sector, this research uses conceptual content analysis on the Surveys using the Innovation Management Measurement Framework (IMMF), which is one of the most widely accepted theoretical frameworks for measuring innovation initiatives. The resultant percentage normalized scores (PNS) lead to a set of recommendations for developing better informed, more balanced, and more powerful e-GRI and e-PI for the future.